What the *scratches head* Tiefling, Eladrin...

[Bagpuss]

I'll ALWAYS be surprised on how it's difficult for native English speakers to agree on the pronunciation of a given word...

That's because English isn't a phonetic language, there are lots of words in English that sound the same while spelt completely differently and there are others that sound different while spelt the same. Then you add regional accents into the mix and you'll be amazed at the number of different ways to pronounce a word.

Hence when presented with a new word that does not have any context there are several ways you could pronounce it, all of which are correct.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I usually pronounce Tiefling as "tief-ling," where the "tief" part rhymes with "life." But most of my friends say "teef-ling."

I pronounce Eladrin as "Eh-LA-drin", where the middle "LA" has an "a" sound like "laugh" or "fast." Someone on RPGnet said they pronounced it like "el-ah-drin." I think this sounds more "mystical" than the way I say it, but I'm too used to my old ways.

 

[Chilled Nova]

That do sound more mystical, me thinks.

 

[DeusExMachina]

For those who are curious, the word up there would translate into the "widow of a captain of a steamship (i think) that travels down the Danube river". Hurray for German!

Yeah, gotta love Germany for stringing their words together. My favorite is Eisenbahnknotenpunkthinundherschieber, also known as a train-track-junction-back-and-forth-mover.

 

[Larrin]

Tea-eff-ling, because before i started D&D i'd made an alien race called Tiefles (tea-eff-ills) and was pleasently surprised to find tieflings in the MM in 3.0 (no real similaritie between the two)

El-dar-in ....because i misread it at first and i like it this way better better

teef-ling sounds very wrong to me, sounds like something i'd baby talk to a teething infant.

"Who's got little teeflings comming in, you do , yes you do...little teefers"

 

[keterys]

I'll admit I was pretty tempted to just make it 'Eldar' or 'Eldarin' instead, myself.

 

[HarbingerX]

Reminds me of when I first played D&D when I was 8 and we pronounced 'Miscellaneous' as Mis-lan-che-ous. I still like it better

... while I like things about other languages (French's cool verb tenses and Spanish's phonetic spelling) I must say that I love English's "do whatever you think seems right to you - if enough people pick it up, then it's official!" it must drive the Rules Lawyers nuts!

 

[DeusExMachina]

Reminds me of when I first played D&D when I was 8 and we pronounced 'Miscellaneous' as Mis-lan-che-ous. I still like it better

... while I like things about other languages (French's cool verb tenses and Spanish's phonetic spelling) I must say that I love English's "do whatever you think seems right to you - if enough people pick it up, then it's official!" it must drive the Rules Lawyers nuts!

And I'll probably never be able to get it into my stubborn brain that melee is not prunounced muh-lee, but more like mè-lay...

Also, I hated French especially because of its overdose of verb tenses. Spanish however is the language of the Gods. It's the easiest language I have had to pick up out of 5, while still being beautiful and expressive...

 

[Remathilis]

And I'll probably never be able to get it into my stubborn brain that melee is not prunounced muh-lee, but more like mè-lay...

Also, I hated French especially because of its overdose of verb tenses. Spanish however is the language of the Gods. It's the easiest language I have had to pick up out of 5, while still being beautiful and expressive...

Says the man with the Latin handle...

 

[am181d]

"Tiefling" rhymes with "beefling." (Fear the mighty beefling!)

"Eladrin" is pronounced "Eladrin." (Though Eladrin themselves, being pretentious snots, pronounce it "El'HA-dreen", with a heavy roll of the "r".)