the "How the hell do you pronounce THAT??!" thread

[drew]

I new PUISSANCE (I think) being a horsey person - PEW-SONSE I think it is.


Ruby

YAY!! someone who says Puissance like I do!!

[wayfriend]

Today in the GI, SRD said "the Mahdoubt (which I pronounce to rhyme with 'redoubt')".

Now, I pronounce "redoubt" exactly the same way that I pronounce "readout".

So Mahdoubt is "meadout" ?

(Or is redoubt pronounced "rah-dout" ???)

[drew]

I was assuming it was just the "Doubt" part he was talking about.

[Rocksister]

/ˈpyuəsəns, pyuˈɪsəns, ˈpwɪsəns/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pyoo-uh-suhns, pyoo-is-uhns, pwis-uhns]

Three pronunciations of puissance from Dictionary.com. I've been saying PWEE-suhns. Really, I don't care. It means power.

[caamora]

Haruchai is pronounced "Har-oo-chi" because that was how SRD pronounced it. I used to do a "k" sound for the "ch", as in "Har-oo-ki" but then heard him say the word and thought, oops. Heh.

[Evans Caamora]

I know this is completely wrong, but I just realized that I've been pronouncing Kiril Threndor in my head as Thrill Krendor

[Rocksister]

Evans, that's funny. I found myself adding another syllable to some words, and didn't even know it until I saw this forum. Of course, since we don't read out loud, it's no biggie.

[Sill]

I know this is off topic, but I just gotta know...

Rocksister do you look just like your avatar?

[Ur Dead]

I know this is off topic, but I just gotta know...

Rocksister do you look just like your avatar?

Sure she does! Just like how I look in mine.. (I wear robers and am boney. Plus I walk around cemetaries)

Now puissance - poo saunces.

[rusmeister]

I'm intrigued now. How do you read "Silmarillion"? To me it's sil-ma-ril-yon (read quickly like so: Sil-MarilYOON)

"Sim-a-rillon"?......ah, I forget.
I corrected myself many years ago and forget now how I read it as a kid.
It made no sense if I remember correctly.

Now it's Sill-mar-rill-li-on I think

The movie drove me crazy though.
Gan-dolf ??
Not to me.
I always read it as Gan-dolf with a slight emphasis on the "dolf" more than the Gan.

Tolkien also said that Celeborn and other "c" words were pronounced Keleborn.
Which, in my head, just isn't going to happen!

Ditto.
I teach and study foreign languages, and one thing I can tell you is that insisting on speaking your own language, rather than the language of your listeners, is liable to result in failure to communicate, which is what Tolkien does here. (I get a strong sense that he didn't deal much in living languages.) If had wanted people to say "Keleborn" he should have written "Keleborn". The obvious truth that in modern English, a 'c' followed by an 'e' or an 'i' is pronounced like 's' keems to have escaped him.

[Aleksandr]

Re: LL=an 'f' sound too?

"ll" in Welsh is what's called a "lateral frictative"-- something we don't have in English. Position your mouth for our "l" but then let your breath hiss out rather as if you were trying to pronounce an "f" (or maybe "s"). That's why "lloyd" sometimes got written as "Floyd" by Englishmen who couldn't figure out what the Welsh were really saying. (By the way I've always thought of "Llaura" being pronounced like in Spanish, "Lyaura". But that' just me.)

Re: If had wanted people to say "Keleborn" he should have written "Keleborn". The obvious truth that in modern English, a 'c' followed by an 'e' or an 'i' is pronounced like 's' keems to have escaped him.

No, Tolkien was of a generation (late Victorian) when all educated people had had contact with Latin. In classical Latin (which is what he compared the Elf tongues to), "c" is always hard. Thus "Caesar" was pronounced "kaiser" just like its German derivative.

[drew]

Re: LL=an 'f' sound too?

"ll" in Welsh is what's called a "lateral frictative"-- something we don't have in English. Position your mouth for our "l" but then let your breath hiss out rather as if you were trying to pronounce an "f" (or maybe "s"). That's why "lloyd" sometimes got written as "Floyd" by Englishmen who couldn't figure out what the Welsh were really saying.

So I was close when I said:

Not really a teeth-on-the-lower-lip 'F'...more of a throaty
'gh'-y sound.

[rusmeister]

Re: LL=an 'f' sound too?

"ll" in Welsh is what's called a "lateral frictative"-- something we don't have in English. Position your mouth for our "l" but then let your breath hiss out rather as if you were trying to pronounce an "f" (or maybe "s"). That's why "lloyd" sometimes got written as "Floyd" by Englishmen who couldn't figure out what the Welsh were really saying. (By the way I've always thought of "Llaura" being pronounced like in Spanish, "Lyaura". But that' just me.)

Re: If had wanted people to say "Keleborn" he should have written "Keleborn". The obvious truth that in modern English, a 'c' followed by an 'e' or an 'i' is pronounced like 's' keems to have escaped him.

No, Tolkien was of a generation (late Victorian) when all educated people had had contact with Latin. In classical Latin (which is what he compared the Elf tongues to), "c" is always hard. Thus "Caesar" was pronounced "kaiser" just like its German derivative.

I concede that he had a basis for writing it the way he did. My point is that his modern audience already had not, for quite some time, read English (the language he was writing in) that way. He went to some trouble to explain why he had translated names like Samwise, etc. Why did he not "translate" names like Celeborn? He could not have gotten another response than that of people reading them as "Seleborn", etc. If you want to be understood, you need to speak the language of your audience.

[Brasidas]

Didn't Winston Churchill say that everyone should have the right to pronounce foreign words exactly as they please?

[Rocksister]

Sill, I used to, but alas, I have aged and that body is no more. I even had the long red hair. Never had the cool outfit with sword though. Luis Royo is the artist I stole from for that avatar; if you can find a web site with some of his art work, this picture I have used will become meaningless to you; he has some really HOT stuff, and I DO mean HOT. I chose the name Rocksister because the First of the Search is my favorite TCoTC character. So my avatar had to be attractive and strong. I guess I did okay.

[Blackhawk]

I checked out the Luis Royo Site and he reminds me of Boris Vallejo who used to do the fantasy art....zebra woman panther woman etc..

[Aleksandr]

re: I concede that he had a basis for writing it the way he did. My point is that his modern audience already had not, for quite some time, read English (the language he was writing in) that way. He went to some trouble to explain why he had translated names like Samwise, etc. Why did he not "translate" names like Celeborn? He could not have gotten another response than that of people reading them as "Seleborn", etc. If you want to be understood, you need to speak the language of your audience.

I think Tolkien's reason for not translating Elven names was that he wished for them to retain their aura of antiquity. And would we expect a author of historical fiction to translate "Caesar" as "Hairy One" or Demosthenes as "People's Strength"? Nor do we alter the spellings of Latin to reflect their accurate pronunciation in in the original language; we don't write "Yulius Kaisar" or "Oktawianus" though that is how those names were pronounced. As for the Elven spellings we do need to remember that Tolkien was NOT writing for a "modern" audience. He was writing first and foremost to please himself, and secondly for the educated folk of his own era, which is nearly a century removed from ours (Tolkien began composing his world during WWI).

[rusmeister]

re: I concede that he had a basis for writing it the way he did. My point is that his modern audience already had not, for quite some time, read English (the language he was writing in) that way. He went to some trouble to explain why he had translated names like Samwise, etc. Why did he not "translate" names like Celeborn? He could not have gotten another response than that of people reading them as "Seleborn", etc. If you want to be understood, you need to speak the language of your audience.

I think Tolkien's reason for not translating Elven names was that he wished for them to retain their aura of antiquity. And would we expect a author of historical fiction to translate "Caesar" as "Hairy One" or Demosthenes as "People's Strength"? Nor do we alter the spellings of Latin to reflect their accurate pronunciation in in the original language; we don't write "Yulius Kaisar" or "Oktawianus" though that is how those names were pronounced. As for the Elven spellings we do need to remember that Tolkien was NOT writing for a "modern" audience. He was writing first and foremost to please himself, and secondly for the educated folk of his own era, which is nearly a century removed from ours (Tolkien began composing his world during WWI).

Fair enough! I'll grant that, too.
But you still have to admit that it is unreasonable to expect modern readers to go along with that pronunciation (excluding pedants specifically educated in classical Latin) ).

[Skyweir]

Aleksandr makes very good points .. I for one love that language is diverse and dont think that authors should contrain their artistic creativity by only writing to a set audience. I love that even uncommon language is used.

To me artistic freedom makes for a richer more vibrant tapestry. To me the language created by Tolkien is dynamic, powerful, mysterious even exotic. When I read words like Celeborn .. I visualise an elven noble ..

If you have read any Goodkind .. Wizards First Rule etc .. good books but one thing that always frustrated me was the commoness of the characters names .. i forget their names now .. but for example john fred carol etc ..

I spent a lot of reading time wishing Goodkind had chosen a richer vocabulary .. richer names .. but eh? *shrug* that was just me

[amanibhavam]

Re: LL=an 'f' sound too?

"ll" in Welsh is what's called a "lateral frictative"-- something we don't have in English. Position your mouth for our "l" but then let your breath hiss out rather as if you were trying to pronounce an "f" (or maybe "s"). That's why "lloyd" sometimes got written as "Floyd" by Englishmen who couldn't figure out what the Welsh were really saying. (By the way I've always thought of "Llaura" being pronounced like in Spanish, "Lyaura". But that' just me.)

Re: If had wanted people to say "Keleborn" he should have written "Keleborn". The obvious truth that in modern English, a 'c' followed by an 'e' or an 'i' is pronounced like 's' keems to have escaped him.

No, Tolkien was of a generation (late Victorian) when all educated people had had contact with Latin. In classical Latin (which is what he compared the Elf tongues to), "c" is always hard. Thus "Caesar" was pronounced "kaiser" just like its German derivative.

I concede that he had a basis for writing it the way he did. My point is that his modern audience already had not, for quite some time, read English (the language he was writing in) that way. He went to some trouble to explain why he had translated names like Samwise, etc. Why did he not "translate" names like Celeborn? He could not have gotten another response than that of people reading them as "Seleborn", etc. If you want to be understood, you need to speak the language of your audience.

In all of the Elvish languages that he has created the letter C is pronounced 'k', and in his linguistic notes and works he often uses spellings with K instead of C, especially in Quenya (the High-Elven language). He uses C throughout the names of LotR as they are almost all in Sindarin (the Grey-Elven langauge used as an everyday tongue in Middle-Earth at the time of LotR), which had been inspired by Welsh, and Tolkien wished to retain the "Celtic feel" of it.

In the Appendix of LotR he gives a fairly comprehensive text on the various languages, pronunciation included, so if anyone's interested will find it there.