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

[Sill]

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.

Thanks for the tip on Royo Rocksister - The giants are one of my favorite peoples in the land - your avatar, along with your name keeps reminding me of the First of the Search!

And yes, you did OK!

[Hollian]

It really was serendipity that SRD spent the time he did in India - all of the world's religions and a large number of the languages are there. I seem to detect the following languages in numerous words:
Hindi, French, Russian, Japanese, Hebrew/Aramaic, Greek, Assyrian, Egyptian, Celtic, and more (sanskrit? swhaili?)

As to pronouncing the words - I say them wrong - aloud and in my head:
Puissance: Pwiss-aunts - appears very French or Italian
Ranyhyn: Ran-uh-hin - almost Celtic with the y's
Haruchai: hair-oo-k-eye: very Japanese flavor to me
Rhadhamaerl: Rahhd- Ham- Earl: Old English flavor
Melenkurion Skyweir, Melenkurion Abatha Duroc Minas Mill (Mhill?) Khabaal:
Melon-currion Sky- we're, a bath-uh, Durock, Mine-uhs Mill Kuh-ball
Elohim - A low heem : Hebrew/Aramaic most Christians take this as 'God' it's used in Old Testament as 'Creators' plural
Coercri - Care-Kree French flavor - but as someone else mentioned - I see that as an easier "Co-Air-See" I was studying AI a while back and how the mind works and it seems that when we learn to read words - and not letters, we really do see a picture not the letters. Marvin Minsky
Ramen - Rah-mun certainly from Egyptian Ra
Atirian - many ways most often A-tear-ee-en but when I read it letter for letter - At-I-Uh-ran
Elemesedene- L-Ms-dense, or could be ele-em-iz-deen (middle eastern then? Darn you DUNE!)
Doriendor Corishev - Doe-ree-end-or core-ess-sh-ev definitely sounds Russian to me
Mhoram- More-um
What about
Pietten, LLaura, Hamako, caamora, dhukka, ghohritsar?
I do see Homminscrave as Homminsgrave and have a hard time losing the g.

I also read Jack L Chalker and he lists a race called the "Gedemondas" I cannot for the life of me not translate it aloud to "Gemendoas" - go brain!

[Menolly]

Be welcome to the Watch Hollian. Be Well Come and True.

[Skyweir]

nice post hollian

.. for me half the fun .. is my own personal pronunciation preference .. i like words how they sound in my head as i read them .. whether they be right or wrong

i pronounce Pietten ~ pee-ten
LLaura - Laura but can see now how the LL may be the welsh sthhh sound but will probly still to Laura
Hamako - ham-a-ko .. i dont think i ever pronounced it ham-Ay-ko
caamora - cam-or-a ..or ca'a-mor-a
dhukka ~ duk-ha (silent h for me)
ghohritsar ~ gor-its-ar (silent h's again my preference to date .. lol

[wayfriend]

Welcome, Hollian.

Coercri - Care-Kree French flavor - but as someone else mentioned - I see that as an easier "Co-Air-See"

for me: Coercri rhymes with "slower cry".

It's "the Grieve". You gotta cry when you say it. If you see what I mean.

I do see Homminscrave as Homminsgrave and have a hard time losing the g.

You have a hard time losing the M's, too!

for me: HONN-in-scrave.

[amanibhavam]

What's Honninscrave coming from again? Honor and crave? Somethin I recall from the GI.

[wayfriend]

I started with something along the lines of "Grim-hand Honors-crave," but that seemed rather (if I may say so) heavy-handed, so I blurred the syllables.

(08/14/2006)

[Skyweir]

Niice!!

[Seeker of Truth]

I pronounce:

Ranyhyn as "bloody big horses"

Haruchai as "bastards you don't want to mess with"

Coercri "low rent housing available"

Elohim "elves with attitude"

[Blackhawk]

Coerci.... and Moksha

in the audio Moksha is pronounced Moke Sha like coke sha, but i pronounce it Machsa like to Mock someone sha

and Coerci was always Co ur see with no break so it sounds like coerce with an i at the end sounding like e

[Fullmetal660]

Personally, I've always pronounced coercri as . . .

co-er-key

[deer of the dawn]

But you left out a letter. It's Coercri. Ko-air-cree.

[Fullmetal660]

I know, its one of those things where you misread it the first time then it sticks with you.

[[Syl]]

Yeah, I pronounced it 'co-air-see' for a long time.

[Blackhawk]

!???!??! I have been missing the c at the end for 20+ years??? damn..thats a hard one to fix in my head.. i guess Coer cree or cry will have to work but i even missed it in the many readings i have done, yep your right you pronounce it wrong as a kid and its sticks for life.

LOL so its wrong on all my maps. heh

[deer of the dawn]

I think it helps if you have learned to pronounce another language, using "fricative" r's and phonetic spelling. Pronunciations don't trip me up probably due to that.

Phonetically pronounced, the 'a's are pronounced "ah". The fricative R (think a "rolled" r with only one "roll") makes it far easier to say.

Here's my takes:

Mel-en-koo-ree-ahn
Ah-ba-tha.
Do-rawk
Min-ahs
Mill.

Spoiler

Hah-rod

Kha-bahl.

[Lord Foul's Breath Mint]

Elemesnedene:

I've always broken the word into two components:

Elemesne - dene

The first part, for me, rhymes with "Duquesne".
So, I read it as: "Ell-uh-MAIN-deen".

I'd sure like to hear that MP3 with all of SRD's pronunciations!

[Menolly]

Be welcome to the Watch, LFBM.
Be Well Come and True.

Come introduce yourself in the New Members thread over in The Summonsing.

[AjK]

!???!??! I have been missing the c at the end for 20+ years???

Just as I have been missing the second 'r' for over two decades. Man, I better go back and look at my birth certificate to make sure I haven't been misspelling my own name for over 45 years...

[Rigel]

My wife pronounces Mhoram as:
Mu-Whore-Um
And it kind of stuck with me

Since I grew up reading Tolkien instead of the Brothers Grimm, I pronounce radhamaerl as
Ra-Tha-May-Earl

And, of course, Covenant as
Bloody-Hell