Kevin's Watch

yep, me too. FWIW, so does Scott Brick.

hpty603 wrote:Hm, I've always pronounced it har(soft h, more like 'ar')-EW-chai (rhymes with rye)

yes - but chai as in cheesecake, or chai with a hard c as in kite? (sorry to be a pedantic b*****d but I am interested in this - even to the point of compilng a list of all the possible ways it can be done. I say 'Har' as in Ha Ha, Roo, as in the kanger kind and chai as in Kite ).

peter wrote:I say 'Har' as in Ha Ha, Roo, as in the kanger kind and chai as in Kite ).

Me, too, or just about. HAR-roo-kye. I think we're in the minority, and we disagree with Donaldson to boot. But after 28 years I can't change.

Probably I've been influenced by names like Malachai.

Yea, that's like me with Ranyhyn. SRD apparently pronounces it Ron-uh-hin but I've always said Ran-yin.

Relayer wrote:Yea, that's like me with Ranyhyn. SRD apparently pronounces it Ron-uh-hin but I've always said Ran-yin.

Yes - I'm with 'Ran-yin' too. I think once a word is in the public domain the pronunciation is with the mass of the readership rather than with the author - and hell, who said there has to be only one way of saying a word; I'm from the UK and I can't understand people from 100 miles up the road let alone at the other end of the country!

LOL. It doesn't matter how we each pronounce a name when we're reading... but when we're talking with someone else there can be confusion, since even in the public domain we don't all say it the same. Or when I'm listening to the audiobooks it just sounds weird when I hear something pronounced totally differently.

Relayer wrote:LOL. It doesn't matter how we each pronounce a name when we're reading... but when we're talking with someone else there can be confusion, since even in the public domain we don't all say it the same. Or when I'm listening to the audiobooks it just sounds weird when I hear something pronounced totally differently.

Fully agree on that. In fact I get embarrased to say a word/name that I don't know how to pronounce properly in case it sounds stupid to the people to who I am talking. This is probably the reason why I posted the question in the first place!

hpty603 wrote:Hm, I've always pronounced it har(soft h, more like 'ar')-EW-chai (rhymes with rye)

ooh ranyhyn.... due to me being Welsh and all the letter 'y' on its own as a word in the Welsh language means "the".... and you pronounce the "y" as ERH (kind of lol difficult to put it in writing). so I have always said RAN-ERH-HIN

I say RAN-a-hinn or RAIN-a-hinn, depending on my mood.

I guess because I see yh as vowel-consonent, not a digraph (like th or sh).

ranyhyn (ra-ni-hin) for me, but then i'm dyslexic so I always seem to stress the wrong syllables.

I also do some variation of that: Ra (as in "rain") ni (as it "nip") hin

Ronnie-Hin

Hideeho folks,

ranyhyn-to me?- ran-ya-hin
ran-Jane ran to the mailbox
ya-You didn't bring your pick-up with ya didj ya?
hin-Dick brought his truck with hin (sp )
But, what do I know?
BillA

Hi BillA



Down the years I've always read the names the easiest way I know how, and that's phonetically. And I suppose most of you do the same.

Sometimes I'll take a lateral viewpoint when trying to glean some extra insight into why the Haruchai do what they do...

as with Haru - chai, the chai as in the word chain or chairoscuro, to indicate the self-imposed bondage of their vow, and the slavery of their sleeplessness, which tells me just how passionately they felt towards High Lord Kevin and the survival of the Land.


With the Ranyhyn, I always hear it as the nickering sound a horse makes, but with a more pronounced, hee hee hee hee hee

Krazy Kat wrote:With the Ranyhyn, I always hear it as the nickering sound a horse makes, but with a more pronounced, hee hee hee hee hee

Yes, I like that - that makes sense in a kind of onomatapeic way

peter wrote:

Krazy Kat wrote:With the Ranyhyn, I always hear it as the nickering sound a horse makes, but with a more pronounced, hee hee hee hee hee

Yes, I like that - that makes sense in a kind of onomatapeic way

Gosh, imagine having Ranyhyn on your tshirt and a group of friends ask what does it say..... lol. you burst out neeieieieieigigh

I've always pronounced Haruchai as Har-oo-kai, but more recently I've wondered if it is supposed to be pronounced like chai tea (chy).

Ridiculous as it sounds, I think I actually have a range of mental pronunciations for use when reading Donaldsons unpronouncable words and names.
Does anyone else for example ( and I doubt it) pronounce the 'ru' in the center of haruchai as 'raw', so you have ha - ha ha, ru - raw, chai - ki as in kite. Ha raw ki. (This could be my favorite pronunciation).

That's the joy of books, we can all have our own pronunciations and interpretations of the different facets of the books.