How do you pronounce them?

[johan osterman]

We pronounce the names as swedish as possible.

Kristoffer, who is the principal originator of the nations their flavour and their names, had words or names from different cultures in mind when he made most of the nations, but that doesn't mean that he or anybody else around here bothers to pronounce them in the 'correct way' suggested by the language that the name originated from, this is partly due to that we chatter quite a bit about dominions and after a while the names etc tends to get swedified. Since Vanheim and Jotunheim are the two nation whose names are Scandinavian in origin these are probably the only ones that we pronounce somewhat similarily to their etymological roots. C'tis and a few others do not really have any etymological roots so I guess our colliqual swedish pronounciation is the 'correct' one for those. But Illwinter and its associates are not particularily good at linguistics, or particularily interested.

If you still think that the 'correct' pronounciation is important you might try to reconstruct it from the cultures that the nations are derived from or inspired by, in all likelyhood your guess at the 'correct' greek pronounciation of Pangaea is as good or better than ours, if you are chinese I wouldn't dream of trying to teach you how to pronounce Tien Chi in a believable way, and so on.

[Nerfix]

I pronounce them in a blunt Finnish manner, or even worse, use nicknames like "tikseli".

For example, i never bother to say "Arcoscephale".

[ November 28, 2003, 11:36: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by HJ:
so why would this be a determining feature?

Not a determing feature just one of the things that hit me very early - the language was pronounced nothing like I could imagine looking at the words. I speak English, German and a bit of French and nothing in this has prepared me for the way Greeks spoke Greek. Simple things like Mykanae instead of Mycanae, Aleskander rather than Alexander. Perhpas to you this is normal but to me it was new.

Obviously food, customs, architecture, clothing, landscape, all played a role in adjusting my picture of greece. I'm aware this does not tell me what ancient greece was like but it helps.

Flying by day from Singapore to London and tracing Alexanders route through the desert to India and the locations of the ancient civilisations of the euprharates/tigris rivers and Anatolia was likewise a revelation. Living in NZ these things are very far away and a book cannot convey it all.

So I'm not seeking to define Greek culture by the hard "K" it was just one of the things that hit me.

Cheers

Keir

[HJ]

I would guess that German pronounciation of the Greek words tend to be more similar to the authentic Greek one, as English as a language tends to warp a lot of the words due to the differences in the way the words are written and pronounced.
In any case, Greek seem very European to me. Not western or northern European, but eastern European for sure (nothing like England, that's certain, but Europe doesn't stop there either). I guess that is not what you had in mind when you were thinking about the "Europeans" in general.

In any case, I'm not trying to offend, I was just wondering what brought you to that conclusion. As an insider, it's interesting when you hear such comments about something what you take for granted.

[Psitticine]

Just on a side note for those who are curious, daoine is the plural for duine in Modern Irish. (And, yeah, I know there's more than one flavour of Gaelic. This is just the only one I can speak upon with any education.) It means, quite simply, "people".

Oh, and it should indeed be pronounced "DEE-nah" if using Modern Irish. The exact pronunciation of Old Irish is an academic hot potato, so good luck finding a definitive answer there! Just be aware that the word is something that is still a part of the modern Irish language and thus has a very certain pronunciation there.

Sidhe literally refers to the rounded hills that act as gateways of a sort to the Otherworld, where the Children of Anu (the Tuatha de Danaan) were forced to take up residence. (Please forgive the gross over-simplification here!!!) It came to be a synonym for those people as well, and would actually be a much better choice than Tuatha for referring to the fey folk and their kith.

(Tuatha is just a word to refer to people from a certain region or area, such as in fear tuathe or "countryman", and is in no way specific to the people called the Tuatha de Danaan. A tuath is a kind of political division, but also refers to the people in that division or to any group of regionally related folk in general. Its use in Tuatha de Danaan is just to express that they are "of Danu"/"Anu" and is kind of clumsy to pick out as a specific proper name.)

So, literally, Daoine Sidhe means "hill people". As pointed out though, the hills in question are something special, so there is much more meaning there beyond the literal. Ermor's Wailing Lady, the bean sidhe or Banshee, gets her name from the same place. (Bean simply means "woman".)

Cherryh is a very knowledgeable woman, and somebody I respect quite a bit, but she does tend to gloss a bit. It's hard (if not impossible) not to do, given the complexity of the material and the vast differences between it and the more familiar (to most people) Greco-Roman matter. Other names given to the same people, such as the "fey (fair) folk", were given despite the fear held for them, either for direct contrast or as a form of appeasement. That's the sort of thing she is referring to; it isn't present in Daoine Sidhe, but IS present in some of the other names for the Sidhe.

[Teleolurian]

I read the Posts that led to the demise of the cthulu newsgroup on usenet- the pronunciation of R'lyeh. Among those that I saw, my favorite was:

urrll-yeh

where the urrll... part sort of sounds like a choking squid. It's fun to say, and makes people think you're suffering from indigestion when you bring it up in polite conversation.

[Raen]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
Just on a side note for those who are curious, daoine is the plural for duine in Modern Irish. (And, yeah, I know there's more than one flavour of Gaelic. This is just the only one I can speak upon with any education.) It means, quite simply, "people".

Oh, and it should indeed be pronounced "DEE-nah" if using Modern Irish.

Psitticine, I no longer have my old language books -- what's the possessive (genitive) plural of duine and how is it pronounced?

[Psitticine]

It's the same as the nominative plural: daoine.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
Although I am of primarily Celtic origin I have a caution about the Celtic thing as its a bit of fashion to applaud the Celtic achievements and accredit them with the achievements of others. According to many Celt enthusiastic authors the Celts were the inspiration for everybody at the time. However the Celts were a peripheral group to the then center of civilisation (the near east/eastern mediterrainen) so this is unlikely.

As I understand recent archaeological findings have been expanding the role and range of the Celts in history. For example their role in the production and trade of salt, where they developed techniques that were copied by the Romans, who were quite into salt. At least that's what I gleaned from "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky -- an absolutely fascinating read.

The Celts main weakness seems to have been that they weren't really very good at warfare, and simply got conquered and absorbed by the Romans and Nomadic migrants.

[PDF]

Originally posted by PhilD:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Doesn't anybody else speak any French here? Look at all the people who are massacring Marignon.

I mean, how do you pronounce Champagne.

I'm French, and would pronounce it Mar-ee-NYON
(with a nasal ON in the end, but there's no English word that has this sound AFAIK)

Antway - the Marignon nation looks rather Spanish to me (with the Spanish Inquisition and all). Hey, in DomI Marignon was located in Catalogne when using the "Europa" map, IIRC.

---

Hey Phil, Marignon isn't really pronounced "Marinion", you forgot our (I'm French too) nasal "gn".
In fact only Frenchmen can pronounce it
Arco definitely is "arkoskefalè", R'lyeh should NOT EVER be pronounced .
I suppose the Norse nations should be pronounced as in German ;
Vanheim => Fan-haïm ?
Jotunheim => Iotoun-haïm ?
Some norsemen here ?