Pronuncation of fantasy names

[Nynaeve Wisdom]

Hi!

I just happened to think one day how the names of places and persons in fantasy literature should actually be pronounced. If the writer is English, are fantasy names pronounced like English names of are there some language rules of own in "the fantasy universe"? As far as I know, at least Tolkien had some rules made up by himself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a meticulous person and I don't suppose this to be the most important thing in the world. :) I'm just curious and I do like to think about strange and completely useless things. ;)

There are no so many pronuncation rules in Finnish than there is in English. A is always pronounced in the same way, for example, and all the other alphabets too. Although, I have heard that Finnish is more difficult in other ways.

[Arawis]

hmm...i know what you mean it bothers me too but i just read it how i think it is, then if later i find out the real pronunciation its too late cuz ive been saying it my way for so long:D hehehe
but sometimes they hae it in the back of the book

[Buckweet]

To this day I pronounce stuff like this>>


Dream World, ----- tel ar An roid (not riod)
facelss ---- midrawl
Nynaeve Nai nave
Thom Tom

When I talk to my brother or cousin who also read WoT it gets real funny real fast when we correct each other.... funnniest was the first time all 3 of us talked about it at once...hehe

[Mike]

9 out of 10 times I spell Nynaeve as Nyneave, and I wouldn't even have a clue how to pronounce it

[Mann]

A lot of fantasy now have pronunciation guides appencied, it's getting quite popular.

[Arawis]

i prononce thom like tom, is that night right? *looks helpless*:(

[supuradam]

i didn't realize they told you until the end fo the first book, and i was like oooooh...

but by then it was too late.....

[Theoban]

Most of the time I follow the glossary,

NY neeve

tom

mat

AYEZ sed AY

but I read some names first

mo RAYN - the 'mo' like mop

ale

[Knight]

Nynaeve Wisdom:

The pronunciation always depends on the authors' intentions. If, like Tolkien, he's created a new language, then (correct) pronunciation follows the laws set by the author. If not, then in most cases it would be up to the reader, even if the author has some idea of his own for the pronunciation. Usually all followers of Tolkien (like RJ) have some kind of guide on pronunciation in the book. RJ has got his glossary, and Tolkien his appendix. In the end, who's there to say how anybody pronounces any word on his own?

PS. Suomi on kiva kieli, vai mitä?

[Mann]

I LOVE that avatar Knight.

[Knight]

Liverpool is the best football club!

YNWA Mann!!

[Arawis]

first we got the swedes talkin their secret language and now the finns. when does it end???
:D
i wish i knew how to speak like every language in the world fluently. then i wouldnt have to worry about not knowing what ppl are saying. that includes sign language.

[Mann]

WHIYH, YNWA Knight.

[Dj_ez]

OK, whats with the obvious copyright infringement some choose to use? Nynaeve Wisdom? Please...... At least give it a try not to blatantly plagerize, make at least a few changes. Ninaeve Wysdom would have at least been a little better, not much though.

[Byrn]

Dj, this is just a message board. Nothing is being published from this board. Take a chill pill. Sheesh..:rolleyes:

[Dj_ez]

Just a little upset with the fact of people being uncreative and using well established names for their own. Personally if this is not published, then how the heck am I reading it? Granted no one is being paid, still. Show some respect for the writer and create your own identity instead of using something they made up.

[Byrn]

~sighs heavily~

No one is publishing this stuff. It is not mass produced. Some people really like paticular characters and use that name. My name for example is the name of my First character I ever created for an RPG. When I say RPG, I mean the pen and paper kind.

IT IS JUST A MESSAGE BOARD

[LaughingTurtle]

1) So everything you read you consider to be published..... :rolleyes:

2) This is an open board, you're free to use (almost) any name you choose.

3) Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery??

4) As bryn said....mellow out a bit

[val7]

some people just aren't good at coming up with creative names. Like me. :blush:

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by Dj_ez
Just a little upset with the fact of people being uncreative and using well established names for their own. Personally if this is not published, then how the heck am I reading it? Granted no one is being paid, still. Show some respect for the writer and create your own identity instead of using something they made up.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. dummy.

you've got to be trolling.

*pulls off cross v2.0's hood*

Nynaeve is a derivate name in itself. This is true for most names in WoT, Because names come from all sorts of places. My only (small) grievance with wot like names on a wot board is you could end up with ten different Nynaeves, Dragon Reborns, Shaidar Harans, etc, and not be able to tell them apart.


Anyway, I made up this name just now: Sheira Beijiss. so if anyone ever uses it I'm going to sue them or at least make them respect me and not ever ever use it. (The fact it's a sucky name also will help in this.)

[mindphone]

Originally posted by Dj_ez
Just a little upset with the fact of people being uncreative and using well established names for their own. Personally if this is not published, then how the heck am I reading it? Granted no one is being paid, still. Show some respect for the writer and create your own identity instead of using something they made up.

man, you must have a boring life if all you have to do is complain about other user's names on a fucking message board =\

[archely]

damn that mp, always thinks he's so cool just because he ripped his name off of the....mind....phone....yeah...

:umm:

~runs away~

[WFFS]

Maybe I should be sued cos I got wendy's name in mine...
Please wendy! Don't sue me!
~is sued~
Damn.
~runs away~

[Travis]

*goes back to topic*

Avienda allwasy shafted me when i tried to say it aloud, and i feel like a dick when i say it in front of other people, becuase im sure it cant be right. :p

[Nachtnoir]

I don't know about all writers. but Frank Herbert wanted the names of his characters to be pronounced a certain way. Some don't follow his rules though. Watch the David Lynch Dune, and then watch the Sci-Fi Channel Dune. The pronunciation of a few character's names change. Frank Herbert worked as a consultant on the Lynch version for a while though.

Example:
David Lynch Dune : Thufir Hawat is pronounced Thu-fer
Sci-Fi Dune pronounces it as 2-fer

[Moghedien]

Originally posted by Travis
*goes back to topic*

Avienda allwasy shafted me when i tried to say it aloud, and i feel like a dick when i say it in front of other people, becuase im sure it cant be right. :p

lol! i used to do the exact same thing with Nynaeve... i was never sure exactly how to pronounce it, but then i looked in the back and i was like.... oh.

[Master Raven]

lol yea i did the same with nyn and aviendha

[Dingdin]

The funniest thing about it is that when you're not a native english speaker, trying to say the names the way they are supposed to be pronounced, if you follow the guide, becomes kind of weird because it's obviously Standard American English - and that doesn't quite feel like Randland, if you know what I mean.

nigh-NEEVE - not many languages pronounce Y like "why" (or "eye" inside words).

It becomes even more difficult if you try to read a translation, where the names really stand out.

The Lord of the Rings is different though. I think it's because the "english filter" is integrated in the story - the idea is that the "storyteller" (tolkien himself) found manuscripts written in Westron, translated them into English and, with the feel of a linguist, translated the relationships between the languages in the manuscripts, so that their relationship to English would be about similar to the "original" relationship to Westron.

Which means, that when Tolkien refers to odd words like "athelas", the noble leaf, he's actually "translated" the word so it will fit English. (Athel being a germanic stem meaning noble. Like the Old English kings Aethelred and like the flower Edelweiss etc. etc.).

I'm not quite sure about Jordans languages. The everyday language should have developed from the Old Tongue, but the OT isn't obviously connected to English. So they probably don't really speak English in Randland. And if you listen closely to Mat and Thom and some others, I think there are indications that they have been "translated". What I mean is, that the book "admits" that it's been "translated" by making reference to common-language words that are not English.

And the old tongue is represented in two ways: directly, like in "Tai'shar Manetheren", "Aes Sedai", "sei'mosiev" etc., and indirectly through stilted "old-fashioned" grammar in English. "What language do we speak?" says Birgitte to Mat.

So, to get back to the pronunciation of names - the pronunciation in the English-language guide at the end of the books is probably an approximation made to fit the English language. This approximation should be different for other languages.

So in German, the guide to the pronunciation of Nynaeve would spell it out like "Nein-NIEW(E)" and in french: "Naïnive", etc.

Thoughts? I don't know if this really helped anyone... :rolleyes:

[James]

nigh-neeve sounds ridiculous. I always pronounce it (in my head) Nigh-nave. Which still sounds ridic, but less so. :)

oh, and coolest fantasy name ever = Fistandantilus

[Llothlian]

it doesnt matter how you pronounce names in books, as long as you recognise it each time you read it...

and if you really must have some way of reading the names 'correctly' you really are not a proper fan of the books, cuz a proper fan reads the books and enjoys what is writen, and does not moan cuz jorden didnt write a 20 appendix like tolkien did explaining how to say Elayne...

why dont you just read the books, enjoy what is there, and be a little creative and say the names however you want to...

TWO RULES OF READING

1) ENJOY THE BOOK UR READING
2) DONT BITCH N MOAN CUZ ITS NOT EXACTLY HOW YOU WANT IT!

:mad: :cry: :mad: :cry: :mad:

[James]

Originally posted by Llothlian
1) ENJOY THE BOOK UR READING

What if the book is just plain crap and you're being made to read it by an evil demon/teacher who keeps slapping you with a fish?

[Llothlian]

EAT THE FISH N SLAP THE DEAMON TEACHER... ;)

[Llothlian]

or eat the teacher n slap the fish...

[fizban]

Most of the time I follow the glossary,

NY neeve

tom

mat

AYEZ sed AY

but I read some names first

mo RAYN - the 'mo' like mop

ale


dont you mean ay ee el

[Enariom]

Will you PLEASE start looking at the date for the last posts before you post in a thread?????

It's really annoying to have all these old threads revived!!!!

[Mazrim_Taim]

True. but this is a really cool thread!
and...ok, I'll go away...
~whimpers from death glare~

[Belle]

I always though that Nynaeve was said with a long A sound rather than a long E sound.....hmmmm and Aes Sedai like I said I........ :grumbles:

[Mazrim_Taim]

Hmm, Mazrim Taim is like: Maz rim TAme, with the long "a", right? Or is it pronounced like Time?

[Belle]

I pronounced it the same way you did buddy!

[Enariom]

..........

[Eolyn]

What about how our names pronounced?I doubt aby of ye can pronounce my name right...and I dont even try pronouncing some of yours.
E=Amy.
O=open
Lyn=min.
EO=Eowyn
Eowyn=Eolyn
See?
dont kill me for starting this again...

[Arianna Sedai]

actually, one of the funniest conversations i've ever had was about pronunciation of names in Melanie Rawn's dragon prince series. too long to quote, but basically 5 people i asked individually (well, i asked one and the two of us asked the 2nd and so on) and got 5 different all very confident answers. LOL :p

[toasted toads]

Nynaeve = nin-ev (ev as in "ever")
Aiel = ale (like the drink)
Myrddraal = murd-rahl
Aes Sedai = ays seh die (ays as in "pays", die as in to pass away)
Mazrim = may-zrimm (may as in the month)
Aviendha = ah-vee-end-ha, or ah-vend-ee-ah (...I don't know where I got that last one...)

I'm done here at wotism. It was fun pissing you all off by insulting the series. Because SOT is better.

[Lightrunner]

Usually I pronounce it how I think it should be pronounced. Only when I have not a clue to I actually go to the glossary and look at the pronunciation key. Here's my way:

Egwene: EJ-winn
Nynaeve: NIY-nave
Moiraine Damodred: moor-RAYN dam-OD-er-ed
Thom Merrilin: TOM MAIR-uh-lin
tel'aran'rhiod: TEL uh-RON ree-ODD
Ishamael: ISH-mail
Asmodean: az-MOH-dee-uhn
Graendal: GREN-duhl
Aes Sedai: AYZ suh-DIY

That's just a few.

[aan'allein]

I am extremely picky about the pronunciations of the names and places in wot. When I am discussing it with others who have read the books, I correct them a lot, even when I know I am wrong. I say Egwene and Nynaeve like Lightrunner, which I thought I was about the only person who did. When I first started reading TEotW, I loved Nynaeve's name because I thought it had the long A in it, and isn't "nave" some kind of mystical creature.

Aiel is a funny one, because I try to say eye eel, like the organ of vision and the shocky fish, but it sounds like some Texan accent spin on the word ale as in the drink. I think Aiel names are easy to pronounce, however, like Aviendha. Except that I stress it differently than the glossary says to; the stress is on the first sylabol (SP?) instead of the "en" part.

Aes Sedai I pronounce with a long A too. I know that's wrong, but I do it anyway. A lot of the names of the Forsaken I stress incorrectly, as with Aviendha. And the city names can be odd. What do you all think for Cairhein: [care-heen] or [ki-reen]? I always say the latter, ki rhymes with high and then just reen.