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Bakker XXXV: Tyrant of Rat Nation, Worshipped as Rat of Rats


Madness

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Bakker gives pronunciations in the glossary of the first book for the main characters names.



I don't have it handy, but it's made clear that it's basically "Nay-Ur."



What's funny is that he explains Akka's name with a "kay" second syllable, but in an interview he said it with a "kah" second syllable.


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Well, Cnaür urs Skiötha has hard consonants aplenty, including 2 rolling Rs (I suppose those are actually silent in your mind?), so the umlauts only made sense because I associate him with a wild German/Mongol or even Turk - Turkish btw. is also loaded with umlauts and sounds pretty aggressive to me.



As for Bronte? Dunno, I'd pronounce it Brontay.

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Im fairly certain Bakker has stated that he feels kind of "meh" about how people pronounce the names and says he just doesn't mind how people say names. Also fairly certain as stated above he has pronounced names differently.



Don't know about anyone else but when I read anything with subjective pronunciation interpretation I automatically commit my brain to a sound as "correct". All other pronunciations are wrong. Being English - I often have to hear things pronounced incorrectly by others.


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HE, we don't really pay attention to any of that fancypants shit in the united states.

am admiring incidentally the ardor with which y'all maintain your eärwections for the next installment; i find that my eärwousal has waned.

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Well, Cnaür urs Skiötha has hard consonants aplenty, including 2 rolling Rs (I suppose those are actually silent in your mind?), so the umlauts only made sense because I associate him with a wild German/Mongol or even Turk - Turkish btw. is also loaded with umlauts and sounds pretty aggressive to me.

I understand the association, but I’m honestly curious about what the umlaut does in your mind? How does it make the words sound more aggressive? My puzzlement stems from the fact that what the umlaut actually does is to make the sound more feminine and softer. (This is called the i-mutation: it moves the vowel sound towards the vowel /i/.)

For instance, the umlaut is used to form diminutive forms. Hase -> Häschen, so to a German, umlauts make words smaller, softer, cuter.

What I’d like to understand is what function the umlaut has, other than (say) writing the same word in a blackletter typeface.

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Umlauts really don't exist in the English language in a practical sense. Cooperation doesn't have it typically, and only linguists would use it. Same with naive. Typically in English these just get learned as sight words.

When I see Umlauts I think German. If it isn't as such (like a umlauted e or i) then it's basically something to learn especially. Bronte is a good example - because it's a name the e would typically be pronounced. If it were an English word it would be a loaner word and thus be pronounced bront. If it were actually English it would likely be spelled bront. So Bronte reads right to me mostly due to context and understanding about how other English words work.

English is often like that - because the grammar is so highly irregular, context and similar words usually trump any actual information from the word itself. My name is a good example: Kalon. Given my username most people will pronounce it right. Given the mnemonic (like talon with a k) it is obvious too. Without either of those things most people pronounce it KAYlon like balon greyjoy or halon.

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Wait... Balon Greyjoy is pronounced Baylon?!!? :stunned:

. . . and that revelation murdered all that I once did know. Where once I asked of the God, “Who are you?” now I ask, “Who am I?”

—ANKHARLUS, LETTER TO THE WHITE TEMPLE

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OK, I come home from work and the wife is reading TDTCB! I've been trying to get her to read it for a year or two now. I'm elated!

I totally don't understand this. All my friends try to get their girlfriends interested in like whatever videogames or books or shows or music they like. They get crazy excited when it goes well and so down when it doesn't. I just so so don't care if my gf is interested in the media I consume. What am I missing here? There's some kind of fundamental disconnect here that I don't understand.

I'm not criticizing you obviously. I am well aware that I am the weird one here.

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I totally don't understand this. All my friends try to get their girlfriends interested in like whatever videogames or books or shows or music they like. They get crazy excited when it goes well and so down when it doesn't. I just so so don't care if my gf is interested in the media I consume. What am I missing here? There's some kind of fundamental disconnect here that I don't understand.

I'm not criticizing you obviously. I am well aware that I am the weird one here.

Well I never made her read the books. I've suggested them, she always said no, that was that. She asked the other day about em, and come home and she reading them. I guess just excited to someone reading the series. Someone to discuss it with face to face. If she never read it, no big deal.
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Nah, what's really weird is that a Bakker fan has a girlfriend at all.

I'll never forget the look on my ex's face when she picked up my copy of the Warrior Prophet, and read the back of it. The only look that was even more unforgettable was the one when she gave me after she flipped through it for a few minutes. And she's a pretty big SFF fan. You'd have thought she caught me masturbating to something really questionable, like Mormon porn, or something, judging by the look she gave me.

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I pronounce Cnaiür as K'nigh-oor. I know Bakker indicates another pronunciation, but as with Cersei (which I mentally pronounce Kur-see*), I'm not too fussed about getting it exactly as the author intended.



*Years of Keleborn, not Seleborn have left me with a propensity for the hard C.


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I use the original name, of course. Teleporno.

That's difficult to reconcile with the line "Where is Gandalf for I much wish to see him."

Does not Teleporno see much and more from his perch in Lothlorien?

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