Pronunciation thread

[Ruby Fforde]

The show is what's up with that.

To be fair, Stannis doesn't look like it should be said as Stahnis. I know that is how it's meant to he said, but it doesn't look like it

By the logic of the English language it probably shouldn't be pronounced Stah-nis. When a vowel is followed by a double consonant, like the two n's after the a in Stannis, it is generally pronounced with a short vowel sound. (There are of course exceptions; there are always exceptions when we talk about rules to do with the English language.) You could counter with, "well actually, they don't speak English in Westeros, they speak the common tongue, so those rules don't apply" (which, frankly, I think GRRM is banking on to cover all such ambiguous linguistic situations), and that's fair enough. It's just that those of us who read the books in English and are used to English pronunciation patterns can hear a fixed pronunciation in our mind's ear that is perfectly logical, but perhaps not what the author intended. I think the ambiguity is great, because it leads to fun threads like this!

I'd never, ever, heard anyone but my family use "purple monkey dishwasher" - I couldn't help myself! It's been an inside joke of my family's since I was a child. My daughter is rather sick of it, herself....she doesn't seem to find it funny - yet!

I just really like the Simpsons. :)

[Night'sQueen]

:lol: sorry about that.

My original name was "Nights Kings Consort, I then changed it to "Nights Kings Queen" because I grew bored with that name, and then two days ago someone commented After that I started becoming paranoid my name had this horrible error in it, so I changed it to "Nights Queen".

And now it's telling me I've changed my name too many times! And I now need to wait 30 days. Oh the horror

Hey, no worries. There's many similar names. I just had a moment when I saw that thread where I was like, "When did I start that thread?? Was I high??" :smoking:

[Richard Writhen]

Aegon - Ay-gawn

Tyene - Tie-een

Raenys - Ray-Niss

R'Hllor - Ruh-hlawr

Petyr - Just like Peter, alt spelling

Yronwood - Just like Ironwood, alt spelling

Stannis - Stan-niss, just as it looks

[Zizoz]

I'm okay with Ay-gone or Egg-on, as long as you don't say "Ay-gin." THAT is an abomination which should never be uttered. I LOVE the War and Politics of Ice and Fire podcast, love their essays, but if someone doesn't get Nina to stop saying "Ay-gin" and "Ray-niss," "Air-riss" and worst of "Ay-niss" (anus)... well one of them needs to get her to stop.

Dan-Ares wife. Air-eez. Ray-neez. Ay-neez. Like "Achilles." "Aegon" like "Sargon." Think conquerors here people, not anuses.

Dan-Ares was Khal Drogo trying to pronounce Daenerys, right? So it could just be that Dothraki doesn't have the short I sound and he substitutes an "ee" sound instead. Also, for me the "iss" pronunciation is the same as the ending of, say, Julius. I'd say Caesar is enough of a conqueror to base a pronunciation off of.

"Aenys" I'm half convinced was a joke on GRRM's part, but I pronounce it as "anise" when I remember.

That said, I'm happy to have never heard "Ay-gin". Would sound terrible to me.

[Ruby Fforde]

Eerl Harlaw?

[Criston of House Shapper]

What about Gyles? This one has always bothered me.

[Orphalesion]

What about Gyles? This one has always bothered me.

Jyles, like Giles from Buffy I'd say...With "Y" in Westerosi names I always just assume it stands for "I" it often did in the real Middle Ages.

[Ruby Fforde]

^Same same

[Isobel Harper]

Should Aurane be pronounced "aur AYN" or "AUR un?" I pronounce the name like the former most often.

[Bael's Bastard]

I say it like Aw + Rain.

[BlackFyre > BlackFire]

I've heard so many variation's on Catelyn. I always say it as Cat-Lynn. But now I'm wondering.

[Winter Blues]

Personally I prefer:
Tyrell: Tirrel, to rhyme with squirrel. It reminds me of that line in the poem the "Lady of Shalott" Tirra Lirra by the river/Sand Sir Lancelot. Probably due to the Tyrells' association with chivalry and beauty.
 
Aegon: My first instinct when seeing the word would be "Eye-gon" same with "Die-neris" due to Ae always being pronounced like "eye" in Tolkien's writings.
 
Myrcella= Marcella
 
Petyr= Peter
 
Of course the show ruined the first two pronunciations for me.

You just dropped one of my favorite Tennyson poems. You are my hero.

[Big Bad Wolf]

Ah, you silly Englishmen :) Who came up with an idea of random spelling?

[Orphalesion]

You just dropped one of my favorite Tennyson poems. You are my hero.

 

^_^ What can I say? English student here.

 

 

Ah, you silly Englishmen :) Who came up with an idea of random spelling?

 

*puts down his cup of tea somewhat disgruntled, knocking his cucumber sandwiches off the plate*

 

Well I say, kind sir!

 

Personally I have always found the language of the Blessed Isle to be far more intuitive in its written form than the confused and manifold languages of the continent. 

 

Half of those languages put little dots or lines over the letters, who has ever heard of such barbarity? (quietly hides the word "fiancé" under a pillow) The Germans and the Nordics have invented letters in their writing (I know of a certain lowercase s in German that has the shape of an uppercase B and the rules of when to use which appear rather random to me) and further east they have strange scripts, wholly alien to ours. 

 

/ joking

 

Joking aside I was raised bilingual (English and German) and if you asked me to write a letter in English and a letter in German, the German one would be riddled with spelling mistakes and even a few grammar inconsistencies. Seriously that language has random spelling!  :P 

[Ruby Fforde]

[Hands Orphalesion 'exposé' and 'rosé' to tuck under the pillow next to 'fiancé'] :D

Those strange scripts from further east have their own problems too, believe you me.

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

Gender, generation, gentle, generator, genuflect, genuine, genesis... GENDRY.

 

I choose to believe the show pronounces Gendry wrong.

[Big Bad Wolf]

 

^_^ What can I say? English student here.

 

 

 

*puts down his cup of tea somewhat disgruntled, knocking his cucumber sandwiches off the plate*

 

Well I say, kind sir!

 

Personally I have always found the language of the Blessed Isle to be far more intuitive in its written form than the confused and manifold languages of the continent. 

 

Half of those languages put little dots or lines over the letters, who has ever heard of such barbarity? (quietly hides the word "fiancé" under a pillow) The Germans and the Nordics have invented letters in their writing (I know of a certain lowercase s in German that has the shape of an uppercase B and the rules of when to use which appear rather random to me) and further east they have strange scripts, wholly alien to ours. 

 

/ joking

 

Joking aside I was raised bilingual (English and German) and if you asked me to write a letter in English and a letter in German, the German one would be riddled with spelling mistakes and even a few grammar inconsistencies. Seriously that language has random spelling!  :P

Well, sir, I'm from one of those Eastern European countries, and I must say that Polish spelling is far easier than English. "Knight" and "night" not only sound the same, but both have "g" and the former has "k". It makes no sense. And our "dż" and "dź" and "sz" (all of those are different sounds) make it much easier. Gendry is a great example. How am I supposed to pronounce that? In Polish it would be almost obvious that it's supposed to be pronounced as in the show. Except for "y". But "Gendri" looks just silly.

[Lateral]

I've heard so many variation's on Catelyn. I always say it as Cat-Lynn. But now I'm wondering.

most people say it as Cat-Lynn, but I can't see how that makes any sense. I've never heard people calling the wife of Prince William Cat Middleton.

[Orphalesion]

Well, sir, I'm from one of those Eastern European countries, and I must say that Polish spelling is far easier than English. "Knight" and "night" not only sound the same, but both have "g" and the former has "k". It makes no sense. And our "dż" and "dź" and "sz" (all of those are different sounds) make it much easier. Gendry is a great example. How am I supposed to pronounce that? In Polish it would be almost obvious that it's supposed to be pronounced as in the show. Except for "y". But "Gendri" looks just silly.

 

Well I hope you understood my rant was a trifle tongue-in-cheek/satirical. (I don't eat cucumber sandwiches, eww)

 

I have to admit I don't know the first thing about Polish but to me the idea that dz and dz with a different over the z being two different sounds, does sound very confusing . But I guess to you it is as natural and logical as night and knight are to me. They are homophones (though personally I have always felt I could sorta "hear" the k even as it was silent) but what's wrong with the g in knight and night? It needs to be there for the sound to be formed.

 

Believe me spelling reforms for English have been suggested many times (for example the letter c is fairly redundant so it would stand to reason, and I guess make things easier for some, to replace it with k or s as needed making it, for example kamp instead of camp and Sersei instead of Cersei) However Charles Dickens once demonstrated how silly looking written English would be if it was completely phonetic (or fonetik) just as silly as you think "Gendri" looks.And I don't know we need C, otherwise written English would look like German.

And I will admit that I am biased, to me English in both written and spoken form is the most beautiful language in the world. Perhaps I'd see it differently if it wasn't my language. 

However with those strange scripts I meant Cyrillic which wikipedia says Poland doesn't use, you just have a bunch of accents over letters again. 

[Big Bad Wolf]

G has no point in being in night and knight. You don't hear it, so why should it be there? Davos mentioned it in Game of Thrones. He pronounced it like "niget" (neeget? See, this problem again)