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Making Game of Thrones: Pronuncation Guide


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Most were spot on to what I had, but there were a few exceptions.

I don't understand Catelyn being Cat-lin. What happened to the E? :) Would have thought it would have been Cat-eh-lin or even Kate-lin since it was not spelled "Catlyn".

One of the Targaryen first names appears to be different then the others. We have Arys, Daenerys, and Veserys all ending with "rys" after a vowel. Two of these end with the ISS sound, but Arys with EEZ. Varys also has the ISS sound, but not being a Targaryen you could explain it as Andal vs. Valyrian pronunciation. The difference could be explained by the E before rys in two of them as opposed to A in Arys.

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I think they assume it's obvious to everyone. Obviously, they're unaware of the JAIM and HI-me pronunciations. ;) But it's JAY-me, in any case.

Argh - see, this is what baffles me. Then why not spell it "JAMIE"?!?! :dunno: Go to my happy place, go to my happy place....

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Jaime as "hyme" would make me feel like I was hocking up a loogie all the time. Not very sexy.

And "Jame" just sounds too much like "Jane" to me.

But Jay-mee sounds to much like a little boy's name. If we had Jonny Snow, it would feel stupid too.

Argh - see, this is what baffles me. Then why not spell it "JAMIE"?!?! :dunno: Go to my happy place, go to my happy place....

This bothers me too. Especially because my sister pronounced it Jay-me, until I told her "look at how it's spelled", and "converted" her.

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The only one that bothers me is CAT-linn. The way it is spelled should make it KATE-linn.

In the audiobooks it's CAT-uh-lin. It's not a stretch if you don't automatically assume the e isn't silent. If you say it fast enough, that syllable kind of disappears, and you end up with Cat-lin. Kate-lynn is entirely an American pronunciation.

Not surprised or bothered by any of the pronunciations listed, except I always said Tyrell like Tie-RELL, rather than the way they have listed.

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I think that would be more relevant only if the Tully's or GRRM were Irish. :)

The intended pronunciations are of course whatever GRRM thought them to be. He could have spelled her name Kartman then stated it was pronounced Cat-lin, but it would not have much logic to it. An, "E" WAS inserted, so that is the confusion for some of us. That is not a common letter (such as H) ignored in the English language. I would beg you to note that the Irish Caitlin referred to above also doesn't have an E in the middle. If GRRM was basing his name for the famous but fictional Tully upon the original Irish Caitlin instead of the Americanized form, he still ended up inserting an E smack dab in the middle. Also, the "lin" instead of "leen" pronunciation is more Americanized then Irish. So it's half Irish, half American, with an E thrown in the middle? :) Confused? I say it's whatever the author (or actually reader for that matter) wants it to be in my opinion. I'll keep mentally pronouncing her name as Cat-uh-lin in my rereads.

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I very much doubt that the mostly British cast will use this pronunciation. If I say it out loud it sounds like i'm affecting a bad American accent.

I did think that pronunciation was a bit odd as well, I think there are a few others that similarly seemed more like American pronunciations - not that there's any reason why a fantasy world shouldn't use American pronunciations but I'm assuming they're mostly going to use British accents in the show.

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I think that would be more relevant only if the Tully's or GRRM were Irish. :)

The intended pronunciations are of course whatever GRRM thought them to be. He could have spelled her name Kartman then stated it was pronounced Cat-lin, but it would not have much logic to it. An, "E" WAS inserted, so that is the confusion for some of us. That is not a common letter (such as H) ignored in the English language. I would beg you to note that the Irish Caitlin referred to above also doesn't have an E in the middle. If GRRM was basing his name for the famous but fictional Tully upon the original Irish Caitlin instead of the Americanized form, he still ended up inserting an E smack dab in the middle. Also, the "lin" instead of "leen" pronunciation is more Americanized then Irish. So it's half Irish, half American, with an E thrown in the middle? :) Confused? I say it's whatever the author (or actually reader for that matter) wants it to be in my opinion. I'll keep mentally pronouncing her name as Cat-uh-lin in my rereads.

I didn't say it was supposed to be Irish; I meant more that seeing a name similar to Caitlin, Katelynn, Catelyn, etc, and pronouncing it anything like Kate-lynn, is entirely an American thing. There are plenty of names used in English that do not follow the most common pronunciations of English words as you learn in elementary school phonics, another example of which is Genevieve, which as far as I know, very few people would look at and pronounce like Jean-veev like the pants. :dunno: But I generally agree with the idea that most people are going to have their own way of saying things in their head, unless they listened to the audiobooks or heard a reading first; it's just kind of absurd for people to state that their mental way of saying something is the only sensible interpretation. It's not just in this thread, but in pretty much every thread on character names that I've seen on this board before. :dunno:

There were some audiobook pronunciations I am glad they didn't go with, like pe-TIRE (Baelish), for instance.

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There were some audiobook pronunciations I am glad they didn't go with, like pe-TIRE (Baelish), for instance.
I had heard there were some very ...unexpected... pronunciations in the audiobook, but pe-TIRE is really something. Are there others in that vein?

Was GRRM (or are any authors with their work) involved with the pronunciation that went into his books' audiobooks?

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Well I feel slightly stupid since I've never noticed it's Al-i-ser not Al-is-Ter Thorne.

It wasn't until he was presenting the wight hand in KL before I noticed that, I guess I read it without the T, then in my head made it Allister. So you are definitely not alone.

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Since Jaime is a common spanish name, all of us spaniards pronounce it our way, that is HYme (the "e" pronounced like in "shed") though the spanish "j" sound is harder than the english "h"

I assume that the right pronunciation is like in Jamie because the books were written in english but it sounds a little childish to me, so it will still be Hyme in my head :laugh:

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