Lit The Official "How do I say that?" Thread

This is actually an argument i have fairly often, as sad as that is to say. I would really like to be done with it but...i guess i'll keep it rolling just for fun.

You keep giving us examples of words that have "un" in them but you've yet to give a "ku" word as an example. I've also been trying to think of one for the past two hours and im not having much luck. Its because in English we would most often use a "cu" combination to make the "kuh" sound...as in "cup"

"Ku Klux Klan" (regrettably)is a pretty shining example of one way to pronounce "ku" in English.

As English speakers we pronounce the word "tortilla" properly, despite it conflicting with our rules. It is a Spanish word that sees much use in certain English speaking territories. The same goes for phrases like "Deus ex machina" or "Coup de grace". Widely used...theres a right way and many wrong ways to pronounce them...but would you argue with someone to pronounce them like they're English words?

If you need to justify it you could say that you stop speaking English for the duration of the non-English word. But still, almost every English speaker understands what a cul-de-sac is and it is in the dictionary....

We DO NOT pronounce the country name "Cuba" properly (or most country names, in their language of origin, for that matter)....but luckily we have an English translation for those names. Like "Cube-uh"...not "coo-buh". The English translation of "Cuba" is an English word.

Names, in my opinion, are not up for debate. You call people what they call themselves. Its disrespectful not to.

Luckily for you i don't think Exar Kun minds very much. So you should call him whatever you want. But dont say his name has to be pronounced "kuhn" because of the word "gun". Your logic is flawed.

 

According to Jedi Outcast, it's "YIS-sall-uh-MARR-ee".

 

I know someone who calls 'em "Salami."

 

I know someone whos gonna call them "salami" from now on.

 

Actually, I always pronounced it that way, and didn't realize there was a debate about the pronunciation until after Ep.I had been released.

 

Myrkr: I go with Merker or Merk-ear or Meer-kear or Meer-ker depending on my mood. I mix it up sometimes.

I don't like MAH-ra so I pronounce it like Mary except with an 'uh' sound at the end.

I pronounced Jaina as Jay-i-na for a long time.
I also pronounced Palpatine as Palpa-tyne until Episode One.

Ysalimiri: This one annoys me. I pronounce it six different ways.

Coruscant always reminded me of the word crescent, so it never crossed my mind to pronounce it Coruskant. Ric Olie called it CORE-uh-sahnt. I always said it Cur-RUSS-sent.

Whie from Dark Rendezvous. Is it Why or Nintendo Wii or something in between?

I follow the rule that all vowels in a word should be pronounced, but that is often impossible with alien names. Especially Chiss names.

In fact, Timothy Zahn is the culprit of most of the names I think are hard to pronounce. And I thought it was ludicrous that he wrote Clones unable to pronounce their name correctly. Exactly how does the "w" in Luuke and Joruus sound?

Would all clonetroopers call themselves Jaango? Booba Fett?


I'm interested in what the Kuhn supporters call Boba Fett: Bob-uh or Bow-buh?
When in doubt, I usually stick with hard vowel sounds.

 

Ah, but when it comes to coop-dee-grays and tort-ill-uh, we have references for the language of origin. We know that in French words you generally don't pronounce the last consonant. We know that in Spanish you pronounce ll as y and ñ as ny. We have no such references for Basic. We only have the movies, which are translations. Therefore, we should assume that since names like Anakin are pronounced and spelled as we would phonetically expect them to be spelled, that the remaining names of Basic origin would be given to us using Enlish phonetics.

 

I think this is a fun topic; it examines the borders of the SW alternate reality. Intelligent posts by Matt, Mark and Shpy.

Coruscant, well it's got more 'scant' than 'scene', which is why I said it. However, since its meaning and portent are similar to 'luscent', I think most folks will subconsciously pronounce it without a c.

Kun, always reminded me of Kundera, hence I never thought to pronounce it with an uh. But in the end it's just lead against old iron: it don't matter much until we'd know how the name was pronounced on Kun's homeworld.

Don't forget Ender, the process of learning and applying a language is largely subconscious... You can throw with rules all ya want, but the day a whole language bows down to rules is the day that that language dies.

 

Maybe I just shouldn't be talking about proper pronounciations. I'm from the Midwest, and even though I've never heard the classic Fargo "Yah der hey" accent, we apparently all pronounce bag "bayg" when it's apparently supposed to have an a like in bad, and I don't even know how to write that kind of sound out. a makes me thing of a as in father.

 

Good point. Even if proper pronunciations are not neccisarily "disputed"...there is quite a bit of accepted deviation from the norm.

 

Yes, good point. I'm currently playing through KOTOR again, and it's interesting how some of the voice actors pronounce some names ("Kashyyk", "Bastila", etc) differently. Not completely differently, only slightly (a differing vowel sound, differing syllable-stress). I actually like that they do that in KOTOR, whether it's intentional or not, as it gives a certain "realism" to the characters.

 

I go with Mer-ker. Like marker. With an "e."

Mara's a real name, though, isn't it? MAH-ruh.

I remember a scifi magazine that had a definition of Coruscant way before Episode I came out. It was "1. The capital of the Galactic Empire, also known as Imperial Center 2. The response you get when you ask a church choir director to have the chorus sing AC/DC." So yeah. The thing is, "coruscant" is a real, English word.

 

Accepted? People from my state can't ask for bags without being made fun of! I wouldn't call that accepted deviation.

I used to misread Coruscant and think it was pronounced Course-uh-cant (with an "a" like in "father"). I kept this mispronounciation right up until I heard Qui-Gon Jinn say Coor-uh-sant. I thought that sounded wrong until I looked at the spelling. Once I realized I was wrong, I liked Qui-Gon's pronounciation so now I try to pronounce it the Liam Neeson way, but usually just fall into the lazier more accepted way of Core-uh-sant.

 

Yes, it is. I have a few friends named Mara. Though pronounciation varies -- MAH-ruh or MAR-uh (where "MAR" rhymes with "star").

 

Dude, me and you are messed up in the same ways, when i read yjk i said jah i nah lawl!

 

Come to think of it, the original poster may have been referring to the latter pronunciation, and he just pronounces "Mary" differently than I do.

 

I always pronounced Mara like I would Sara.

Kun = run for the longest time until I played KOTOR. After that, it's been all Koon.

I love reading everyone's different pronunciations. It's fascinating.

 

I've got the Mara/Sara thing going on as well. The real pronunciation of Mara just seems kind of awkward to me. Then again, I don't know anyone named Mara...


Also, I still refuse to call Palpatine "Palpateen" like they do in the PT. It just sounds so wrong when I say it. It is "Palpatyne" for me...

 

I thought of something. I notice that if I don't know how to pronounce something, I pronounce it the way I would in my mother's tongue. Dutch.

Did it way back before I learned English, I realize now. Nien Nunb was always "Neen Nuhnp" because that's how you'd pronounce it in Dutch. It's only when you start thinking about it consciously that you 'translate' it to 'Basic'. So the theory is this: when in doubt of how to pronounce something, people fall back to the way they would pronounce stuff in their mother tongue or accent.

 

I always go with Loo-ook. Not quite sure how to pronounce Joruus. I usually just went with Jor-us and didn't even touch the double-u.

 

Same here.

 

I always thought it was pronounced the same as the original name.

 

No, there must be a difference in pronunciatin, because Joruus' mispronunciation of the name Jorus is how Thrawn knew he was a clone.

 

Ahhh. Something they make the clone do so they can always identify who the fake is, huh? Very clever.

 

But that kills the drama when we are trying to convince a loved one that we are the real us, not the other guy who is just a clone, and our loved one will only know because of some minute detail...