How are unit names pronounced?

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Spirit_of_Currents
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How are unit names pronounced?

Post by Spirit_of_Currents »

Is Add pronounced /ˈæd/? How is Elolas pronounced? Those are just examples.
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revolting_peasant
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by revolting_peasant »

They're pronounced however you want to pronounce them - until some campaigns add voice narration.
Spirit_of_Currents
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by Spirit_of_Currents »

I think the creator of Random Name Generator can decide how we should pronounce them.
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beetlenaut
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by beetlenaut »

A name generator has been around for more than 10 years, so I don't think you will get an answer from its creator. Also, not everyone is like Tolkien and cares how their characters' names are pronounced. Since there is nothing official, I just made up my own rules. I don't worry about the units' names much, but when I do, I pronounce every vowel the same using the same five vowels used in Spanish and Japanese since those are pretty common around the world. (Those are more or less: ah, eh, ee, oh, & oo.) That makes vowel combinations into dipthongs. I also think Wesnothian names sounds nice with y pronounced like the y in the International Phonetic Alphabet. (French u, or German ü.) I pronounce doubled consonants twice as long as regular ones when possible (like with mm or ss) to make it even less like English. When that isn't possible (like with dd, bb, tt, etc.), I just make sure the consonant is released, which is also unlike English. So, Add is pronounced like ahd(uh).

I am a little like Tolkien in that way I guess.
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Ehxosxangxo
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by Ehxosxangxo »

I’d like to know how Analeiros (the name of the elvish leader in The Forgotten Legacy) is supposed to be pronounced.

Considering -eiro is a derivative suffix in Portuguese (and -s is a plural marker), you can probably guess what four-letter Portuguese adjective this character’s name appears to come from. Besides, this adjective means the same as the English one spelled identically, although it’s pronounced differently :eng:
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GunChleoc
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by GunChleoc »

We have more of those :lol:
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Eagle_11
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by Eagle_11 »

Im a simple man, pronouncing them as being read. :I
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BTIsaac
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by BTIsaac »

Honestly, the only reason why pronounciation is a problem in many indo-european languages, is either because the language itself evolves while the writing retains archaic forms, or because the language contains phonemes that don't have a symbol in the latin alphabet. When it comes to fantasy names, I say write it how it's pronounced/pronounce it like it's written. After all, they only use english language and the latin alphabet because of translation convention. We don't need to translate a fantasy world's long list of linguisic phenomena into english.
Ceres
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by Ceres »

BTIsaac wrote: March 2nd, 2018, 9:23 amWhen it comes to fantasy names, I say write it how it's pronounced/pronounce it like it's written.
But isn't the problem that the mapping between written letters and phonemes depends on the language? So the question becomes according to which language's conventions to pronounce it. The most reasonable answer to that is probably "whatever language you are most comfortable with in this context", which is how I imagine most people are doing this kind of thing to begin with, but it comes at the cost of unambiguousness. Or I guess we could say "follow English pronunciation" (which dialect though?).
Ehxosxangxo
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Re: How are unit names pronounced?

Post by Ehxosxangxo »

Not to mention following English orthography is just about the worst possible choice if you want to minimize ambiguity.
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