- nexs wrote:
- Some of those I hadn't tried. But the ones I do know:
Khaine - "Cain"
Vaul - "Vorl"
Asuryan - "Azu-ran" (from my high elves days)
Cegorach - "Keg-oh-rack"
Lileath - "Lill-eeth"
I'm from australia, so i'm sure the accent I hold may make it different to how you say it.
Khain: you have to add the "h" to the pronunciation. It;'s like "rain" but replace the "r" with a "kh" sound. Try saying the children's way (phonetic way) of saying "k" ("kuh") and now try adding the "h" ("khuh"). Obviously you don't use the entire length of that sound, just the beginning of it. Thus you have "kh-ain". Khaela would be the same "khuh" sound followed by "ay-la." Mensha is easy - "men-sha."
Vaul: spot on, not really any way of mispronouncing this unless you suddenly base it on a non-English language - "Vowl?" That doesn't sound right at all!
Asuryan: Unless it's one of those words/names where you don't pronounce all the letters it should be pronounced "Asure-riun" or "Azure-riun". The "s" would be pronounced as a hybrid of "s" and "z".
Cegorach: is not pronounced with a "k" this isn't how the letter "c" works. It would be pronounced as if it were an "s" - "se-gore-ac". The "ch" at the end is pronounced as a soft "c" as in "cat".
Lileath: would be pronounced "Lil-e-ath". You can argue it could also be pronounced "Lil-eeth" as well but looking at the phonology of the other Eldar names I think the first is most likely. Eldar tend to have multiple short syllables in their names (like a lot of East Asian languages) but use a pseudo-Celtic framework for their sounds. The Celtic influence would suggest the second pronunciation of the name but the syllable base for Eldar names would suggest the first. I'd go with the first because it's more distinctive and sounds less like "Lillith".
Isha: would be pronounced "ee-sha".
Kumous: would be "koo-mouw" where the end of the name is pronounced as "mouse" without the "se". I'm not 100% sure the "s" at the end is silent but it would seem to be, because I don't think you could end the name using the "mou" sound without a consonant.
Faolchu: the beginning is pronounced as in tao (the Chinese philosophy) which incidentally is pronounced the same as Tau from 40k (because Tau are pronounced completely wrong using the English language!). So it's "Faolc-who". Kind of like Falcon but extending the "falc" with the "tao" sound. It's possible this is instead "Faol-shoe" but this would mean the "ch" sounds are different depending on where in the word they fall. I think most languages have more consistent sounds for letters and letter combo's, it's only really English that messes with different sounds from the same letters (because English is really a hybrid of about half a a dozen other languages each with their own rules). So depending on how internally consistent the Eldar language is it's either "coo" or "shoe". I doubt whoever came up these names gave this any thought so it really could be either!
Morai-Heg: this is easier - "Moray Heg"
Gea: "Gia" as in the super model.
Seoc: "Sayoc" just pronounce it softly as one syllable.
Ynnead: Have you heard of Homer's Iliad? The end is pronounced the same. The beginning is pronounced "Inn" (as in where medieval folk go to drink). So it's "inn-nead". Be sure to put emphasis on the double "n" when you say it.
These are my interpretations based on my limited knowledge of language of analysis of the names. Quite often people pick up bad habits of naming things wrong, usually because they're unsure and they heard some other guy mispronounce it. Sometimes errors stick and people end up using the names incorrectly (like Tau which should be pronounced Tor as in Taurus if the language was being used correctly). Of course all of this assumes that whoever invented the names in the first place had any idea of how language works. They could have pronunciations wildly different to their spellings in that case, making it impossible to know outside of word-of-mouth exchanges. But those are affected by the "Chinese Whisper" effect that can make it all but impossible to know what the original name was. I recommend you go by the spelling and how language actually works rather than trying to divine what the original creator meant when he penned the names. It's the only way to get a universal correct pronunciation.
Subject: How do you pronounce it? (Eldar edition) 
Fri Aug 14 2015, 00:35
