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Leeham
2010-07-10, 10:07 AM
Is sidereal pronounced side-real, or is it closer to ethereal, like si-dee-re-al?

cheezewizz2000
2010-07-10, 10:12 AM
Wiktionary has it as sai-deer-ial or si-deer-ial (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sidereal).

Leeham
2010-07-10, 10:18 AM
Thanks, most helpful :)

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-10, 10:23 AM
Fun fact: it means "of or relating to stars". So it's the same as "Solar" and "Lunar", really. It's not just a made-up fantasy word...

It's a pretty awesome word. More people need to use it.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-10, 10:26 AM
Fun fact: it means "of or relating to stars".

Well, distant stars. Though distant stars includes all stars that aren't Sol, so there isn't an appreciable difference.

Also, in real world, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn would not be considered distant stars.

Sir_Elderberry
2010-07-10, 10:34 AM
In fact, I'm pretty sure the Spanish word for outer space is "espacio sideral."

Xefas
2010-07-10, 10:34 AM
Speaking of Exalted pronunciations, I actually found out I'd been pronouncing Anathema wrong all this time only a little while ago.

Dictionary.com says its pronounced "uh-nath-uh-muh" and I'd been pronouncing it "an-na-thee-mah".

Also, my group insists on pronouncing the 'c' in Autocthon like an 's'. I keep telling them that it's based on the word 'cthonic' which has a silent 'c', but they won't listen.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-10, 10:40 AM
In fact, I'm pretty sure the Spanish word for outer space is "espacio sideral."

Same for Portuguese, "Espaço Sideral". Sideral is a direct translation of Sidereal.

Leeham
2010-07-10, 11:00 AM
Here's another one, Lookshy?

Zeta Kai
2010-07-10, 02:00 PM
Speaking of which, anyone know how to pronounce Aasimar? I figure that it's one of the following:

AZ-ee-mar
AHZ-ee-mar
ah-SEE-mar
ah-see-MAR

Tinydwarfman
2010-07-10, 02:04 PM
Speaking of which, anyone know how to pronounce Aasimar? I figure that it's one of the following:

AHZ-ee-mar


I pronounce it like this, but I don't know whether thats right.

Eldan
2010-07-10, 02:04 PM
Generally, I just read words as if they were german or latin.

So...
AH-see-mar

Of course, WotC seems to disagree with me all the time, even on mythological names.

Mando Knight
2010-07-10, 02:12 PM
Also, my group insists on pronouncing the 'c' in Autocthon like an 's'. I keep telling them that it's based on the word 'cthonic' which has a silent 'c', but they won't listen.

But... it... it...

...it's not even placed like a 'c' that makes an 's' sound! Who taught them phonics?

Tiki Snakes
2010-07-10, 03:11 PM
Speaking of which, anyone know how to pronounce Aasimar? I figure that it's one of the following:

AZ-ee-mar
AHZ-ee-mar
ah-SEE-mar
ah-see-MAR


Ass-ee-mar.

For obvious reasons. :smallwink:

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-10, 03:12 PM
Also, my group insists on pronouncing the 'c' in Autocthon like an 's'. I keep telling them that it's based on the word 'cthonic' which has a silent 'c', but they won't listen.

Well, first of all, it's Autochthon. There is an h between the c and t.

Second, the c is not silent. It's a hard c, and the word is pronounced ɔːˈtɒkθən.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-10, 03:12 PM
But... it... it...

...it's not even placed like a 'c' that makes an 's' sound! Who taught them phonics?

Nevermind that, man... dumb people remain dumb forever.

Tiki Snakes
2010-07-10, 03:24 PM
... and the word is pronounced ɔːˈtɒkθən.

Are those squiggly things supposed to mean something?
What kind of crazy alphabet you using there, Rose? :smallconfused:

Phonetically, if you please. ;)

senrath
2010-07-10, 03:30 PM
Are those squiggly things supposed to mean something?
What kind of crazy alphabet you using there, Rose? :smallconfused:

Phonetically, if you please. ;)

That, um, is the phonetic spelling. At least, it is using the IPA. Anyway, if I'm read it right, it would be pronounced "aw-tok-thuhn".

Tiki Snakes
2010-07-10, 03:39 PM
See, this is the problem I always run into with pronunciation guides. I don't speak IPA, I speak english, using the bog standard english alphabet. :smallwink:

Cespenar
2010-07-10, 03:45 PM
Here's another one, Lookshy?

I don't know, but a gut feeling tells me "Look-shie" or "Look-she", just because it has to be pronounced somehow different.

Anyway, the pronunciation of Worcestershire was the breaking point for me. I'm not so easily surprised anymore.

Eldan
2010-07-10, 04:22 PM
Ah, good old Woostsher.

Anyway. Whenever I hear someone pronounce "Acheron" as "Esheron", I get a desire to punch them.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-10, 04:26 PM
No, "Wooster". There's no "sh", even.

It's a stupid name.

Mr.Bookworm
2010-07-10, 04:36 PM
Speaking of which, I've always been a bit confused on you pronounce most of the Yozi names. Is it mal-fee-is? A-door-jan? Swill-in? Hee-grah? Etc., etc.


aw-tok-thuhn

Really? I've always read it as "auto-keh-thon". Auto seems like it would be pronounced as in "Automobile", or "Autobots". And chthon probably comes from the Greek word for earth, where the ch is pronounced as a hard k.


Woostsher

No, really? Is that honestly how you pronounce Worcestershire? I mean, really?

EDIT:
Wooster

What. I mean, what? How the hell does that work with basic grammar?

senrath
2010-07-10, 04:43 PM
Really? I've always read it as "auto-keh-thon". Auto seems like it would be pronounced as in "Automobile", or "Autobots". And chthon probably comes from the Greek word for earth, where the ch is pronounced as a hard k.

Yeah, really. Autochthon is a real word, and it's pronounced "aw-tok-thuhn".



No, really? Is that honestly how you pronounce Worcestershire? I mean, really?


It's not. It's pronounced "WOOS-tər-sher".

Drascin
2010-07-10, 04:48 PM
In fact, I'm pretty sure the Spanish word for outer space is "espacio sideral."

Not quite. "Sideral" is indeed an adjective used for space, with the same "pertaining to the stars" meaning as Sidereal, but "Outer Space" would be, appropiately, "espacio exterior". "Espacio sideral" is generally a more florid way of saying it, like "the sea of stars" might be in English, perhaps...

Mr.Bookworm
2010-07-10, 04:59 PM
Yeah, really. Autochthon is a real word, and it's pronounced "aw-tok-thuhn".

Didn't know that, but I still think "auto" makes sense, given Autochthon's nature.


It's not. It's pronounced "WOOS-tər-sher".

...That's not any better.

Eldan
2010-07-10, 05:18 PM
Really? I've always read it as "auto-keh-thon". Auto seems like it would be pronounced as in "Automobile", or "Autobots". And chthon probably comes from the Greek word for earth, where the ch is pronounced as a hard k.


Well, the thing is, the "auto" in "automobile" is pronounced differently in greek, where both words come from. "A" is pronouced like the "u" in "duck", the "u" like in "glue".
So a-u-to-kthon.


Edit: And the word has a connection to primal creatures, at least: Wiktionary. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/autochthon)
"Rock formation" isn't that bad either.

MickJay
2010-07-10, 09:17 PM
I'm afraid that the "wooster" pronounciation is quite widespread, at least when we're talking about the sauce. :smalltongue: When it's a place, it's closer to the actual spelling (but still slightly "off").

Fortuna
2010-07-10, 09:25 PM
See, this is the problem I always run into with pronunciation guides. I don't speak IPA, I speak english, using the bog standard english alphabet. :smallwink:

You mean the modified Latin alphabet? With the extra letters that we added, the absence of eth, thorn, yogh and the other one whose name I can't remember, and of course the completely superfluous letters c, q and x?

sofawall
2010-07-10, 09:30 PM
I have never and will never be able to pronounce Worchestershire. I pronounce it as it looks, with the exception of the 'shire' sounding more like 'shur'. No amount of coaching has, thus far, been able to force me to change my pronunciation.

Also, I don't even like that stuff.

As for Aasimar, I say Ah-zee-mar.

Gensh
2010-07-10, 09:58 PM
So then is it just my group that says awesome-ar?

Juhn
2010-07-11, 12:18 AM
I have never and will never be able to pronounce Worcestershire

To my knowledge, it's pronounced "WER-ster-sher". Worcester on its own is just "WER-ster".

note: the vowels in the above are pronounced to rhyme with "bird".

BobVosh
2010-07-11, 12:25 AM
Is sidereal pronounced side-real, or is it closer to ethereal, like si-dee-re-al?

While the correct is the second one, the first edition book (never looked at the second ed one) had a guide for it being Side-real. Which may be a minor attempt for a pun or just stupidity that they fixed later.

lsfreak
2010-07-11, 12:47 AM
So then is it just my group that says awesome-ar?

That's close to how I pronounce it. Ah-si-mer [aː.sɨ.mɚ] or ah-si-mar [aː.sɨ.maɻ], depending.


See, this is the problem I always run into with pronunciation guides. I don't speak IPA, I speak english, using the bog standard english alphabet.
The bog-standard English alphabet is horrible for phonetics. If I gave you a word 'kut,' how do I point out phonetically that the vowel sound is the vowel in 'hood?' Hell, 'bog' itself: depending on your dialect, you could say 'bog' and have someone mistake it for 'bag,' thanks to vowel changes among dialects. How do I make sure you're pronouncing it correctly?

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 01:04 AM
Really? I've always read it as "auto-keh-thon". Auto seems like it would be pronounced as in "Automobile", or "Autobots".


It's pronounced as in "autonomous".



No, really? Is that honestly how you pronounce Worcestershire? I mean, really?

What. I mean, what? How the hell does that work with basic grammar?

It's not grammar. It's orthography and pronunciation. Most British places names are really old and were written down a long time ago. The same spelling has been in constant use for centuries. The pronunciation has drifted but the spelling hasn't. The spelling is maintained by its use in official government documents and land deeds, the consistency of which rich people have a vested interest in. Most of the changes in pronunciation have taken the form of dropping unstressed vowels to shorten syllable counts (thus the / wur sest / in "worcest" gets reduced to / wurst /).

It's the same reason British English pronounces things like "literature" as "lich ra chur" while General American English says "lit er a chur" because it's a more conservative dialect and hasn't changed as much as British English has since the founding of the American colonies. It's ironic that many American actors affect a British accent while performing Shakespeare to make it more authentic. In actual history, when Shakespeare's plays were first performed the actors would have sounded more like they were from Cleveland, Ohio than anywhere in England.

And now you know more than you probably ever wanted to know about why things aren't pronounced the way they're spelled.

Zeta Kai
2010-07-11, 01:40 AM
The bog-standard English alphabet is horrible for phonetics. If I gave you a word 'kut,' how do I point out phonetically that the vowel sound is the vowel in 'hood?' Hell, 'bog' itself: depending on your dialect, you could say 'bog' and have someone mistake it for 'bag,' thanks to vowel changes among dialects. How do I make sure you're pronouncing it correctly?

Yes, but IPA is just as horrible for English speaker. It looks like an unreadable mess, & only a very small percentage of people can read it quickly & easily, so as a guide, it's exceedingly unhelpful. IPA completely sacrificed ease of use for accuracy & comprehensiveness.

Hell, I'm an avid linguist & on conlanger of the Tolkien school, & IPA is usually just gibberish to me, unless I actively sit down & decipher it. I'll google an audio clip for pronunciation if I can every time.

Cespenar
2010-07-11, 02:36 AM
Yeah, opening the IPA guide on another tab and glancing at it for a few seconds (because it's one syllable or letter that matters most of the time) is real hard work.

Jokasti
2010-07-11, 02:47 AM
Pronounce it however you like. That's rule #1.

KillianHawkeye
2010-07-11, 03:53 AM
Pronounce it however you like. That's rule #1.

True. People from different parts of the world (or sometimes even different parts of the same country) frequently pronounce the same word in astonishingly differing ways, even if they're technically speaking the same language. So don't sweat the details.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 05:05 AM
Ah, apologies... it's the place that's widely pronounced "Wooster".

Of course where I come from the sauce is pronounced "Wooster sauce" anyway... we totally ignore the 'shire' because Worcester isn't a shire and we think it's silly, I guess?

Sereg
2010-07-11, 06:58 AM
It's because of these kind of problems that I did this.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-11, 07:31 AM
IPA completely sacrificed ease of use for accuracy & comprehensiveness.

Umm, no it didn't. It's simply a different alphabet, like Greek or Arabic. If you know what each letter stands for, it's much easier to read than English, which can have three different pronunciations for three different words spelled exactly the same.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 07:38 AM
Then it really should have made up new symbols rather than using symbols from several different alphabets. It's confusing for new readers.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-11, 07:39 AM
It's confusing for new readers.

So is Traditional Chinese. Or Arabic.

EDIT: Or English, for that matter.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 07:48 AM
IPA is not a language that can be learned from birth and be completely intuitive, though.

Because it's not a language. It's an alphabet.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-11, 07:55 AM
So are Traditional Chinese and Arabic. Arabic also is the name of a language, but Traditional Chinese is not. It is only an alphabet. It's only because people use it all the time that it's not confusing to them. IPA is an alphabet just like any other. It's certainly more intuitive than the Latin variant English uses (to non-native speakers, at least).

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 07:56 AM
Traditional Chinese is an alphabet that is linked to a language, which people learn as they learn the language.

IPA is not.

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 07:56 AM
IPA is not a language that can be learned from birth and be completely intuitive, though.

Because it's not a language. It's an alphabet.

As Rose Dragon said (edit: and repeated while I was typing this): So is Traditional Chinese. Or Arabic. Or English, for that matter.

If you were learning Polish, or Portuguese, or Icelandic, or Vietnamese, or any other language written with a modified Latin alphabet, would you complain that they should have just invented a whole new alphabet instead of assigning different sounds to those letters than English has? That's remarkably ethnocentric. Just because it's different from your language that doesn't mean it's wrong. There's a stronger (but still absurd) case for saying that you should be required to use the alphabet with the same sound values that the Romans used or make your own alphabet from scratch.

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 08:11 AM
Traditional Chinese is an alphabet that is linked to a language, which people learn as they learn the language.

IPA is not.

Chinese is a writing system (not technically an alphabet) linked to many different languages. Some Chinese languages are written in Arabic or Cyrillic. Some non-Chinese languages are written in Chinese characters. It gets around a lot like the Latin alphabet, but you just don't encounter it as often in your neighborhood.

Most alphabets are only designed to represent some sounds, because they are invented for use with a limited number of languages and no language uses every sound that humans can make. IPA was developed to represent every human sound so it can be used to represent every language in a neutral way. There are more symbols, but it isn't any harder to reference them than the pronunciation symbols in an English dictionary like the OED. You don't need to memorize all of them when you can look at the chart whenever you need to check the pronunciation of a word. You don't need to learn to read whole texts in it.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 08:15 AM
*sighs*

My point is that people find IPA confusing because they don't learn it when their brains are plastic and easily molded (that is, when they're children). And if they learned some other language which uses some of the same characters, it can be confusing and unintuitive.

I'm sure if someone grew up writing IPA they'd find it completely intuitive.

So when people are all "Jesus, just use English, it's easier to understand!" what they really mean is "It's the writing system I grew up using and I understand it intuitively!".

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 08:30 AM
*sighs*

My points is that people find IPA confusing because they don't learn it when their brains are plastic and easily molded (that is, when they're children).


Children can learn to speak and understand languages easily but they have a hard time with literacy. Humans are hardwired for spoken language, but not for writing. Literacy is actually really hard but it's so useful that it's worth putting in the effort to learn it. I guess monolingual people might be more resistant just because of "one-true-wayism": "The alphabet I already learned is good enough for all the words I know, so it should be good enough for anyone."

Maroon
2010-07-11, 08:38 AM
Then it really should have made up new symbols rather than using symbols from several different alphabets. It's confusing for new readers.
Technically, english is using symbols of several different alphabets. You might as well write IPA in binary if you want them to make up new symbols, because at least now some people can infer the meaning of the symbols.

I always pronounce it sidereal and aasimar and autochthon. Because I'm dutch and I can pronounce these things naturally. Except 'th', which takes a little effort* (a lot of dutch people pronounce it as 't' or 'f'). The greek autochthon, for example, breaks down into auto and toch and toon, which are all dutch words and pronounced as written (by dutch people).

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" is similarly pronounced "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn". It's very straightforward.

I don't know why you wouldn't know how to pronounce sidereal, though. Isn't that one of your words?

*English in general gives us a run for our money because it is not a phonetic language; yu don't pronounc haf the lettes yu wit. You just guess, really. :smalltongue:

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 08:38 AM
An illiterate child still has an easier time learning to write than an illiterate adult, because children are simply better at learning than adults are. It's how our brains work.

English is, admittedly, one of the worst languages in the world. Thank God I was born in England, so I learned it as a kid. I'd never be able to learn it now, I'm not that good at languages.

Sometimes I like to think a writing reform would be good, but then whenever I try to write phonetically the literacy geek in me tries to give me a stroke.

Eldan
2010-07-11, 08:48 AM
I always pronounce it sidereal and aasimar and autochthon. Because I'm dutch and I can pronounce these things naturally.
*English in general gives us a run for our money because it is not a phonetic language; yu don't pronounc haf the lettes yu wit. You just guess, really. :smalltongue:

Bah. You dutch people still have strange pronunciations. "G" and "oe" aren't pronounced that way, I tell you!

Sir_Elderberry
2010-07-11, 09:34 AM
English is, admittedly, one of the worst languages in the world. Thank God I was born in England, so I learned it as a kid. I'd never be able to learn it now, I'm not that good at languages.

This is a popular meme among English speaker. It's really not true. English pronunciation is all messed up, yes, but the language itself is fairly simple. We don't have to modify most of our verbs for tense/mood/person like Spanish, we don't have to worry about gender or declension for nouns, and our writing system at least tries to be phonetic, as opposed to Japanese. Yeah, it's got weird rules and exceptions, but you find those in every language. There was an interesting Economist article about the "hardest language" but it seems to have disappeared behind their paywall.

SlyGuyMcFly
2010-07-11, 09:36 AM
English is, admittedly, one of the worst languages in the world. Thank God I was born in England, so I learned it as a kid. I'd never be able to learn it now, I'm not that good at languages.


In fairness, the grammar is quite easy.

Oh, and the easiest pronounciation for worcestershire sauce? lee-an-PEH-rins. You're welcome.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 09:42 AM
This is a popular meme among English speaker. It's really not true. English pronunciation is all messed up, yes, but the language itself is fairly simple. We don't have to modify most of our verbs for tense/mood/person like Spanish, we don't have to worry about gender or declension for nouns, and our writing system at least tries to be phonetic, as opposed to Japanese.

As opposed to the language with two whole writing systems that are entirely phonetic, in which non-phonetic characters don't have to actually be used and are often given superscript phonetic characters to show how they're pronounced when written down?

You don't say.

Zeta Kai
2010-07-11, 09:54 AM
It's because of these kind of problems that I did this.

That's a very handy guide, Sereg. I'm glad that you shared it (so I can yoink it :smallwink:).

And I'm with Yuki on this one. IPA is patently non-intuitive, considering that it uses an alphabet that is tied to zero languages, but takes symbols from several unrelated tongues. This makes it a hodgepodge of runic weirdness that takes time & effort for all readers to understand, but it is only used in the context of explaining how to pronounce something. If you don't know how to pronounce something, then why explain it using a system that nobody is familiar with, requiring every reader to learn the cipher so that they can understand the explanation. It's an added layer of learning, which is inefficient to say the least. It's like a dictionary: an entry in the dictionary is supposed to succinctly explain what a particular word means; if an entry had complicated words that required the reader to look up the meanings of those concepts, then the entry has failed to convey the meaning. IPA is a guide that requires every reader to understand & internalize the guide to the guide. I wanted THIS, but all I got was ðɪs, & that's the rpoblem with the IPA: it can't do what you need it to do until you go do a lot of other stuff first.

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 09:56 AM
English is, admittedly, one of the worst languages in the world.

For difficulty of learning it as a second language, English is in the middle. It's not one of the most difficult or one of the easiest. The grammar's not too bad: only three tenses and four aspects so there are only a dozen combinations to learn for conjugations. Only the pronouns use case (e.g. "he", "him", and "his" are separate words) but there are only a handful of pronouns. The vocabulary is huge, but in actual practice most of it isn't used.

For difficulty of literacy, I think Bhutanese and Khmer rank near the top of the list for languages with alphabets. Khmer has the world's biggest alphabet and most of the letters look the same. It's written with no spaces between words (there's a space between sentences but each sentence is one long string of letters). Bhutanese is written with the Tibetan alphabet and everything is spelled phonetically according to the pronunciation of several centuries ago. None of the words are pronounced remotely the same way today so the spellings all need to be memorized word by word.

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 10:11 AM
IPA is a guide that requires every reader to understand & internalize the guide to the guide. I wanted THIS, but all I got was ðɪs, & that's the rpoblem with the IPA: it can't do what you need it to do until you go do a lot of other stuff first.

What you guys are failing to get is that IPA is the easy way. I've seen explanations of the pronunciations of letters in foreign languages that compared them to English sounds. When I heard people speaking those languages, the sounds didn't match the written guide because the written guide used English examples from a different dialect than mine. My guidebook said "'a' is pronounced as in the English word 'hat'" but people weren't pronouncing it the way I pronounce the "a" in "hat". They were pronouncing it the way a BBC newsreader using an RP accent would pronounce "hat". In IPA, each symbol has only one sound and it doesn't vary according to where you live or what your native dialect is.

You want "THIS" but how do you know the person saying "It's pronounced like 'THIS'" actually pronounces "THIS" the same way you do? Maybe if you heard them say "THIS" in person, you would spell it "DIS" or "TEEZ" or "ZIS". Have you ever seen the words "uhm" and "erm" used to represent hesitation on an internet forum? The first one is typically used by Americans and the second is used by British or Commonwealth posters. They're the same sound. IPA doesn't have that problem because while "THIS" varies from one accent to another, ðɪs is the same sound for everyone.

Gensh
2010-07-11, 11:03 AM
You want "THIS" but how do you know the person saying "It's pronounced like 'THIS'" actually pronounces "THIS" the same way you do? Maybe if you heard them say "THIS" in person, you would spell it "DIS" or "TEEZ" or "ZIS". Have you ever seen the words "uhm" and "erm" used to represent hesitation on an internet forum? The first one is typically used by Americans and the second is used by British or Commonwealth posters. They're the same sound. IPA doesn't have that problem because while "THIS" varies from one accent to another, ðɪs is the same sound for everyone.

Actually, I use both "um" and "erm," depending on the context of the conversation and as far as I know, so does everyone else I speak with on a daily basis. I don't know about in Britain, but as far as I'm concerned, they're largely different in both sound and in the nuances for use. With your example of "this," those are all obvious mispronunciations as a result of the speaker having a native language with a markedly different pronunciation (or an idiot; there are a lot of redneck "gangstas" where I live). IPA may solve this theoretically, but if those same individuals absolutely cannot pronounce the correct sound, then they will inevitably confuse another stranger to the language by insisting that their way is right, even if that is not their intention. Personally, I tend to default back to the neo-classical Latin pronunciation (because actual Latin didn't always follow it's own rules), since it's use is widespread in European countries and romanized Japanese assumes it. Of course, then you've got all those people who assume you're using ecclesiastic Latin, so it's not perfect, but what are you going to do?:smallbiggrin:

Tiki Snakes
2010-07-11, 11:05 AM
Oh, sure, I'm willing to believe IPA is all manner of useful and easy to learn. Not going to debate that, oh no.
But then, I'm sure you could say the same of Esperanto.

In the meantime, "aw-tok-thuhn" did the job nicely.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 11:06 AM
But that doesn't really matter when we're explaining how the word "Sidereal" is pronounced, because "Sidereal" is an English word and will vary by dialect. So we tell people "It's pronounced like 'Sid er eel'" (or whatever) and they'll pronounce it the way they would in their own dialect.

'Kay? 'Kay.

Although I do agree that IPA is all sorts of useful and people should really learn it. But busting it out on the Internet isn't very helpful, because not everyone on the Internet is a qualified linguist.

Ormur
2010-07-11, 11:40 AM
Compared to the relative intuitiveness of my native language English spelling seems almost completely random. I just learned how the words look and there are some patterns I've subconsciously noted, probably because so many words are based on the same Latin or Greek roots. It's probably more useful to know those languages when learning to write English than another Germanic language like English supposedly is. It wasn't actually that hard since I have good visual memory and started reading English pretty early.

In other ways English is very easy. It has hardly any grammar to speak of. It's almost enough to just learn the vocabulary to speak and write it whereas in my native language you'd have to learn many different forms of the same word, how many depending on if it's a noun, adjective or a verb, as well as when and where to use what form.

senrath
2010-07-11, 11:42 AM
The main problem with English is that every rule has at least one exception, and many have a lot more than that.

Tiki Snakes
2010-07-11, 11:46 AM
Compared to the relative intuitiveness of my native language English spelling seems almost completely random. I just learned how the words look and there are some patterns I've subconsciously noted, probably because so many words are based on the same Latin or Greek roots. It's probably more useful to know those languages when learning to write English than another Germanic language like English supposedly is. It wasn't actually that hard since I have good visual memory and started reading English pretty early.

In other ways English is very easy. It has hardly any grammar to speak of. It's almost enough to just learn the vocabulary to speak and write it whereas in my native language you'd have to learn many different forms of the same word, how many depending on if it's a noun, adjective or a verb, as well as when and where to use what form.

There's also the benefit that if you are a native, especially round our way, you can do well bad things to the language and it still works proper good.

Our gaming group currently contains about 6 or so such locals, with occaisionally cavalier attitudes to the thing, and one south african whose mother was an English Teacher. Oh the jollies we have. It helps that Puns are her Kryptonite, too. Well, long as you can stay out of Arms reach and keep your eye on the exits.

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 11:47 AM
The main problem with English is that every rule has at least one exception, and many have a lot more than that.

That's true for every language that isn't dead or artificial.

senrath
2010-07-11, 11:50 AM
That's true for every language that isn't dead or artificial.

And that's not a problem?

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 11:54 AM
And that's not a problem?

You can create a language with no exceptions. If it is used by people as a real functioning language, they will naturally introduce irregularities and exceptions. Completely "regular" languages are not natural for us.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 11:55 AM
Compared to the relative intuitiveness of my native language English spelling seems almost completely random. I just learned how the words look and there are some patterns I've subconsciously noted, probably because so many words are based on the same Latin or Greek roots. It's probably more useful to know those languages when learning to write English than another Germanic language like English supposedly is. It wasn't actually that hard since I have good visual memory and started reading English pretty early.

In other ways English is very easy. It has hardly any grammar to speak of. It's almost enough to just learn the vocabulary to speak and write it whereas in my native language you'd have to learn many different forms of the same word, how many depending on if it's a noun, adjective or a verb, as well as when and where to use what form.

English is Germanic - in that it's descended from the same languages as other Germanic languages and it has similar grammar in some places.

And most of the 'basic' words are very similar. It's mainly nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that are Latin and Greek (with a few Germanic ones for kicks).

Then there's the fact that, while most words don't have different forms (the only real exceptions being verbs), we still have something like a million different words. While this is great for poetry, it means even native speakers are caught out by totally new words.

Ormur
2010-07-11, 12:12 PM
Sure there are a few words I recognise instantly as similar to my own Germanic native language, Icelandic, which has retained almost exclusively Germanic roots. The Germanic part of the English language however seems to have been relegated to the most basic and often vulgar words. It may have helped me a lot more than I know to speak a Germanic native language in learning English but for all the fancy academic words I'd use in a discussion like this one or in a thesis it's like you said. Verbs, adjectives and adverbs are a pretty big part of the language, especially since English is so vocabulary oriented.

That's not so bad since I'd argue it's easier to learn a new word than how to form a grammatically correct sentence with a million different forms. You can also get by with a smaller vocabulary whereas in my native language you're going to use every word improperly if you don't know the forms. In Icelandic even native speaker screw up basic grammar surprisingly often.


Back to English pronunciation, I don't like to slow down my reading for complicated names so I just skip over them and pronounce them however they look like at a glance. Someone on a forum used the name "Chthonic" and I'd pronounced it as it looks like: "kth-onic". Then just add auto behind it for the Exalted primordial.

Another name is the core god of travel in D&D which I don't even bother to read out letter for letter. I just glance at it and pronounce it as "phar-lan-igan", looks like an Irish name.

lsfreak
2010-07-11, 12:12 PM
I'd say the problem of English isn't the spoken language, but the orthography. The language itself doesn't have anything particularly difficult about it, it's just that to learn it the vast majority of people will combine speaking with reading/writing.

IPA isn't too difficult to learn, not much more difficult than learning to match sounds to symbols with Greek or Cyrillic or Quenya, just because you can. Hardest part for me was vowels, since there's so many different English dialects/accents that it can be hard to pick out exactly how a 'base' vowel is supposed to be pronounced. Once you have it down, though, it's infinitely better than what basically amounts to lolcat-speech that people always try and use.

Eldan
2010-07-11, 12:15 PM
Huh. I always pronouced the core god of travel as Far-lang. Both "a"s pronouced as the one in the english word "far".

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 12:50 PM
English is Germanic - in that it's descended from the same languages as other Germanic languages and it has similar grammar in some places.

And most of the 'basic' words are very similar. It's mainly nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that are Latin and Greek (with a few Germanic ones for kicks).

Then there's the fact that, while most words don't have different forms (the only real exceptions being verbs), we still have something like a million different words. While this is great for poetry, it means even native speakers are caught out by totally new words.

It's really hard to avoid Latin and Greek words in English. In many cases, we no longer have any Germanic or Norse alternatives. Just for illustrative purposes, this is what this post looks like with no Latin or Greek derived words (except "Latin" and "Greek"):

English is Germanic - in that it's born from the same speech as other Germanic speech and it has some of the same laws.

And most of the 'groundwork' words are much the same. It's mostly words for things and deeds and words that we yoke to them that are Latin and Greek (with a few Germanic ones for kicks).

Then there's the truth that, while most words have one shape (only words for deeds are not the same), we still have something like a thousand thousand other words. While this is great for song, it means even speakers born to this speech are caught out by thoroughly new words.

Eldan
2010-07-11, 12:52 PM
And then, of course, there are even words in german which are actually latin, but so old that non-linguists would swear that they aren't. So, really, languages have been mixing for thousands of years.

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 01:03 PM
Germanic and German aren't the same thing. English's Germanic heritage comes from Old Friesian which is one of many Germanic languages. There's an interesting video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeC1yAaWG34) where Eddie Izzard goes to Friesland and speaks Old English to a Friesian farmer and the farmer can understand him.

Eldan
2010-07-11, 01:14 PM
Well, I'm from switzerland (high german/alemannic) and I understood about half of what he said... it's not as close, apparently, but at least the words for "brown", "cow" and "buy" where the same as those used around here.
"I am" was just about the same it is here, as well.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 01:14 PM
German, however, is Germanic, and has Latin words. I expect most Germanic languages from the continent have a few - the Roman Empire was pretty big.

Icelandic is unlikely to have as many. Did the Romans ever get to Iceland?

Edit: That Eddie Izzard "Brown Cow" thing is quite cool. This is something I envy about people who speak Romantic languages - they can make themselves understood quite well in other countries with Romanic languages, but we English with our really weird Germanic are out of luck.

Well, except for the fact that everyone in Europe (and for that matter most of the planet) speaks some English.

Xuc Xac
2010-07-11, 01:23 PM
German, however, is Germanic, and has Latin words. I expect most Germanic languages from the continent have a few - the Roman Empire was pretty big.

Icelandic is unlikely to have as many. Did the Romans ever get to Iceland?


They didn't have to. The Icelanders were fairly capable of getting around, especially when they felt the urge to go a-viking.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-11, 01:52 PM
I propose "to vike" as an official verb. All in favour?

Ormur
2010-07-11, 01:52 PM
Iceland wasn't populated until 400 years after the fall of the Roman Empire but there are some disputed Irish, Roman and even Greek accounts of an island that could possibly be Iceland.

The principal Latin influence on old Icelandic was from the church after the year 1000. Words like "prestur" and basically everything with a "p" in it.

Since them most of the influence has been from Danish, which was in turn influenced by German. Then in the last century we've adopted loan-words from English. But on the whole, even in recent time, there has been comparatively little outside influence on Icelandic. We still invent new words by combining and changing old Icelandic stems.

It's funny that it were Normans, essentially Vikings, that were responsible for so much of the Latin influence (via France) on Old English, which was very similar to Icelandic before that (but it wasn't a separate language back then).

Sereg
2010-07-12, 03:40 AM
That's a very handy guide, Sereg. I'm glad that you shared it (so I can yoink it :smallwink:).

Thank you. I'd be honoured.