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Pronunciation Mishap?

Psion
Psion
in Wheel of Time Books

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wow, after really giving it some more thought, i realize that I have been pronouncing some things in ways that dont even make sense reading it... most glaring example for me would have to be Cadsuane... for some reason I always read it, and pronounced it as Cah Sa Dune.

He also said you could not count on the audio books getting it right, since they stopped consulting him mid-way through the first book.

 

Did he now? Did he actually say that or do you simply wish he had.

That is INSULTING.

 

I said he said it. Go look here if you don't believe me.

 

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=23

That is INSULTING.

 

I said he said it. Go look here if you don't believe me.

 

Had you bothered to post that source with your original post, I might not have questioned your seemingly unsubstantiated proclamation. I rarely take anything, anyone, says HERE as gospel.

 

None of it matters anyway, unless like I said, someone claims THEIR pronunciation is more accurate than the audiobooks. Only then does it become an issue.

 

 

 

 

Quick question.  I've had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to appropriatly pronounce.  Amyrlin.

 

is it A-meer-lin?

 

There is no doubt a "Correct" way to say something in WoT which would be how RJ said it.  Yet it's hardly a big deal, heck pronunciation is mostly a socialization thing anyway.  Whether you say Herb or erb or whatever it's all just dialect variation and equally valid.  For manufactured languages it becomes more important, because it was designed with the intent to be pronounced in a certain way.  Still it's up to the reader to decide how accurate they want to be to the writers vision of the world.

Amyrlin ... Ah-mur-lin .. first syllable emphasis. I'm sure that'll get some fire. It's the way the audio is pronounced.

 

 

 

I guess i was just looking at the names from a linguistic standpoint.  I don't know of many Y's in the Old Tongue but I know Nynaeve is supposed to be pronounced "nineave"

 

I don't think that old tongue Y's are supposed to be pronounced as a u, as in "murder"

 

A-my-rlin

 

A-me-rlin

 

I always say "ah-MER-lin." Mostly because I always thought it was a little bit of a reference to Merlin (Merrilin surely is too). That's might be the wrong way to pronounce it though.

Just so.. I guess my "mur" was some bit misleading(meant it to be mur as in murder) or Frankincense and Myrhh... "merlin" is it. Ah-merlin

Amyrlin ... Ah-mur-lin .. first syllable emphasis. I'm sure that'll get some fire. It's the way the audio is pronounced.

 

Could you post a source? ::)

 

:P

Ya know ed?funny ... I could be very snarky. But I'll refrain. If you'd taken time to read you'd notice I did that very thing with the last sentence. I hadn't included anyone in particular in the prior post.

I was just joking, but yea...sorry.

 

 

P.S. You spelled my name wrong. You could just say Ed.

  • 4 weeks later...

"I have said sah-ih-deen and sah-ih-dar, because that is what the glossary to tEotW says. 

But then the other day I was going through the questions of the week, here http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcjspjqg_50gfjzbbdr , and Jordan was all like, "This is how you say all this stuff: sigh-deen and sigh-dar.  "

 

I think I might be able to shed a little light on this aspect.  RJ was born and educated in the state of South Carolina.  Being originally from Virginia myself, then raised in New York, I know more than a little bit about American accents.  For those of you

overseas, you may want to just stop reading now and pronounce them however you want.

 

Someone from the south east US, not including Florida, (who might sound like they are from anywhere) speaks a longer, slower version of Americanized English than someone from the Northeast. I just listened to RJ's 2003 interview on youtube and his accent was not "mushmouth" as it's referred to in the northeast, but you can tell he's from somewhere south of the Mason Dixon line.

 

If someone asked him, in writing the glossary, how do you pronounce this, (Saidin for example) it could be written as either two or three syllables depending on where the person writing the pronunciation was from.  The person writing the google article, possibly hearing RJ say the word SIGH with a southern ear, would have written out the pronunciation differently than someone hearing him say it with a northern ear.

 

To sum up, pronouncing it sah-ih-deen or sigh-deen would both sound almost exactly the same, depending on where in the US you spent your formative years. 

 

 

sigh-deen & sigh-dar. <---> sah-ih-deen & sah-ih-dar. These two examples sound the same when you say them. Unless you make a slightly retarded! ;) stop at the "-ih" part of "Sah-ih-dar/deen"

 

"Sigh" can be pronunced [sa:i] most often it is... so I think RJ might have been a little on the low side when it comes to sophistication when he said it sounded like "sigh-dar"... So, I'd still do like the good book tells us. ;) Sah-ih-dar!! or Sigh-dar!

 

My two cents.

For me it is AM-re-lin. Say-dar Say-din, Mo-Heg-e-din, More-rain, Lo-el, Ale,

Sue-ann, Lee-ann-drin, Nin-a-eve, edge-win (for a long time) now Egg-win,

Gray-in-doll, Sam-ale

A buddy of mine at work is very particular about how everything is supposed to be pronounced.  Early on he was always correcting me... I've since taken the time to try to pronounce things correctly if only to keep discussions flowing smoothly in the office.  Despite all that, he still almost always pronounces Faile as Fail because he thinks she is.  ;)

Sigh-dar and sah-ih-dar are not similar.  They don't even have the same number of syllables.  How can anyone say they are identical?  The pronunciation guide in the glossary is correct.  Jordan's 'drawl' makes the second syllable more subtle than if spoken in a northern accent, but the word is still three syllables, not two.

Oh so you want a stress on the - ih - . WHo really cares. RJ was a Southern Man and therefore probably had a Southern take on the whole thing. I think 'potato - potatoe' - Faile is Fail though. Both in name and character.

Is it just me or does anyone else have to chuckle a little bit when Kate Reading says "Taraboner" about half the time in the audio books?

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