Could The Giant give us a pronounce guide?

[Asfrith]

Well, seems I've been spot on with most names, except Elan. Might be because I'm Norwegian, but I've always pronounced his name EH-lahn.

(And I will continue to do so... :))

[Iuris]

About the -lin in EE-lin (golly, this sounds like assembler...), I think the -lan/ -lin is actually rather mute, like the a in Ian.

[thegnome]

Hi,

as there are no strict pronounciation rules in Engilsh, especially not for names, does anybody of you have an idea how the giant's family name is pronounced correctly? How he pronounces it himself; wants to hear it by others?

Might be easier for me, to promote Oots at my game sessions, without the awkward moment of "...the guy's called Rich B.. Bur, ... well Giant".

[Ayago22]

I had them all right in my head except for Elan as well.
I went with the popular people (Eh-Lahn)

[Gralamin]

HAHA I've been pronucing them all right!
for the record
Pompey is pronouced Pom-pay
fruit pie the sorcerer is pronuced Fruit Pie The Sor-cer-er
Larry Gardener is Lar-e Guard-en-er
Miko Miyazaki I think is Me-co My-a-zak-e (zak rhymes with sock)

[Pensive Pine]

Like most folks, I've been reading Elan as Eh-lahn, but my brain took a shortcut and turned Vaarsuvius into VAR-sis, and I never really realized that until today.

[Beelzebub1111]

I was on the money with all exept Elan. I thought that it sounded more similar to Ellen exept with more of an ahn sound

[Flak_Razorwill]

I use "Meeko" for Miko, and "Mee-yuh-zah-kee" for Miyazaki.

How do you pronounce Pompey? "Pawm-peeh" or "Pawm-pay." The former is closer to the volcano theme, but the latter points to the famous Roman figure.

[Ebon_Drake]

Originally Posted by Flak_Razorwill

How do you pronounce Pompey? *"Pawm-peeh" or "Pawm-pay." *The former is closer to the volcano theme, but the latter points to the famous Roman figure.

hmm, I was taught to pronounce those the other way around, Pompeii as "Pawm-pay" and Pompey as "pawm-peeh." Anyway, I pronounce it the same way as the Roman General as that's how its spelt and would also match with the slightly-off pronounciation of Vaarsuvius.

[gadren]

It cracks me up when people ask an author how names are supposed to be pronounced, then decide they rather just continue to pronounce it their way.

Its like R.A. Salvatore and Drizzt vs. Drizzit.

NOTE: I'm not criticizing or making fun of anyone here, just pointing out something that strikes me as funny.

[colorlessmidnight]

I hate it when you pronounce something one way and then when you look in the pronunciation guide it's different. Luckily it isn't for me.

[pita]

Me and a friend had a competition.
I just figured out i won it.
All thanks to modern people who are more questioning-ful then i am and as such ask someone who knows.

[Allanon]

Ee-Lahn
Dor-uh-khan

[ElfLad]

I was right for all but Zz'd'tri. And even after looking at the pronunciation guide, I'm not entirely sure.

Anybody else find it amusing that the Giant used "boy" and "toy", in that order, to rhyme with Roy?

[Adeptus]

Originally Posted by manscatha

It's so hard not to pronounce elan like the French word... because he *does* have so much elan.

Exactly. I'm surprised to hear Rich say it's not pronounced like the french word for style. I'd still guess that's where the name came from? Actually I'd be pretty shocked to hear id didn't.

Anyway, since Elan has so much of the thing that is his name, I'll keep pronouncing it right it my head. He's a bard afterall, so I bet he can say it right :D

[n11]

Keep in mind, when the Giant posts in non-red, he is just posting as another member of the boards (only posts in red are granted authority), so I surmise those were just his opinions on how he would pronounce them.

I suspect he couldn't care less how you pronounce them, as long as you buy his merchandise. Of course, if it would make you feel better, we could declare that each book, shirt, or mug you purchase entitles you to pronounce one name "wrong". ;D

[Archonic Energy]

i'm sure "ray" would object. ;)

[Neopolis]

Seems like Zz'dtri was the only one I got wrong. I always pronounced it like ssd-TRI. ::)

[wibbly]

EE-lan. Rhymes with tea-can.

My problem with "English pronunciation" is that I'm actually English... Few English people would ever pronounce Elan with a long "a" or an "i" sound as a first, or even second guess.

Since its an American comic, I like to consider the way I pronounce it to be valid when the comic is translated into "real" English :P

[Aereshaa_the_2nd]

I always pronounced them like this:

EE-lan {Bee-Sand}
Z-Z-dree
vAHr-sOOvEE-UHs

[Gus]

Originally Posted by Buzzfloyd

Elan is a French word, and capital letters don't normally take an accent in French, even if they would when written lower case.

Originally Posted by Sothicus

Oh, absolutely... you can pronounce it as "John" for all I really care. We were just talking about pronouniations of their names in general and I was assuming an English translation.

And I agree with you, that the name wouldn't have the accent-au-gauche (er, wait... droit? I forget... been to long) due to the fact that it is a capitalized name.

However, in the English language, we often add that mark to recognize it as a non-English name. Since it didn't have that mark, I assumed the only thing that I could with regards to which language names came from.

in fact, in French, capital letters should be accentuated as lower-case, because accentuation does bear a meaning in the word (in that it differentiates it from the same unaccentuated word, if it exists). however, traditionally, it was tolerated to omit them, but thanks to computers, there is now no more excuse to omit them, and they shouldn't.
as for how they are called:
é is an "accent aigu" (acute accent) and è is an "accent grave" (grave accent).

[Albion]

My version of Elan is HEN-LAMP-NICE. And will so remain ;)

Hen, lamp, nice? How does my mind work?

[LordOfNarf]

i alwary pronounced zz'dtri as zi (long i, like in hit) di(same i sound) tree

[redmind0]

Originally Posted by Gobbo_in_the_Boots

well, for me it was

Xy-con like Xylophone and Convention
Vaarsuvius like Vesuvius and a Dutch-sounding a
Elan like Alan, just the vocal a bit lighter
Haley like Hail-ey
Roy like Royal
Zz'dtri like ZZ like Bee sounds and then d-tri, the d spoken like as it is spelled
Belkar like bell-car
Dorukan like I would pronounce it in German, what would sound like "Doh-ruuh-khan"
that's it from me (*creating posts*)

The best Ive seen

[Soniku]

wow, I say Elans name totally different to everyone else >.> Apart from albion! ;D yeah, Im almost unique... now just to stab albion in the eye...

[twerk_face]

hm.....for me it's

Xycon= ZI (like the letter I) cawn (rymes w/ lawn)

Zz'dtri= zuh (rymes with the U in mUd) DEE (like tree) tree (like....tree ;))

Elan= well, i know someone named elan, and his name is pronounced: uh (rymes with duh) LAWN (rymes with..... lawn ;))

in my mind, elan kinda rymes with baton.

well, thats my opinion. :)

[TinSoldier]

Elan will always be EE lawn to me.

[Borris]

Astonighing. I've been pronouncing every name correctly, except for Zz'dtri and Elan. And English isn't even my first language. For some reason, I think that helped though. I just read the names as a French speaker thinks they would sound like in English. Except for Elan, where I just thought of how it would be pronounced in French but with an English accent. That didn't work so well. As for Zz'dtri, well, I still don't know how to pronounce (or even spell) Drizz't. I have no idea if I wrote that right.

[EllysW]

I'm thinking that the 'i' in the pronunciation of Elan is more of a schwa, really, that indeterminate vowel sound that it's hard to write with any specific letter. At least, that makes sense of it being written 'i.'

Not that I didn't always pronounce it with a short a, rhyming with man, in my own head. Not very graceful that way, though.

[Tolkien_Freak]

Originally Posted by EllysW

I'm thinking that the 'i' in the pronunciation of Elan is more of a schwa, really, that indeterminate vowel sound that it's hard to write with any specific letter. At least, that makes sense of it being written 'i.'

You write it with 'ə'.

For me, these are them:
‘e.lən
‘hei.li
var.’su.vi.əs (or sometimes var.’su.vi.us)
roi
‘dɹ.kɔn
‘bel.kɔɹ
neil
‘sei.bin
ɵɔg
‘zai.kɔn
‘do.ru.kan
‘li.ri.an
sun
‘mi.ko
‘ʃo.dʒo
‘hin.dʒo

oh, and ‘z:.dtri (try that one!)

If you have no experience with IPA, here.