Pronunciation guide

[td_klondike]

I feel kind of silly saying this, especially since there's no good way to help, but I really wish I knew how to pronounce some of the new words I've learned from this mod.  From my brynvarrin lasbomadur to Wroclaw.  I've seen new letters, new punctuation on familiar letters, and I have no idea what they mean.  Because I am what I am, I'd really like to know what they're supposed to sound like;  I'm tired of seeing Wroclaw and pronouncing it in my head "Rocklaw".  I'm pretty sure that's not how it's supposed to be pronounced, but some of these languages are completely outside my experience.

So, to any of you native speakers of some of these languages, any possibility you could give people like me some idea of what the words and names of your mother tongue are supposed to sound like?

 

[Mooncabbage]

I once attacked Row-Claw castle just because I thought it had a cool name ^^

 

[Aliendra]

I'm Polish. And wikipedia is your friend

Pronunciation of the city names is:
Poznań - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Pl-Pozna%C5%84.ogg

Kraków- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Pl-Krak%C3%B3w.ogg

Wrocław - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Wroclaw.ogg

Gdańsk- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Pl-Gda%C5%84sk.ogg

Hope it helps! ^^

Ohh and "Rycerz" means roughly Knight!

 

[Alkiviades]

When they add Byzantium, I'll be more than happy to help you with Greek names and nomenclature 

 

[Sidus Preclarum]

Wrocław - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Wroclaw.ogg

Well, learnt something there...

 

[othr]

The english language mangles the way in which latin letters are pronounced!

W = V, I believe in every language, that uses the latin script, other than English.

 

[Sidus Preclarum]

Hmmm, the final W definetely sounds like a f...

 

[othr]

True enough, that's how the language evolved though.  It's much easier to say 'f' for the last letter than 'v', I assume they did say 'v' a long time ago.

 

[td_klondike]

I'm Polish. And wikipedia is your friend

Pronunciation of the city names is:
Poznań - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Pl-Pozna%C5%84.ogg

Kraków- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Pl-Krak%C3%B3w.ogg

Wrocław - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Wroclaw.ogg

Gdańsk- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Pl-Gda%C5%84sk.ogg

Hope it helps! ^^

Ohh and "Rycerz" means roughly Knight!

You, sir, are a star!  "Rocklaw" really wasn't quite there, was it?  So every time I see "ń" it should be pronounced kind of like "gn" in french or the spanish "~" over the n?  And "cl" actually makes a "tsw" sound.  Never saw that coming.

Does anybody know about Paulreyndurr?  Or should I read that as Daulreyndurr?

 

[othr]

It's not a p, it's 'th' I believe, the letter is called 'thorn'.  But that's all I know and it could be wrong

the letter 'c' is often pronounced as 'ts', like in Vrotslaf.

ł - is pronounced like the English 'w', sort of.
ń - is a soft n, like French 'gn' or Spanish n with the squiggly above

then some languages use things like 'rz' - two letters, one sound 'zh', 'ch' - 'h', 'sz' - 'sh' etc.

 

[Amundr]

It's not a p, it's 'th' I believe, the letter is called 'thorn'.  But that's all I know and it could be wrong

Its correct a  þ is pronounced like th in english thing, its phoneme is /θ/.
The ð in Lásbogamaður(crossbowman) has the phoneme /ð/ and is pronounced dh like the th in this.
The á in the same is pronounced like augh in american caught its phoneme is /ɒː/.
 
Im not any kind of expert and there's no native speaker of the old norse languages(the closest is icelandic i think) but aule knows the most of us so maby he will comment.

 

[Diavolo]

oh, so Lasbogamathur is pronounced Låsbogamathur. So crossbow is Låsboga = lock bow? 

I remember we had to read this book in norse-ish in highschool. "Gunnlaug Ormstunge" if anyone has read it

 

[Amundr]

oh, so Lasbogamathur is pronounced Låsbogamathur. So crossbow is Låsboga = lock bow? 

Låsbogamadhur in contemporary norwegian i think, but yeah thats my understanding of it.(Aule might crucify me though )
Håkon Håkonssons saga for instance is Hákon Saga Hákonarson.

 

[Aliendra]

It's not a p, it's 'th' I believe, the letter is called 'thorn'.  But that's all I know and it could be wrong

the letter 'c' is often pronounced as 'ts', like in Vrotslaf.

ł - is pronounced like the English 'w', sort of.
ń - is a soft n, like French 'gn' or Spanish n with the squiggly above

then some languages use things like 'rz' - two letters, one sound 'zh', 'ch' - 'h', 'sz' - 'sh' etc.

Thats quite on the spot there Othr... You're polish by any chance? 

 

[othr]

Hmm.  That's not an easy question to answer.  I was born in Poland but didn't live there very long.

 

[td_klondike]

So I'm in some danger of hijacking my own thread here, but with I thought I'd look up Polish composers on the internet to see if I could compare spelling to sounds, and I discovered the Fryderyck Chopin was Polish!  I always thought he was French.  Go figure.

Anyway, my little exercise created more questions than it answered.  I'd like to post a few of them here:

Szczesny

Krzysztof

Ptaszyńska

So the "sz" makes a "sh" sound, but I see other letter combinations repeating themselves, with "rz"and "cz" being the most common.  I'd like to know what sounds these make.  I'm also curious about the accent above the "n" in Ptaszyńska.  I also recognize the name "Krzysztof" as sounding like "shishtoff", but I don't believe I'm correct about the "Krz" making a "sh" sound.

Lastly, anybody out there want to have a go at Gaelic pronunciations?

 

[othr]

Shchesny
Kshyshtof

The thing about the pronounciation here is that someties it's easier to say 'sh' than 'zh', that you just have to learn by heart.  For example 'rzeka' (river) would be 'zheka', however 'krzak' (bush), would be 'kshak'.  There is a rule for this but I'm just not well versed on the subject.

The soft n would be pronounced like the n in cognac

 

[td_klondike]

Got it, so "zh" makes a soft "j" sound except for sometimes, which is good enough for me, and "cz" makes a hard "ch" sound.  And you explained the accent on the "n" in perfect clarity before, I just got mixed up from staring at these names for so long; what I actually meant to post was something like

Różycki

which has an accent over the "z".  Is this another way of writing "zh", or is it something completely different?

 

[othr]

That's the same as 'rz', 'rz' used to be pronounced differently a very, very long time ago but it's still used but both make the same sound.

 

[FrisianDude]

W = V, I believe in every language, that uses the latin script, other than English.

Nozzzzz. In Dutch there's a marked difference (when pronounced correctly. Some twats do say 'v' but that just sounds wrong.)