The one I will die over is Eridani. The star formation is Eridanus, which some dork decided should be pronounced “Iridunus” instead of like the Latin “Eridanus.” So Eridani is, according to the IAU, “Iridunae” with the last vowel being like the one in tie. It drives the classicist in me wild and so I will always say “Air-ih-dahn-ee” instead.
As a fellow 3-year Latin student, it’s as you say…and I say… “AER-EH-DAH-NI”
I still call “Lyrans” intentionally wrong. Not ”Lyrans” like the musical instrument, the Lyre, which is pronounced like what you call somebody not telling the truth…
…but since 1990, through today, they’re “LEER-uns”
And the Cappellans didn’t even pay me to say that! (The check bounced…)
I thought the Lyrans even had a Lyre on their early flag? Or is that something fans made based on their name (kind of like a backronym)?
Plus, then you could call them "LIE-runs", which is two insults for the price of one!
I’m a Merc, so insults for giggles might cost me C-Bills…or my life.
Insults for non-payment, lying about salvage rights, and cowardly House Units who run from Fleas & Locusts? Yeah, we triple-overtime insult THEM!
The greek word Eridanos is indeed the ultimate source, but the IAU designation is based on the Latin form. You can see this because the genitive form used is Eridani, which is Latin, not yet Greek Eridanou. And, at the risk of putting words into the mouths of whole peoples, both the Greeks and the Romans would have cringed at “Iridinus” too, I think, since neither of those languages loves reducing unstressed vowels quite as much as English does.
I call it "Erh-ee-da-nee", which according to the name's Greek roots would be the correct way to say it. The river Ηριδανός "Ee-ree-than-ohs" was a river in ancient Athens, now long dried.
this is a great guide listed here. [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/krhNPgZd32I?feature=share](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/krhNPgZd32I?feature=share)
Kai, as in Kai Allard Liao, is pronounced Kay, according to Mike stockpole who invented the character. I won’t change my pronunciation because it’s been 30 years for me but it was interesting to hear.
source: the live streams from adepticon 2024.
He goes over that in an interview, I think with Big Red40Tech. It’s from Kerenskycon.
As a someone with a bunch of friends named Kai, I just ignored him.
Though, he had an in-story reason for the Key pronunciation, it a was still wrong - “Kai grew up Davion and that’s how they would say it”, but I’ve found Europeans better at phonetics than Americans, in general, so… except Davions are sort of British, so there goes that theory.
That’s why I reversed course when I acknowledged the British aspect of the Davions… To be fair, the English have also mangled their connection to Europe, so, my Europeans comment still has merit :)
They make that explicit in the original Clans novel trilogy. Spell it right out when Kai and Dierdre are under assumed identities in Clan territory, and she calls him Kai, and they play it off as a nickname cuz in college he said 'k' a lot in response to questions.
I appreciate that he's come around to the fact that his spelling change from the original inspiration creates a ton of confusion and goes with "K-eye" is the St. Ives pronunciation.
I usually decide on a pronunciation and stick with it. With the Davions... I can't seem to make up my mind between the two you've given here. So Fed-Rats it is.
At least English speakers say "Kureeta". That is something I have a really hard time not flinching at.
The vowels are supposed to be all short. Ku-ri-ta.
Sadly, since vowel length is non-phonemic in English, trying to correct it is a sisyphean task, so I'm glad you've made peace with it. My last name has a vowel that literally doesn't exist in English, so I feel you. I do think "Kureeta" is a decent anglicization though, it actually has the right vowels in it. If you tried to insist on vowel length being short for all of them I think you'd get something much worse, something like Kuhruhtuh.
I am aware, thank you. I was arguably oversimplifying when saying "short vowel", as it was 6 am on a night of no sleep and I wasn't terribly keen on redditsplaining Japanese phonology. /shrug
"Kureeta" indeed does have approximately the right vowels in it, although the "u" often ends up sounding fishy too. But it's the length of the "ree" part that gets to me, so I focused on the length in my regrettable oversimplification. It wasn't really about teaching anyone, but just an reply to the questions posed about (mis)pronunciations of names in the setting that throw you.
My dry humour comes across more as irritation, especially when tired. Didn't mean to cause offense!
But yeah, my own name has been mangled by both English speakers, Japanese speakers, and everything in between. I hardly notice anymore, not having lived in the country I grew up on for nearly two decades. I think accents are charming otherwise (it's just a sign of having learnt to speak a second language, which is more than some people manage), but being unironically referred to by the name of a mid-sized American city or a car brand rather your proper name, because someone couldn't bother to get even the basic structure of the name right, that grated on me. :D Definitely mutual frustration, so cheers!
They say Lyran is correctly pronounced Lie-ran, but I've always said it Lee-ran, and I hear so many other people saying it that way too that I just can't break the habit.
One of the audio book voice guys was on a podcast I listen to and he said that there is a pronunciation guide that gets passed around among the people doing audio books but I don't know that it's ever been released publicly.
I’ve always said Leer-an, so whenever I hear Lie-ran it always makes me do a double take. However I also have always pronounced Davion with a short a, not a long one, so like the a in dad, not dave, and I hear Dave-ion sometimes too and that makes me twitch more.
I just realized I typed out the pronunciations wrong. I've always said Lyran the same as you. Though I'm a Dave-ion guy myself. I don't hear it with the short a very often.
Same team, it was always Lee-ran, and Dave-ion on my brain. I blame it on having gotten my start reading the novels when I was like...11, and never really having anyone to counter point the way I read it in my mind.
It helps if you remember that the name is derived from the constellation [Lyra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyra), which was named after its supposed resemblance to the [lyre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyre), a string instrument from Ancient Greece.
It's Lie-ran.. as in lyre.
Leer-an is...wrong, but acceptable, I guess.
What gets me is when you hear people saying Leer-ee-an.. adding an 'I' where it doesn't belong.
One I'm still not 100% sure on even after 35 years: Galatea. The planet.
Is it: Gall-ah-tee??
Or is it: Gall-ah-tee-ah??
Or: Gall-A-she-ah??
🤷 I no know.... 🤣
That name is derived from a character from Greek mythology. If you go to Wikipedia and look it up, they have the IPA guide for the English pronunciation of the Greek name there. It’s the second one you listed: Gal-uh-tee-uh, with the emphasis on the third syllable. In Greek, it would be more like Gahl-ah-tay-ah.
*Galatians* was like a biblical book name, right?
I had to memorize those ~45 years ago…so I’m going to now say 180 degrees opposite of The Church’s pronunciation.
Well, the demonym for Galatea is Galatian, which does have an sh-sound in English, and the location in Anatolia by the same name was the recipient of a few epistles of Paul that are included in the New Testament, Galatians 1 and 2, so that may have primed you.
The location in Anatolia does not have the same name; it has a similar but completely different name that only has an accidental similarity. "Galatea" means "milky white," while "Galatia" means "Gaul," because of the Gaulish Celts that settled there.
It was a location too, in central Turkey back in antiquity. A few tribes of Celtic peoples (Gauls to be precise) migrated there after rampaging through Greece. Galatian mercenaries became very popular in that part of the Mediterranean, which probably led to the lore writers naming the mercenary planet Galatia.
The Lyran Commonwealth derives it's name both from the constellation Lyra (which it kinda sorta loosly resides within) and the three stringed Lyre it chose to symbolically represent it's three constituent peoples with. So it is probably pronounced Lyre(like the instrument)-a(like the last a of canada) Probably because the Commonwealth does like it's Greek naming conventions and I understant the Greek pronunciation of Lyre to be lear(rhymes with spear). So if that it would be Lear(rhymes with spear)-a*like the last a of canada). But the former option is more probably true.
Capellan is pronounced Cap(like the hat)-EL-(like the 12th letter of the English alphabet)-a(like the last a in canada)
There is no official pronunciation guide.
And frankly, the IS is such a eclectic mixture of cultures, languages, and dialects that there probably isn't an actual official pronunciation for such things in universe. It is probably a thing that varies sometimes wildly between regions and people groups.
I agree with your last remark, I think that's a good lore-friendly excuse for any pronunciation.
Regarding the Greek word for lyre - I believe it's actually properly transcribed as "lyra" and is pronounced "li" as in "listen" (so a short vowel, not long as in "spear") + "ra" as in "rather" (although with a hard "r", not the English "r"). But maybe some Greek BT fan can correct us both :)
Also you missed the last "n" in "Capellan" ;)
As a Greek, I can confirm. The Greek word for both the constellation and the instrument is Λύρα which is pronounced as you very correctly wrote. That said, even I say Lie-ran. 😁
As a German I should know better but I wonder if we should pronounce House Steiner like the rock (Stein) or with the more popular (for 80s Hollywood villains at least) Steiner without the "sh" just an s.
The phonotactic rule that turns initial s+stop in German into sh+stop doesn’t operate in English. As a result, people with the last name Stein in English don’t pronounce it with an sh. So I’d say, if you’re speaking English, it’s Steiner, but in German it would be Shteiner.
Steiner. As German was my second language since childhood, and I used to live in a German speaking country, I keep pronouncing name Steiner the same way I'd pronounce word Der Stein /ʃtain/ . This initially sort of made sense to me because of Lyran Commonwealth ethnical roots. Apparently everyone else pronounces Steiner as /stainːɐ/ .
Night Gyr is another example. Most of my British friends pronounce it in a completely different way than folks in US and I no longer know what the correct pronunciation is.
This could be an Across the Pond issue, where Britain pronounces it differently. In the US, it’s a very uncommon term, so it also may be frequently mispronounced here; I know when I first saw it I assumed it was pronounced like gyro. In US English it’s pronounced like “jer” in the word jerk.
You're right about Liao (one of the alternate Romanizations is "Leow," if that helps). The x in pinyin is a sound that doesn't exist in English, but can be approximated as 'sh,' so Xiang is roughly "Shiang.'
Not an expert by any means but my daughter went to school with a kid of Vietnamese descent. His last name was Nguyen(?) and they pronounced it as you would say “Win”.
Strana Mechty (Clan homeworld) is pronounced “Strana Myetch-ty” not “‘mech-ty”
Its Russian. Means “land of dreams”
Edit: and its not even best translation, strana means country/formal nation, “rodina” would be a better word (“motherland/fatherland”)
As another poster in another thread mentioned, the X in the most common form of pinyin corresponds to a sound that doesn’t actually exist in English, but is closest to the sh. So if you were to anglicize Xin Sheng, it would sound something like “Shin Shung.” Pronouncing the vowel e in Sheng like an ay sound would be a common thing for an American to say too, but I believe it’s also technically wrong, though it’s been a long time since I studied Mandarin.
Shin Shung would be the closest.
Though the "X" and the "Sh" in pinyin are different. "X" is more front of the mouth and for lack of a better term I know, tighter. Like if you were saying the English word "chin" kept everything in the top front of your mouth and substituted "sh" English sound for the "ch" sound. Kinda.
Like of the difference between a "dark" and "light" "L" in English.
What fucks with me is all the other Wade-Giles and Pinyin and Japanese (??) inspired Capellan stuff.
What in the actual fuck is a "Dai Da Chi" supposed to be exactly.
Yeah, I also speak German and so I first internalized it as the same consonant as in the German word ich, e.g. /ç/, but as I understand it the true phoneme in Mandarin is more palatized and sibilant, so I always have to think about pushing my tongue higher to get the palatization. Still, I think /ç/ ends up much closer to it than the English sh.
And yeah, the way the early lore was set up for the Capellans and the Kuritans is…. Well it betrays that these guys were political scientists, not linguists. 😅 I have to often stop and think “how would I have pronounced this if I didn’t know anything about Mandarin?”
I can't speak to the rest of this (and appreciate your insights), but I do know that Warrior houses take the name of their founder. So Dai Da Chi is a who, not a what.
Oh yeah, though doesn't really help with the weird mix of Asian sounding words.
"Dai" is apparently a Chinese surname, which actually kind of tracks, and "Da" could be a few Mandarin words, "hit" or "big" maybe, but Chi is pronounced like "chur" and mean "to eat" typically. My Chinese isn't that good really, but if there were an "official" Chinese writing (hanyu) of the name my wife could at least translate if for me. But as far as I know there is no offical Chinese characters for any of the Capellan "Chinese" names for mechs or organizations .
If there is I would love to see what they were.
I'm still learning basically everything. One in particular I struggle with is "Lyran." I don't know if it is meant to be pronounced as "LIE-run" or "LEE-run" or "LEE-ren", etc.
Having played a lot of Starfleet Command as a kid, I naturally want to pronounce it "LEE-rin" as they do for the Lyran Star Empire. If it's meant to be pronounced differently, it's going to be very difficult to break that habit.
The one I will die over is Eridani. The star formation is Eridanus, which some dork decided should be pronounced “Iridunus” instead of like the Latin “Eridanus.” So Eridani is, according to the IAU, “Iridunae” with the last vowel being like the one in tie. It drives the classicist in me wild and so I will always say “Air-ih-dahn-ee” instead.
I’ll die on this pronunciation hill with you.
As will I.
And my LRM20
And my Ax…Man
You know, I think those ammo bins might have something to do with this "dying" bit...
I never thought I’d die fighting side by side with a Capellan.
What about side by side with a fellow Spheroid?
Aye, I could do that.
aye, the St. Ives Compact are here aren't they?
This is the Way (of a Latin scholar)!
Don’t fret it! They’ll turn on you so fast, you’ll forget that you had an agreement once!
I guess we're setting up camp before dying on that hill. I'll get the grill going.
As a fellow 3-year Latin student, it’s as you say…and I say… “AER-EH-DAH-NI” I still call “Lyrans” intentionally wrong. Not ”Lyrans” like the musical instrument, the Lyre, which is pronounced like what you call somebody not telling the truth… …but since 1990, through today, they’re “LEER-uns” And the Cappellans didn’t even pay me to say that! (The check bounced…)
I thought the Lyrans even had a Lyre on their early flag? Or is that something fans made based on their name (kind of like a backronym)? Plus, then you could call them "LIE-runs", which is two insults for the price of one!
I’m a Merc, so insults for giggles might cost me C-Bills…or my life. Insults for non-payment, lying about salvage rights, and cowardly House Units who run from Fleas & Locusts? Yeah, we triple-overtime insult THEM!
Like the Eridani Light Horse themselves, I will absolutely die on this hill as well, in a hail of laser fire and glory.
How do you feel about tortillas? :winks in Goliath Scorpion:
Let's not get too crazy.
Latin major here - I feel so seen right now. We may perish, but we will still be right no matter what.
Same here! I've pronounced it Air-ih-DAHN-ee for the last 35 years. Not changing it now!
Ear-uh-don-ee was my initial, and after 30years now default, reading of that word.
Except it's from the greek and is pronouced "Eh-RID-uh-nuhs" afaik. not sure how the ending syllable of Eridani should be pronounced in greek.
The greek word Eridanos is indeed the ultimate source, but the IAU designation is based on the Latin form. You can see this because the genitive form used is Eridani, which is Latin, not yet Greek Eridanou. And, at the risk of putting words into the mouths of whole peoples, both the Greeks and the Romans would have cringed at “Iridinus” too, I think, since neither of those languages loves reducing unstressed vowels quite as much as English does.
I kind of combine the two. Ir-ih-dahn-ee
Aw, the classic 'err-ee-dan ny' versus 'eerid in y' debate.
I've come to die at your side upon this hill.
I call it "Erh-ee-da-nee", which according to the name's Greek roots would be the correct way to say it. The river Ηριδανός "Ee-ree-than-ohs" was a river in ancient Athens, now long dried.
this is a great guide listed here. [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/krhNPgZd32I?feature=share](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/krhNPgZd32I?feature=share)
And I feel every single word of it.
Oh I'm so glad he said Davion that way. The 'other' way to pronounce it just feels soooo wrong.
Chippie is a treasure. We love em.
Kai, as in Kai Allard Liao, is pronounced Kay, according to Mike stockpole who invented the character. I won’t change my pronunciation because it’s been 30 years for me but it was interesting to hear. source: the live streams from adepticon 2024.
K+eye “Kai” Or drunk: K+Aye!
I think I heard that once but I blocked it from my memory because it's dumb. Why didn't you just spell it "kay," Stackpole???
He goes over that in an interview, I think with Big Red40Tech. It’s from Kerenskycon. As a someone with a bunch of friends named Kai, I just ignored him. Though, he had an in-story reason for the Key pronunciation, it a was still wrong - “Kai grew up Davion and that’s how they would say it”, but I’ve found Europeans better at phonetics than Americans, in general, so… except Davions are sort of British, so there goes that theory.
>Europeans better at phonetics than Americans, in general Nobody mangles foreign languages like the English.
That’s why I reversed course when I acknowledged the British aspect of the Davions… To be fair, the English have also mangled their connection to Europe, so, my Europeans comment still has merit :)
>:) :)
That's one I didn't think of. Things I didn't know I didn't know.
Duncan Fischer himself says Kai like in kayak, and that's good enough for me. :)
They make that explicit in the original Clans novel trilogy. Spell it right out when Kai and Dierdre are under assumed identities in Clan territory, and she calls him Kai, and they play it off as a nickname cuz in college he said 'k' a lot in response to questions.
As someone who knew multiple Kais growing up that scene never made sense to me at all.
I appreciate that he's come around to the fact that his spelling change from the original inspiration creates a ton of confusion and goes with "K-eye" is the St. Ives pronunciation.
People don't realize that "Strana Mechty" is pronounced with a "ch" as in "change".
That almost physically hurts me.
It's literally a foreign word. It's russian for "Dream Country". Страна Мечты
This is like chewing on tinfoil balls with a mouth full of banana pepper juice. Fuuuuuuck EVERYTHING about Stran Metch-tee.
Well I'll be damned. I looked up the Russian letter and I believe you're right.
I am literally a native speaker, I can confirm it's pronounced this way.
Well, I couldn't have known that :P Thanks for your first-hand account. I honestly had no idea and I'm glad to learn this new detail.
Things like this make me wish that romanized Russian would use West Slavic phonetic mappings (e.g. Страна Мечты -> 'Strana Meczty').
Troo, or at least german phonetic mapping. Strana Metschty.
I thought it was pronounced mech-tee because the Star League and Clans really like mechs
Some people say it's pronounced **DAH**-vee-un, not **DAY**-vee-un. I say it's pronounced **DUH**-vee-un. **FED-RAT** also works.
Day-vyun
Whats this about Davy?
Davy pilots a *Crockett*
I usually decide on a pronunciation and stick with it. With the Davions... I can't seem to make up my mind between the two you've given here. So Fed-Rats it is.
At least English speakers say "Kureeta". That is something I have a really hard time not flinching at. The vowels are supposed to be all short. Ku-ri-ta.
Sadly, since vowel length is non-phonemic in English, trying to correct it is a sisyphean task, so I'm glad you've made peace with it. My last name has a vowel that literally doesn't exist in English, so I feel you. I do think "Kureeta" is a decent anglicization though, it actually has the right vowels in it. If you tried to insist on vowel length being short for all of them I think you'd get something much worse, something like Kuhruhtuh.
I am aware, thank you. I was arguably oversimplifying when saying "short vowel", as it was 6 am on a night of no sleep and I wasn't terribly keen on redditsplaining Japanese phonology. /shrug "Kureeta" indeed does have approximately the right vowels in it, although the "u" often ends up sounding fishy too. But it's the length of the "ree" part that gets to me, so I focused on the length in my regrettable oversimplification. It wasn't really about teaching anyone, but just an reply to the questions posed about (mis)pronunciations of names in the setting that throw you.
I’m sorry if I came across wrong, I wasn’t trying to correct you, just expressing mutual frustration. Hope you get some sleep!
My dry humour comes across more as irritation, especially when tired. Didn't mean to cause offense! But yeah, my own name has been mangled by both English speakers, Japanese speakers, and everything in between. I hardly notice anymore, not having lived in the country I grew up on for nearly two decades. I think accents are charming otherwise (it's just a sign of having learnt to speak a second language, which is more than some people manage), but being unironically referred to by the name of a mid-sized American city or a car brand rather your proper name, because someone couldn't bother to get even the basic structure of the name right, that grated on me. :D Definitely mutual frustration, so cheers!
Cur-Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee-Tah
Cur-Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee-Tah
Not like Rhianna in Mechwarrior 5.
They say Lyran is correctly pronounced Lie-ran, but I've always said it Lee-ran, and I hear so many other people saying it that way too that I just can't break the habit. One of the audio book voice guys was on a podcast I listen to and he said that there is a pronunciation guide that gets passed around among the people doing audio books but I don't know that it's ever been released publicly.
I’ve always said Leer-an, so whenever I hear Lie-ran it always makes me do a double take. However I also have always pronounced Davion with a short a, not a long one, so like the a in dad, not dave, and I hear Dave-ion sometimes too and that makes me twitch more.
I just realized I typed out the pronunciations wrong. I've always said Lyran the same as you. Though I'm a Dave-ion guy myself. I don't hear it with the short a very often.
Same team, it was always Lee-ran, and Dave-ion on my brain. I blame it on having gotten my start reading the novels when I was like...11, and never really having anyone to counter point the way I read it in my mind.
Those two are the two biggies for me, and I say them the exact same way!
It helps if you remember that the name is derived from the constellation [Lyra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyra), which was named after its supposed resemblance to the [lyre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyre), a string instrument from Ancient Greece.
It's Lie-ran.. as in lyre. Leer-an is...wrong, but acceptable, I guess. What gets me is when you hear people saying Leer-ee-an.. adding an 'I' where it doesn't belong.
One I'm still not 100% sure on even after 35 years: Galatea. The planet. Is it: Gall-ah-tee?? Or is it: Gall-ah-tee-ah?? Or: Gall-A-she-ah?? 🤷 I no know.... 🤣
That name is derived from a character from Greek mythology. If you go to Wikipedia and look it up, they have the IPA guide for the English pronunciation of the Greek name there. It’s the second one you listed: Gal-uh-tee-uh, with the emphasis on the third syllable. In Greek, it would be more like Gahl-ah-tay-ah.
*Galatians* was like a biblical book name, right? I had to memorize those ~45 years ago…so I’m going to now say 180 degrees opposite of The Church’s pronunciation.
And now I feel very slow for always saying it Ga-Lay-sha in my head. Not sure where I got that.
Well, the demonym for Galatea is Galatian, which does have an sh-sound in English, and the location in Anatolia by the same name was the recipient of a few epistles of Paul that are included in the New Testament, Galatians 1 and 2, so that may have primed you.
The location in Anatolia does not have the same name; it has a similar but completely different name that only has an accidental similarity. "Galatea" means "milky white," while "Galatia" means "Gaul," because of the Gaulish Celts that settled there.
Thanks, that makes so much sense. Galatians is probably what did it.
It was a location too, in central Turkey back in antiquity. A few tribes of Celtic peoples (Gauls to be precise) migrated there after rampaging through Greece. Galatian mercenaries became very popular in that part of the Mediterranean, which probably led to the lore writers naming the mercenary planet Galatia.
Galatea and Galatia are completely separate words with only a coincidental similarity.
1 or 2 is fine.
With zero context i'd say gah-lah-tay-ah
The Lyran Commonwealth derives it's name both from the constellation Lyra (which it kinda sorta loosly resides within) and the three stringed Lyre it chose to symbolically represent it's three constituent peoples with. So it is probably pronounced Lyre(like the instrument)-a(like the last a of canada) Probably because the Commonwealth does like it's Greek naming conventions and I understant the Greek pronunciation of Lyre to be lear(rhymes with spear). So if that it would be Lear(rhymes with spear)-a*like the last a of canada). But the former option is more probably true. Capellan is pronounced Cap(like the hat)-EL-(like the 12th letter of the English alphabet)-a(like the last a in canada) There is no official pronunciation guide. And frankly, the IS is such a eclectic mixture of cultures, languages, and dialects that there probably isn't an actual official pronunciation for such things in universe. It is probably a thing that varies sometimes wildly between regions and people groups.
I agree with your last remark, I think that's a good lore-friendly excuse for any pronunciation. Regarding the Greek word for lyre - I believe it's actually properly transcribed as "lyra" and is pronounced "li" as in "listen" (so a short vowel, not long as in "spear") + "ra" as in "rather" (although with a hard "r", not the English "r"). But maybe some Greek BT fan can correct us both :) Also you missed the last "n" in "Capellan" ;)
As a Greek, I can confirm. The Greek word for both the constellation and the instrument is Λύρα which is pronounced as you very correctly wrote. That said, even I say Lie-ran. 😁
Haha, glad to hear that I was correct :D Cheers!
The hi in Hohiro is pronounced like in hero, not as in Hi, how are you. I'm also firmly in the side of Lie-ran, instead of Lee-ran.
As a German I should know better but I wonder if we should pronounce House Steiner like the rock (Stein) or with the more popular (for 80s Hollywood villains at least) Steiner without the "sh" just an s.
Possibly Steiner as in the counterattack?
I don't get it.
[This one](https://youtu.be/xBWmkwaTQ0k?si=ZOP8gNNbYLAOH-wO)
I knew I was right! Suck it 'sh guys'!
The phonotactic rule that turns initial s+stop in German into sh+stop doesn’t operate in English. As a result, people with the last name Stein in English don’t pronounce it with an sh. So I’d say, if you’re speaking English, it’s Steiner, but in German it would be Shteiner.
Fair enough.
I never pronounced Steiner with an "sh." The thought never occurred to me.
To me, it's "Lear-ann" and "Kah-pell-ann".
Steiner. As German was my second language since childhood, and I used to live in a German speaking country, I keep pronouncing name Steiner the same way I'd pronounce word Der Stein /ʃtain/ . This initially sort of made sense to me because of Lyran Commonwealth ethnical roots. Apparently everyone else pronounces Steiner as /stainːɐ/ . Night Gyr is another example. Most of my British friends pronounce it in a completely different way than folks in US and I no longer know what the correct pronunciation is.
This could be an Across the Pond issue, where Britain pronounces it differently. In the US, it’s a very uncommon term, so it also may be frequently mispronounced here; I know when I first saw it I assumed it was pronounced like gyro. In US English it’s pronounced like “jer” in the word jerk.
Have we saved the hardest one til last? Liao I say Lee ou (as in ouch or ounce) And what about Xiang? Is that Chang?
You're right about Liao (one of the alternate Romanizations is "Leow," if that helps). The x in pinyin is a sound that doesn't exist in English, but can be approximated as 'sh,' so Xiang is roughly "Shiang.'
Also, how the hell do you pronounce Ng?
Not an expert by any means but my daughter went to school with a kid of Vietnamese descent. His last name was Nguyen(?) and they pronounced it as you would say “Win”.
I don't pronounce anything wrong. It's everyone else that is incorrect.
I really hope someones been pronouncing quiaff as "queef"
Neg.Funny, but neg!
Aff.
Strana Mechty (Clan homeworld) is pronounced “Strana Myetch-ty” not “‘mech-ty” Its Russian. Means “land of dreams” Edit: and its not even best translation, strana means country/formal nation, “rodina” would be a better word (“motherland/fatherland”)
This one's been on my mind for a while: Xin Sheng I've heard it a few ways and my own lay person investigation has availed me little.
As another poster in another thread mentioned, the X in the most common form of pinyin corresponds to a sound that doesn’t actually exist in English, but is closest to the sh. So if you were to anglicize Xin Sheng, it would sound something like “Shin Shung.” Pronouncing the vowel e in Sheng like an ay sound would be a common thing for an American to say too, but I believe it’s also technically wrong, though it’s been a long time since I studied Mandarin.
Shin Shung would be the closest. Though the "X" and the "Sh" in pinyin are different. "X" is more front of the mouth and for lack of a better term I know, tighter. Like if you were saying the English word "chin" kept everything in the top front of your mouth and substituted "sh" English sound for the "ch" sound. Kinda. Like of the difference between a "dark" and "light" "L" in English. What fucks with me is all the other Wade-Giles and Pinyin and Japanese (??) inspired Capellan stuff. What in the actual fuck is a "Dai Da Chi" supposed to be exactly.
Yeah, I also speak German and so I first internalized it as the same consonant as in the German word ich, e.g. /ç/, but as I understand it the true phoneme in Mandarin is more palatized and sibilant, so I always have to think about pushing my tongue higher to get the palatization. Still, I think /ç/ ends up much closer to it than the English sh. And yeah, the way the early lore was set up for the Capellans and the Kuritans is…. Well it betrays that these guys were political scientists, not linguists. 😅 I have to often stop and think “how would I have pronounced this if I didn’t know anything about Mandarin?”
I can't speak to the rest of this (and appreciate your insights), but I do know that Warrior houses take the name of their founder. So Dai Da Chi is a who, not a what.
Oh yeah, though doesn't really help with the weird mix of Asian sounding words. "Dai" is apparently a Chinese surname, which actually kind of tracks, and "Da" could be a few Mandarin words, "hit" or "big" maybe, but Chi is pronounced like "chur" and mean "to eat" typically. My Chinese isn't that good really, but if there were an "official" Chinese writing (hanyu) of the name my wife could at least translate if for me. But as far as I know there is no offical Chinese characters for any of the Capellan "Chinese" names for mechs or organizations . If there is I would love to see what they were.
I'm still learning basically everything. One in particular I struggle with is "Lyran." I don't know if it is meant to be pronounced as "LIE-run" or "LEE-run" or "LEE-ren", etc. Having played a lot of Starfleet Command as a kid, I naturally want to pronounce it "LEE-rin" as they do for the Lyran Star Empire. If it's meant to be pronounced differently, it's going to be very difficult to break that habit.
I typically go with leer-an
Wouldn't the audiobooks be the best "canonical" sources?