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Pronunciation for the various words?
How do you pronounce some of these names, and is there a way to easily find out how it should be properly spoken? I have an ambition to make some videos talking about the lore and story of the game, but I don't want to sound like a fool while narrating.
Things like Sidhe Sneachta, Taillteann, Glas Ghaibhleann, Briogh, all these countless words/names that I'm dead certain there's no way I'm saying properly.
Comments
- The double L, in Welsh, as I recall is a kind of lateral fricative. Press your tongue behind your front top teeth and try to hiss like a cat.
- In Irish bh is a V sound. The Irish version of Susan, Siobhan, is pronounced shivawn. I'm guessing that's the same in Welsh.
- gh is probably your standard throat clearing consonant that we associate with Eastern Mediterranean languages.
- this is a bit of a guess, but in Hindi dh is sort of a th-ish sound so I suspect it might be the same here.
- cht is probably pronounced exactly as it's spelled.
- e is probably pronounced ay.
- a is probably ah, as per English.
- i is probably ee.
- o is probably an aw.
- ea is probably ay-ah.
- ai is probably like "eye" or "aye".
- io is probably ee-aw, almost like a donkey!
- r is probably rolled.
- nn, no idea, maybe it's an n followed by a ng?
I'm not Welsh though so ... um ... yeah.
Fugitaboutit.
@Crimsọn
So basically there's nothing Welsh about this game at all, except the name Mabinogi which a bunch of Korean people must have gotten from googling something like "name for celtic stories" and seeing Mabinogian, and mistaking it for the definition of "collection of stories" as opposed to simply BEING a collection of stories. In fact, if you ask Nao what Mabinogi means she'll tell you it means story, which just goes to show the hilarious misunderstanding that was made.
So there you go. Oh and for pronunciations, lets just put it this way: When it comes to Gaeilge there's no real grammatical consistency to the language, making it extremely difficult to learn or teach, so its a case of you're either fluent in it or you're not, and basically no ones fluent, so no one in Ireland speaks it. Still, a mandatory 13 years of ineffectively learning the language does give us an advantage in attempting to pronounce the names, and perhaps more importantly, how not to pronounce it lol.
I can translate the names you posted at the top though for you:
Sidhe Sneachta: Shee Snock-tah
Tailteann: Tile(or tie-ill)-Cheen(or Chin) (depending on where you're from in Ireland. Each of the provinces of Ireland have slight variants in pronounciation of gaeilge)
Glas Ghaibhleann: Gloss Gave-Linn
Briogh: Bree (like the cheese....maybe, see below)
There's a few translation issues in Mabinogi other than typo's, such as the complete lack of "fada's" even when there should be some. They're a grammatical thing added to vowels which elongate them, and can completely change the meaning of a word. For example Briogh is not a word I've encountered before but it looks like it almost definitely should have a fada over the i, like this: Bríogh. If that's the case, then its probably pronounced the way I suggested. If there isn't a fada however it could be pronounced Brogue(single rhyming with rogue). In fact even with a "í " there's a chance it might be pronounced "bree-eg(the eg part sounding sort of "ug" ish). Hell, since I've never heard it pronounced, and cant find any modern irish reference to it, it might even be one of the really annoying irregular words which means it could literally be anything from Brog, to Brock, to Bree-oh-guh, to Bruh/Bro/Brig/Thislanguageisajoke, or literally anything else.
I'm 90% sure its "Bree", so I'm going to stick with that. Is there any other particular names/words you're interested in knowing how to pronounce? Or have I scared you off with the sheer nonsense that is this language?
Uladh
Ulaid
Milletian
Tir Chonaill
Emain Macha
Abb Neagh
Fiodh
Peaca
Coill
Gairech
Sliab
Cuilin
Corrib
Dugald
Sen Mag
Ceann
Osna Sail
Tuatha Dé Danann
Mag Tuireadh
Claíomh Solais
Lia Fáil
Aton Cimeni
Neamhain
Nuadha Airgetlam
Tir Na Nog
Tech Duinn
Crom Bás
Scuabtuinne
Manannan mac Lir
I'm sure there are more but that's all I can muster up at the moment.
Some of these terms have English and French corruptions in them.
Ulaidh/Ulaid: Ooh-la (like "ooh-la-la"). They're both the same word, just two different spellings of it.
Milletian(Milesian): Me/mi-leh-she-en. (Maybe) Its a word that predates modern irish, and has like a billion different interpretations.
Tir Chonaill: Tear(like crying) Kuh-nawl. "Chonail's Land" Places named after the famous people who lived there is pretty common.
Emain Macha: Ay-Mawn Ma-kah.
Abb Neagh: Ab Neigh(like a horse).
Fiodh: *will leave this till the end lol.
Peaca(Púca): Poo-kah. Púca means ghost. Peaca is probably just a hideous mistranslation.
Coill: Quill(or Qwe-el)/Coy-el . Depends where you're from in ireland.
Gairech: goy(rymes with boy, and weirdly also with guy)-ruck. Means laughter/laughing. I always thought the BST suited it well.
Sliab(Sliabh) Cuilin: Sleeve Cool/Kull-in. The "Cuilin Mountains"
Corrib: Car-rib
Dugald: Just Dugald (Dug-awld). its an english version of an irish word.
Sen Meg: Either not Irish or so poorly translated that we'll probably never know. Sen might be Sean(Shan) meaning old. Nothing is coming to mind when I look at Meg. I might have a eureka moment in the future like I did with Math(actually Maith) Dungeon.
Port Ceann: Kyan(rymes with nyan, single syllable). Means "Head". BTW: Port Cobh: Cove
Osna Sáil: Os(rhymes with gross)-Nah Saul.
Tuatha Dé Danann: Too-ah Dee Dan-inn
Mag Tuireadh: Mag Tur-rah
Claíomh Solais: Claive(rhymes with glaive) Sol-us. Means "Sword of Light"
Lia Fáil: Lie-ah Fall. "The Stone of Destiny". Loads of myths around this thing. All those alt-history people would have a field day with it
Aton Cimeni: Mabinogi's only original character name! I liked the focus on them during g19, because it was the first time they delved deeper into actually in-game lore as opposed to just name dropping random irish mythological figures. As for pronunciation, your guess is as good as mine.
Neamhain: Knave-awn. Meaning Divine/Heavenly.
Nuadha Airgetlam(Airgead lamh): Nu-Ah (Nu rhyes with Moo) Arrrr-ah(like a pirate)-gid(hard g)-lawv(sorta like law-vuh, but needs to be pronounced as a single syllable. Check out the the bottem.*)
Tir Na Nog(Tir na nÓg): Tear Nah Nogue(pronounced exactly like rogue, just replace the "r" with an "n"). Yes, the spelling within the brackets is correct. Tir means "land", na is "the" and "Óg" is young. The n is put in front of the "Óg" for grammatical reasons.
Tech Duinn(or Teach Donn in modern irish): Choc-done. The Brown house. Interpretated as "dark house." A creepy otherworld.
Crom Bás: Krom-Boss (pronounced with a bit of an aww like bawws).
Scuabtuinne: Scoob-chin-ah. Scuab means brush, and apparently tuinne means wave, but I've never heard it pronounced so I might be slightly off. Could be tune-ah.
Manannán mac Lir: Muh-nan-nawn(rhymes with lawn) mac Leer. Lir means sea, and Mac means Son. Yes, any irish name with mac in front of it is literally the person saying "I am X, son of Y", with son meaning descended from as opposed to literally being their child. Also any name with O' in front of it is just the gender neutral version: "of". "Daughter of" is Ní (pronounced nee), but you dont seem to see that much of it outside of Ireland. No one takes any of this literally of course nowadays.
*Fiodh, (Airgead)lamh
Both of those words are single syllable words which I cant think of anything that sounds similar to them in the english language. The best idea I've got is to break the single syllable's into multiple parts, like turning the english word "Yes" into "yeah-es." Of course thats completely wrong, but if you say it fast enough, and blur the individual parts together it'll eventually sound like you're saying yes.
So for the following words dont bother with proper enunciating(we irish never do lol). Deliberately slur/blur the parts, and keeping saying them faster, faster, and faster until they become a single syllabel word. These words are meant to be pronounced quickly so theres no such thing as going "too fast" here.
Fiodh: Fee-oh. (will rhyme with flow when you get it right) Also theres that island...
Ceo: Key-oh (rhymes with the above and means mist)
lamh: law-of (remember: one syllabel)
So airgeadlamh, or the horrible mispelling of his name is basically arrr-ah-gid (which means money in modern times, but used to mean silver in the past, before silver became the celts main form of currency) -law-of(one syllable, meaning hand).
Well there you go. Damn, this post ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would lol.
This was very insightful and I'll definitely post more if I find any other words or names.
"Llywelyn" can be pronounced with the double L which is made by putting your tongue somewhat behind your front teeth and kind of blowing.
Anything Welsh that has a CH is pronounced like the ch in Loch
U in welsh is like I
F is like V
R is slightly trilled (or in some peoples cases, you sound like a motorcycle. )
in RH you would kind of start the H first and then go into the trilled R
DD is "Th"
But like Fragarach said, you'd never really need this knowledge in this game. But I guess for anyone who wants to roleplay as a Welsh person or read The Mabinogi.
On a side note, In the Divine Knights chapter, we have biblical terms.
So like Zebach you'd probably pronounce that more throaty CH like how i explained in Welsh. I have heard people just say Zebak.
I'm assuming Sephirot in Coil abyss just refers to the Sefirot in Kabbalah
For the nexon employees in S.Korea though, they probably thought it was all just one crazy celtic language lol.
As for Aton Cimeni, cimeni, I think is latin for chimney, as for Aton, to me it looks Egyptian.
Latin for chimney is camini. Cimeni is a surname apparently, Cimen being turkish in origin. Then again there's loads of typo's in this game so thats probably a coincidence, as its more likely the name has either missing letters and/or is misspelt.
Aton was the name the egyptians gave to the sun which they worshipped as a deity way back. Of course this could also be a typo, and it could be Atum/Atem which is also egyptian and is the name of the first deity to have existed before reality came into being, which sounds a bit more likely. Of course, we could be completely off here, and it might even just be Atam(Adam) which is hebrew. Meaning he might literally just be Adam Cimeni, a perfectly mundane name. Sadly we'll probably never know how they came up with that name, since none of the people who worked on mabinogi back then are still working on the mabinogi korea team.
Aton is the Egyptian God of the Sun? Wow, I didn't know that, I just thought the word looked Eqyptian. Maybe cimeni comes from ancient Egyptian somehow?
As for it being Latin, Google Translate can be confusing, it says:
cemeni (as Latin) is chimney (as English),
chimney (as English) is camini (as Latin),
camini (as Latin) is stove (as English),
stove (as English) is caminus (as Latin)
caminus (as Latin) is stove (as English).
Yeahh luckily Cymraeg is super easy to read as long as you remember the special letters. Even the "infamous" Llanfair PG, is pretty easy to do. I think the main thing that will confuse learners with it is, like, treigladau.
There's also like Aranwen, Heledd, Heulfryn, but nothing that would be like super story essential I guess. We have a Bran in g14, not sure if that can be a reference to Bendigeidfran
My personal cope theory is that since children are mostly told the stories from the Mabinogi, and the OST is "An Old Story From Grandma" that our real character is just a child with an overactive imagination, just imagining themselves in the place of a hero in several stories that they are told.
Then I remember that it's just most likely the Koreans pulling stuff from everywhere with Google