Joined: 3/18/2006
Posts: 971
Location: Great Britain
I searched but couldn't find this topic. Apologies if it has been made before.
I have found that I pronounce some usernames in a strange or purposely incorrect way.
For example, I pronounce "AKheon" as "Acorn".
Some others:
creoathceann = "cream of corn"
Acmlm = "acclaim"
Aglar = "al gar"
Sonikkustar = "sonic you star"
foda = "faux da"
adelikat = "A deli cat"
Mitjitsu = "Mits sue ja"
Warepire = "war pie"
moozooh = "moo zoo"
Nach = "natch"
Dada = "dar dar"
Does anybody else do this? And any strange/peculiar examples?
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I have always wondered why so many finns pronounce the syllables "ce" and "ci" as /ke/ and /ki/. (For those who don't know, the letter c is completely foreign to the modern Finnish language. It is in the alphabet, but it does not appear in the language itself at all. It only appears in foreign loanwords such as "celsius" and commonly used acronyms such as "CD".)
AFAIK that's actually the correct pronunciation in the original Latin (for example the name "Cicero" was, AFAIK, indeed pronounced as "Kikero" in Latin, even though today it's commonly (mis?)pronounced more like in Spanish.)
However, what makes it a strange-sounding pronunciation is that I can't think of any example or precedent of any actual loanwords that would be pronounced like that. In fact, the name of the letter in Finnish is pronounced as /see/ (rather than /kee/), and any loanwords and acronyms I can think of are pronounced like in Spanish or English (eg. "celsius" is pronounced as /selsius/ in Finnish, not as /kelsius/, and "CD" is pronounced as /seedee/.)
OTOH, "Dacicus" sounds Latin, so pronouncing it as /dɑkikus/ may be perfectly justified in that sense.
(Quite ironically, many Finns actually go to the other extreme and pronounce the syllables "ca", "co" and "cu" as /sa/, /so/ and /su/. That sounds even stranger to my ear. But that may be because I grew up in Spain.)
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player
(907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
In all honesty, my username is a trainwreck. A lot of people have never heard of DWANGO, but in brief it was a dial-up multiplayer gaming service in the 90's. I was a moderator on the Denver server using the username AC based on my initials. When I started registering accounts on various websites the username AC was frequently taken, so I fell back to dwangoAC (the AC from DWANGO) and the name stuck, as has my signature which has been the same since 1992.
Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to pronounce. :)
A.C.
******
In all honesty, my username is a trainwreck. A lot of people have never heard of DWANGO, but in brief it was a dial-up multiplayer gaming service in the 90's. I was a moderator on the Denver server using the username AC based on my initials. When I started registering accounts on various websites the username AC was frequently taken, so I fell back to dwangoAC (the AC from DWANGO) and the name stuck, as has my signature which has been the same since 1992.
Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to pronounce. :)
A.C.
******
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands
AKheon = "Ack, hey, on"
creoathceann = "create ocean"
Acmlm = "ack em el em"
Sonikkustar = "soneek-u-star"
foda = "fow daa"
adelikat = "Á daily kaat"
Nach = "nash"
Dada = "daa daa"
jlun2 = "Jay lun doo"
feos = "fay os"
Dacicus = "dash-ee-cuss"
p4wn3r = "pawner"
Bisqwit = "bisk wit"
There are definitely some other funky cases, but I can't recall any particular ones to list right now.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Wait... People actually pronounce members usernames?
I'll try with the ones who have posted so far then:
antd -> an t d
Nach -> Nach
Scepheo -> Skefeo
rog -> rog
TASeditor -> tas editor
jlun2 -> j lun two
Bisqwit -> Biskwit
Warp -> Warp
dwangoAC -> dvan-go A C
Mothrayas -> Moth-rajas
Now who did I seriously butcher?
The i and u are supposed to be short, which would make the pronunciation more like /dɑkɪkʊs/ according to the Latin textbooks I've seen. That might be an artifact of the multiple sounds possible for the same letter in English, however.
Warp: Classical Latin did not have a soft c sound, so it would always have been pronounced as a k.
In my notation, á = /a/, é = /ε/, ê = /e/, for the others I could find suitable words.
AKheon = Á Keon
Acmlm = Á Sê Emmy Élli Emmy
Sonikkustar = Soni Kuhstar
foda = Fó (o like in nod) Dah
adelikat = á dêli cat
Nach = Nátch
Dada = Dá Dá
jlun2 = Jay lun two
feos = Fé os
Dacicus = Dá see cus
Bisqwit = Bisk wit
klmz = Kah Élli Emmy Zê
Scepheo = Sé Phêo
antd = ant dee
aqfaq = ák fák
Basically, when I see an A that I don't know how to pronounce, I assume it's said openly, the way it's most common in my language (/a/). For the E's I usually assume they're open too (/ε/). And in the names Acmlm and klmz, I just pronounce the individual letters in portuguese.
The i and u are supposed to be short, which would make the pronunciation more like /dɑkɪkʊs/ according to the Latin textbooks I've seen. That might be an artifact of the multiple sounds possible for the same letter in English, however.
In English there are indeed several different "i" phonemes (at least /ɪ/ and /iː/). In Finnish, though there are short and long vowels separately, they are still the same phonemes, distinguished in IPA by adding the colon /ː/ character after it. I was transcribing Finnish pronounciation, and there short and long i are indeed /i/ and /iː/ respectively. One of those tiny things that make Finnish accent in speaking English noticeable. Our pronounciation for the English words "bit" and "beet" truly only differ in the vowel's length, unless practiced hard. It is even clearer in words like "could" and "boot" (/kʊd/, /buːt/), where both get pronounced with /u/, and "bed" and "take" (/bɛd/, /tʰeɪk/) where both get /e/ and no /ʰ/ will occur; "bat", "father" (/bʌt/ or /bat/, /fɑːðə/) where both get /ɑ/ and the /ð/ will probably turn into /θ/, /t/ or /d/ and of course the /ə/ usually turns into /ø/.
creaothceann = /kɹiːɔtʃan/ probably.
