Pronunciation

[Steve]

How do you pronounce "Hsunchen"? Is the "s" silent? Or the "H"? Or am I trying to over-complicate it and both of the first two letters are pronounced?

 

 

Edited October 22, 2015 by Steve

[Noita]

h'SUHN-chen

[Steve]

Ahhhh, so I *was* over-complicating things. There are no silent letters. 

Thanks!

 

[Rick Meints]

I've always pronounced it sun-CHEN

[Steve]

Now it's getting interesting 

According to the normal pronunciation guide:

Consonants are always hard, and pronounced only one way.

Ok, so that would make it seem like H-SUN-CHEN (take your pick about the emphasis).

But then in the same guide we also have:

 Lhankor Mhy              LANK-er MIGH

So why isn't the second letter (h) pronounced in that one? I always used to pronounce it Ler-HANK-Or Meh-HIGH before I saw how it's supposed to be said.

I'm a bit confused about the "h"s here. I'm sure I saw some other examples, I'll have to try and dig those out.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Steve

[Steve]

Edit - never mind that one, that's a typo in the guide ("Jalakeel" vs "Jakaleel").

 

 

Edited October 22, 2015 by Steve

[Steve]

Here's another one from the pronunciation guide:

Hrestol                        H’RES-tuhl

Which seems to go along with what Iskallor is suggesting for Hsunchen.

 

[trystero]

Now it's getting interesting 

According to the normal pronunciation guide:

Ok, so that would make it seem like H-SUN-CHEN (take your pick about the emphasis).

But then in the same guide we also have:

So why isn't the second letter (h) pronounced in that one? I always used to pronounce it Ler-HANK-Or Meh-HIGH before I saw how it's supposed to be said.

I'm a bit confused about the "h"s here. I'm sure I saw some other examples, I'll have to try and dig those out.

Well, the guide also says that the soft J is indicated as ZH, so I think consonants are not necessarily all pronounced individually. In other words, LH and MH might each represent a single consonant sound. (I'd imagine LH to be something like the Welsh LL, an aspirated L sound, and MH to be similarly aspirated by extension.)

[Noita]

I've always pronounced it sun-CHEN

It's how I sound when i say my  h'Suhn-chan

[Joerg]

This is one of the few Gloranthan terms which I pronounce in German: h Soon KHen  (with KH for the scottisch "loch" sound).

I tend to lose the initial h in hsunchen, but never in Hrestol.

 

For me Lhankor gets a faint aspiration after the L. I wouldn't insert any glottal stop after the L. Similar e.g. the Khor in Khordavu, or in the alternate spelling Lankhor.

Another (potentially personal, possibly German only) strangeness is my tendency to ignore the h in th at the end of names, as in Orlanth(i), Skanthi or Glorantha. At the very least, a t- or d-like sound may creep in instead of the sharp th (the one in "think").

 

 

 

 

[trystero]

My pronunciation of "Lhankor" is (more or less) HLAHN-kore, with the aspiration preceding the "L" sound.

I say h'SUHN-chen, too. (Same stress pattern as "assumption", now I think of it.)

I haven't read the whole thread; have we already covered "HUHM-act" vs. "HYOO-mact" vs. "HOO-mact"? :-)

And Joerg, I use the soft English "th" (as in "thin cloth") for the end of "Orlanth", but the German pronunciation doesn't sound wrong to me either.

[jajagappa]

I've always used the aspiration after the L in Lhankor.  Khordavu, etc. as in Scottish loch.

I say h'SUHN-chen.

[Harry the Dirty Dog]

I say celebrate the differences.    In the real world, accents vary from town to town, from city to city and from country to country.  Glorantha is no different.

We had a discussion in a campaign long ago whether is was Pay-vis, Pah-vis or Pa-vis.  We ended up deciding that Pavisites, Northern Sartarites, Southern Sartarites and Lunars all say it differently.

[Steve]

Well, the guide also says that the soft J is indicated as ZH, so I think consonants are not necessarily all pronounced individually. In other words, LH and MH might each represent a single consonant sound.

Agreed. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the statement about all consonants being pronounced the same should either be removed or at least qualified. The T in Orlanth isn't normally pronounced the same as the T in Humakt, after all

I do take the point about regional variations and accemts. But it's nice to know what the "proper" pronunciation would be. Which nakes me think - I wonder if this is an area in which Lhankor Mhy sages would clash with Issaries cultists, the written word vs the spoken word?

 

 

Edited October 23, 2015 by Steve

[Joerg]

 I do take the point about regional variations and accemts. But it's nice to know what the "proper" pronunciation would be. Which nakes me think - I wonder if this is an area in which Lhankor Mhy sages would clash with Issaries cultists, the written word vs the spoken word?

 

I don't see why the Lhankor Mhy sages would need any outsiders to clash about such a topic - there are entire schools of LMites dedicated to oral tradition.

 

Given my moderate knowledge of European languages, there is a continuum of similar sounds for certain consonants or consonant combinations. The sequence g - k - kh - ch - kj/sh/sch/sk - zh/j - y (the latter a consonant as the J in my name or as in "you") doesn't really have distinct steps if you take local variations of Scandinavian, German or Romanic languages. A Switzerland ch and a Norwegian k (followed by an e, i, y or umlaut) or kj can be quite similar, or worlds apart. Not to mention the subject of long glottal consonants (as kk in Finnish).

 

Then there are pronunciation differences on an entirely different level: Do you say Lodril, Vestkarthen, Turos, Baba Ulodra or Balumbasta?

 

[Steve]

I realise that in reality pronounciations can vary a lot. Also YGWV.

But I understood that there was still an "official" way to pronounce Gloranthan words (perhaps as documented by LM?), as shown by the document that I linked to.

 

[M Helsdon]

Now it's getting interesting 

According to the normal pronunciation guide:

 

Bear in mind that I used the pronunciation guides in Cults of Terror, Trollpak and the Prosopaedia in ‘Gods of Glorantha’ to create that list, and the information may no longer be valid. I would also suggest that the pronunciations given are valid only in a particular region - perhaps Dragon Pass, as even within the Theyalan languages there will be variations and different dialects.

[soltakss]

At conventions, the Chaosium/Moon Design bigwigs say "H-Sunchen", so that's probably right.

However, I have heard different people say "PAHvis", "PAYvis" and PAvis" for Pavis, so different words can be pronounced very differently.

In our game, we pronounce the same word differently and nobody bats an eyelid, as long as we all understand what is meant.

 

[Zit]

I agree with M Helsdon. An official prononciation is IMHO a nonsense. Ask in England, France or Spain to say the name of Jesus (or wharever deity or whatever name), you hardly know they speak about the same. Or ask for the same in Arabic, Chinese or Hebrew. So Hshunchen will not only have different pronunciations all over Glorantha, but probably even different  names.

[Steve]

When I was referring to the "official" way to pronounce things, perhaps that was a misleading term. I am not asking how locals pronounce it, because of course that will vary.

However, I would be very interested to know how, say, Jeff or Greg say these words. Because that would be pretty "official" in my book. We're talking about a fictional world here, looking in from the outside. We have an official Guide to Glorantha, even though of course every different group in Glorantha will have their own take on history, on myths etc, and none of them would agree with all the content in the Guide if they saw it (once they got past it blowing their minds, of course).

 

[Noita]

I remember Jeff posting the same as what i posted here,  over on the google +  page.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Iskallor

[Steve]

I remember Jeff posting the same as what i posted over on the google +  page.

Sorry, which post on the G+ page? I'm not following.

Edit - I think I just realised what you meant (my fault, sorry, bit slow on the uptake). You're saying you're pretty sure that Jeff posted about saying it "H-SUN-CHEN" over on the G+ page.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Steve

[Noita]

Im 100% sure as i read his answer and copy and pasted it.

There was an identical thread over there some time ago.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Iskallor

[Lordabdul]

Bumping this thread into the future! I was wondering about pronunciation of a few things, and it doesn't look like they're on the pronunciation guide. Apologies if they might be for "obvious" words but, for non-native english speakers, pronunciation is never ever obvious!

So how do you pronounce "wyter", "tarshite", and "sartarite"?

[soltakss]

Here's how I pronounce them:

• "wyter" like "bitter" or "litter" but with a "w", but some people say it like "writer" and some people might use a "v" not a "w"
• "tarshite", the first as in "harsh", the second as in "light", never as TAR-SHITE
• "sartarite", the first as in "far", the second as in "tar", the third as in "light"

Coming from England, people pronounce all kinds of words differently, even if you move 10 miles/15 kilometres away, so I've never really bothered with "how" something might sound. In our RPG group, we have 5 people who pronounce Pavis in 5 ways.

Edited May 19, 2019 by soltakss