 Uppity Elven Language, Err, what does this sound like? |
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 Jun 27 2004, 02:00 AM
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#1
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Runner  Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375  |
I've seen the language translated (*cough* AH *cough*) but I've never seen a pronunciation guide.
Also, what would the accent sound like? I've been toying around with the idea of a Sperethiel speaking character and I was curious how one would represent the accent in RL and on, say, a PbP medium. Thoughts? |
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Jun 27 2004, 02:13 AM
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#2
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 511 Joined: 30-May 03 From: Tulsa, OK Member No.: 4,652 |
The common consensus is to use Gaelic as a guide for pronounciation, probably leaning towards the Irish dialect.
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Jun 27 2004, 02:21 AM
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#3
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
OK. I can do the Boroque (sp?) thing but I've only heard Gaelic once and that was about 7 years ago.
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Jun 27 2004, 02:26 AM
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#4
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,901 Joined: 19-June 03 Member No.: 4,775 |
Brogue. Not to be confused with the Baroque period of European art and music history.
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Jun 27 2004, 02:28 AM
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#5
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
So which one would it sound like?
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Jun 27 2004, 02:30 AM
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#6
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,901 Joined: 19-June 03 Member No.: 4,775 |
Sperethiel would, supposedly, sound a lot like Gaelic or Welsh. Its accent in English would probably sound a fair bit like an Irish brogue.
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Jun 27 2004, 02:32 AM
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#7
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
Probably Gaelic, with the accent of whatever the speaker's primary language(s). I'm sure the brogue slips in too. When in doubt, just claim the daisy-eater's speaking Gaelic-Sperethiel and tell him his momma played with elves. :talker:
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Jun 27 2004, 02:35 AM
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#8
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
Thanks, man. I was waiting for you to show up. :) |
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Jun 27 2004, 02:37 AM
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#9
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
My Private Messages are always open...and, if I may say, answered fairly promptly. :grinbig:
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Jun 27 2004, 02:40 AM
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#10
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
I'll keep that in mind. I didn't want to breach etiquette or snub anyone else around here. :)
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Jun 27 2004, 02:43 AM
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#11
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 577 Joined: 12-June 04 Member No.: 6,398 |
Give this Irish Sayings site a try. It includes clips of a person speaking various Irish Gaelic phrases, even if done a bit formally in tone. (If you're going to speak with an exotic accent, at least have the decency to ham it up a bit. Honestly.)
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Jun 27 2004, 02:46 AM
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#12
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
That's the plan. :) mu-hahaha... |
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Jun 28 2004, 03:04 AM
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#13
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Illuminate of the New Dawn Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 317 Joined: 9-June 03 From: Seattle 'Plex, UCAS Member No.: 4,700 |
Another thing to keep in mind is that unless you're talking about an IE, no character speaks Sperethiel as their native language. Well, a few maybe - and then you'd have to be young. But even if it was your native langague, the accent will be passed down to you from your parents who weren't (I assume) native speakers. So you'd mimic whatever accent they had - if they were Irish, you'd speak Sperethiel with an Irish influenced-accent. If they were from TT, you'd probably speak it with an American influenced-accent. IEs would, of course, be the exception to this. They'd have an accent like, well, nothing else, realistically, though I bet even they would be influenced by thousands of years that they were forced to speak other languages besides Sperethiel.
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Jun 28 2004, 03:14 AM
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#14
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
Hence Dunkie's comment to Harley in the Tir Tairngire sourcebook. Segue city, babu! :rotfl:
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Jun 28 2004, 07:00 AM
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#15
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 830 Joined: 3-April 04 From: Columbus, Ohio Member No.: 6,215 |
Oh man, you SHOULD play an immortal elf. It can be a 1,000 point edge offset by a 500 point arrogance flaw and a 500 point Ridiculousness flaw. Hehehe. Stupid elves... |
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Jun 28 2004, 09:31 AM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: 7-June 02 From: Living with the straw sheep. Member No.: 2,850 |
I'm sure no one wants to hear this....but as a near-native speaker of Irish Gaelic (I've spoken Irish since I was 2, and did most of my primary and secondary school education through Irish), I can tell you that Sperethiel as written would not come out well with Irish Gaelic pronunciation.
Try pronouncing all the "th" sounds as partially-voiced "h" sounds for a start... You could possibly look to Welsh for a guide (Scots Galllic is very close to Irish Gaelic in pronunciation...enough that it sounds quite similar to the northern Irish dialect of Gaeilge...). It looks to me though as if most of the Sperethiel lexicon was pulled from the writers' a$$es, with a healthy influence from Tolkien's Elvish (lots of double-"l"s, probably not aspirated though, tons of "th"s, words ending in "el" or "iel") or even possibly D&D. :talker: :talker: |
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Jun 28 2004, 10:27 AM
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#17
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
Gee...and I've just been defaulting to pig Latin with an upper-crust British accent. Boy, is my face red. |
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Jun 28 2004, 01:49 PM
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#18
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
Well, if you want to nit-pick, I'll go you one better. In fact, IEs would not speak Sperethiel as their native language. Its a variant of what ever they spoke in Ed. ;) As for native speakers, I seem to remember a few Canon references to elves only speaking "The Voice"--I think they were examples in earlier BBBs and from the original Sprawl Sites. So there is a precedent for Sperethiel speaking elves. Besides all that, maybe the character I have in mind simply speaks Sperethiel as his primary language but speaks one or more others as well--like in Europe. Since he speaks Sperethiel the most, it would affect his speech patterns. Kinda like if you hang out down south (in the US) long enough, you pick up a bit of a drawl. Amongst other things... :D |
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Jun 28 2004, 01:51 PM
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#19
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 577 Joined: 12-June 04 Member No.: 6,398 |
Odd. I use Pig Latin in a really bad Norweigan accent for the Ork (Trog) tongue. Go figure. |
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Jun 28 2004, 03:30 PM
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#20
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 188 Joined: 16-June 03 From: Da Burgh, PA Member No.: 4,751 |
Demosthenes, I'm going to assume you come from the standardized connaucht accent. I agree that sperethiel matches up much better with tolkiens' elvish than any of the gaelic dialects I've seen. Some of the dialects are so close to dead though that I can't say with any certainty. Then you have the old timers from Cork who speak in a totally different manner(my grans, deceased). |
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Jun 29 2004, 10:59 AM
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#21
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: 7-June 02 From: Living with the straw sheep. Member No.: 2,850 |
[bump]
Well, my "native" dialect is Conamara Irish, but I'm very familiar with Donegal/Northern Irish, and you can't deal with Gaelic language media without running into the Munster dialect all the time. The differences in pronunciation and language are enough that it can be hard to understand someone with a really broad dialect, but the fundamental rules for pronouncing the kinds of sounds that turn up in Sperethiel words all the time are essentially the same. Hence, my comment on Sperethiel not having much to do with Irish/Gaelic pronunciation. You could try Cornish, but if you're going that far afield, you might as well have the Elves speak Basque (what a cool idea...) [end of thread derailment and bumping] My apologies to whoever had to wade through my (none too-thorough) linguistic ranting. |
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Jun 30 2004, 04:07 AM
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#22
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Illuminate of the New Dawn Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 317 Joined: 9-June 03 From: Seattle 'Plex, UCAS Member No.: 4,700 |
Definately. That's why there's talk in the TT book about the inner council speaking a language that sounds kinda like Sperethiel, but which Sperethiel speakers can't understand. Old Sperethiel or whatever you want to call it. Modern Sperethiel is probably some descendant of that...? Presumeably. Or one could be Theran (which, if I remember my ED, was related to Elvish) and the other could be actual Elvish. Who knows? As for cannon refrences to Sperethiel-only speakers, I don't remember and my Sprawl Sites (and 1st and 2nd eds) is buried under a ton of rpg books and I'm too lazy to go dig any of them out and look. Again, it's possible, just not all that likely to be common. You'd have to have been born after Sperethiel was made available to learn as a language (who actually "re-introduced" Sperethiel? I don't remember anything about that in TT or TnO or anything else. And when? Anybody know?) and you'd have to have been in a place where it was used around you constantly as a child (if you want to learn it as a native speaker). So, probably some nationalist noble's kid in TT or TnO? And I'm sure you'd probably speak some other langauge. I mean, what percentage of the world speaks Sperethiel? You'd definately learn something else, I have no doubt. As for the pronounciation of Sperethiel influencing your pronounciation of other languages: I suppose it's possible. It just really depends on where Sperethiel came from and what kind of accent was introduced with it. Did the IEs reintroduce it and, therefore, reintroduce its "native" accent, or...? Anyway, you should do whatever you want with your character. I'm getting a degree that involves a hefty dose of linguistics so I just like to think about these kinds of things, just because. :spin: @ Demosthenes and Arz: Definately not anything like any of the Celtic languages, as far as I know any of them, either. But the Basque connection would be kinda cool... I mean, no one knows what Basque is related to and all that... Also, since Tolkien took a lot of his Elvish grammar from Finnish, then would it make more sense to make Elvish be pronounced like some mutant Finnish dialect? Any Finns out there - would Elvish work at all with Finnish pronounciation? BTW - Demosthenes: My Irish is a bit rusty, but does your .sig say what I think it says? (Not any sick ar$e like your own sick ar$e?) |
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Jun 30 2004, 05:02 AM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 830 Joined: 3-April 04 From: Columbus, Ohio Member No.: 6,215 |
I think it's great that one of the people with the most useful knowledge on pronunciations in this thread goes by the handle "Demosthenes." Unless the fact that it's been years since I studied ancient Macedonia is screwing me up, in which case that first sentence is entirely stupid.
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Jun 30 2004, 05:58 AM
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#24
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Now we just need Locke to come in and disagree.
~J |
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Jun 30 2004, 07:10 AM
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#25
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 132 Joined: 4-May 03 Member No.: 4,535 |
i heard that they recently decided (or maybe someone just proposed it) that Euskara and tibetan languages are related, in a very distant way (read before the basque foray into europe, which predates the indo-european migration, so like garden of eden stuff :))
but im pretty sure this has not been proven, or at least accepted. Just something interesting |
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