I was talking with Wolf (SO) about the Naga books, and I realized that I don’t know how to pronounce some of this stuff. Naga is easy, but Teot? Caladrunan? Girdeth, for that matter? How do you pronounce this stuff, NV?
I was talking with Wolf (SO) about the Naga books, and I realized that I don’t know how to pronounce some of this stuff. Naga is easy, but Teot? Caladrunan? Girdeth, for that matter? How do you pronounce this stuff, NV?
Jusdging by some of the research pages we’ve got on it, the orginal Sanskrit shows a long A for the first syllable in Naga, which sounds very odd. IF you read Kipling, you tend to say Ricki-Tikki-Tavi’s snake characters (bad guys!) Nag and Nagaina with a short a. So I’m ending up saying it NOG- uh, which probably isn’t true to the original sources.
Teot in my head is tonal on about three precise notes, but it flattens out in English as tea – ought.
Caladrunan also has something odd in it (possibly something on one of the vowels that’s umlautish, but that’s not right either, sorry!) but I flatten it into CAL – uh- droon -en
Girdeth has a little soft throatiness on the th, when Naga says it, but flattens to GIR – deth with a softer diphthong. Not quite GIR- dezh.
I’ve always said “NAH guh”, with a flat “A”– like “apple” and I hope th3 English pronounce “Apple the same way us americcins do…
And my books are on their way, sez amazon, so I don’t have anything else to add to this convo just yet :p