Post/Author/DateTime	Post
thiha 02-16-07, 10:02 AM	In the last autumn Nov 30, 2006. "Eberron Campaign Setting" was finally translated into Japanese and published with the Japanese title as "Eberron World Guide" by the distributor, Hobby Japan Ltd . (Time passes so fast. 3 years time lag to the origianl ECS. But anyway, it's finally available for all the people in Japan now.) In that Japanese version of ECS, the dragon-above Siberys is translated as シベイ, something like "see-BAY" in English pronunciation. I thought Siberys should be pronounced as "SIGH-ber-ris", "sigh-BER-ris", "SIB-ber-ris", "sib-BER-ris", or something like these. I wonder how Siberys can be pronounced as "see-BAY". Are the names in Eberron pronounced with French accent?
Logos7 02-16-07, 10:26 AM	I think in order to pronounce it like See-Bay, it would have to be done with a french accent, and as far as i know theirs nothing compelling a french accent. chalk one up to more zany translators The Way I pronounce it is Sib' - er - is But by judging by the numerous ways people pronounce Cyre and Aundaire ( Sear and On-dair for me) i don't think it matters much. Logos
Syltorian 02-16-07, 10:55 AM	SIB'-a-ris for me. (a = toneless variant of the indefinite article). But I am not a native speaker, so I will not be the best person to ask about pronounciations. A note on the "French accent": The dipthong "bay" is not a very French sound, though English tends to corrupt French [e] into this (e.g. mêlée). Check out this site (http://www.languageguide.org/francais/grammar/pronunciation/), scroll down to "bay" for the sound sample comparing the English and the French pronounciation of [e]. So I don't think you're using a French accent here, though possibly the affectation of one.
Kid SixXx 02-16-07, 12:16 PM	I put the accent on the middle syllable because I am weird. sigh-BARE-ess
Siberys 02-16-07, 12:42 PM	In the last autumn Nov 30, 2007. "Eberron Campaign Setting" was finally translated into Japanese and published with the Japanese title as "Eberron World Guide" by the distributor, Hobby Japan Ltd . (Time passes so fast. 3 years time lag to the origianl ECS. But anyway, it's finally available for all the people in Japan now.) In that Japanese version of ECS, the dragon-above Siberys is translated as シベイ, something like "see-BAY" in English pronunciation. I thought Siberys should be pronounced as "SIGH-ber-ris", "sigh-BER-ris", "SIB-ber-ris", "sib-BER-ris", or something like these. I wonder how Siberys can be pronounced as "see-BAY". Are the names in Eberron pronounced with French accent? That's how I pronounce it (well, more like sigh-BARE-ihss, but whatever...). And I should know - it's my name :P And you spelled it correctly! Allelujah! You wouldn't believe how many peple spell it "Syberis" or "Syberys". Blasphemers, the lot of 'em...
thiha 02-16-07, 12:45 PM	Thanks your comments, guys. As far as I've ever seen on the Web, no one pronounce it as /see-BAY'/ in English. (BTW, the way I pronounce it is /Sigh'-ber-ess/:rolleyes: .) Right, the Japanese distributor's tranlator must have some "zany" taste towards French accent.
thiha 02-16-07, 01:00 PM	SIB'-a-ris for me. (a = toneless variant of the indefinite article). But I am not a native speaker, so I will not be the best person to ask about pronounciations. A note on the "French accent": The dipthong "bay" is not a very French sound, though English tends to corrupt French [e] into this (e.g. mêlée). Check out this site (http://www.languageguide.org/francais/grammar/pronunciation/), scroll down to "bay" for the sound sample comparing the English and the French pronounciation of [e]. So I don't think you're using a French accent here, though possibly the affectation of one. Yes, that's a "mêlée" like 'loan French' sound. So I guess the Japanese translator might have asked how it's pronounced to some smartypants:D
tallric_kruush 02-16-07, 01:57 PM	The Way I pronounce it is Sib' - er - is But by judging by the numerous ways people pronounce Cyre and Aundaire ( Sear and On-dair for me) i don't think it matters much. Logos Yep, my thoughts exactly. For me it's: Aundair : owwn'-dair (like oww, you know) Cyre : sigh-ree' Siberys : sib'-er-is It's funny how many variations you can come up with on these names. I wonder if players from different groups wouldn't drive one another crazy with their various pronunciations. I know I'd have a hard time switching away from "sigh-ree' ", for instance, to mesh with a group that says "seer". :) After just a little experience with the setting, the places become so real in your mind that they are "sigh-ree" or "seer", and anyone pronouncing any other way just seems wrong.
okaynowa 02-16-07, 02:53 PM	Trying to pronounce "Siberys" with Japanese phonemes would result in something like "shi-be-ri-su," which to a native speaker might suggest an unpleasant sort of squirrel. "Shibei" sounds unfamiliar to me, but it's rather easier to pronounce in Japanese.
Kaoru Nagisa 02-16-07, 03:06 PM	Okaynowa, you caught it before I could speak on the subject. Anyway, yes, Japanese simply doesn't HAVE some of the sounds some of you are suggesting using. If the language doesn't HAVE them, how could they use them? shibei does shorten it slightly, but there is no real way to do the "rys" bit. The closest IS Shi-be-ri-su, and okaynowa said why that wouldn't work. In Japanese, each letter is a syllable. a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, etc in that fashion and format. Many forms of american sounds don't really work well in the language, because the language is completely different, and is far more different in design than the other European languages, which of course all developed together, have similar roots and have influenced each other over the centuries. Japanese developed with Chinese and Korean, never English and Spanish and French and German and Italian. (Now, since WW2, Japanese has been greatly influenced by English, and to a lesser extent other European languages, however these are only the post WW2 simplification of the language, and otherwise the superficial loan-words that htey borrow from us. The format is still completely different, and the sounds they can say are different.) I wonder how Eberron is pronounced. E-be-ro-ne, perhaps? Actually, its' possible to make it e-be-ro-n. And it would acutally sound similar to how I pronounce the word anyway. (the e is pronounced like "eh" as in the Canadian stereotype, o is hard o, a is a soft vowel, i is pronounced "e" similarly to our hard vowel e, but slightly more like the soft "i". Itadakimasu would be pronoucned "ee-ta-da-kee-moss", for example. It's really different and really interesting, the translation. I need to see this Eberron translation... hmm.
SquirrelMortis 02-16-07, 04:23 PM	I pronounce it Si-bur-eez As in 'brrr, it is cold'
okaynowa 02-16-07, 04:26 PM	Sea-berries?
thiha 02-17-07, 05:04 AM	Sea-berries? LOL:D . Sounds pretty tasty. I like both seafood and fruit. BTW, the Japanese version of ECS is quite expensive even if it's compared to the norm of book prices in Japan:( . It costs 7,980JPY, equivalent to 67US$ per copy approximately:eek: The distributor are now ripping off our money:mad: , monthly publishing translations of WotC stuff. As for the possible way to transcribe "Siberys" into Japanese, I think most of us would do it as シベリス（Shi-be-ri-su） or サイベリス（Sa-i-be-ri-su）. In fact, I call it サイベリス（Sa-i-be-ri-su） in my ongoing campaign played in Japanese;). (I had started to use ECS for my online sessions before the translation was published. The players are from various provinces here in Japan, also including one from Seoul, Korea. Some of them use only Japanese translations due to language skill limitation, and others use both Japanese and English supplements.) I think the sound シベリス（Shi-be-ri-su） would not annoy any native Japanese speaker, 'cause it's a foreign word written in katakana and so does not convey any specific negative image per se like written in kanji e.g. 死辺栗鼠（Shi-be-ri-su）. LOL, this way of writing words reminds me of 'kamikaze bikers' (kind of bike gang in Japan). (Russian) Siberia is シベリア（Shi-be-ri-a） in Japanese with no specific images from the respective letters included. FYI, the Japanese title of ECS is エベロン・ワールドガイド（E-be-ro-n Wa-a-ru-do-ga-i-do）. -Note for people who do not familiar:confused: with the Japanese language- You know, the Japanese writing system is rather tricky. It's consisted of three kinds of letters. Two of them are phonograms: a set of 50 letters in hiragana category, and another set of 50 letters in katakana. Today, the former is mainly used for grammatical particles and conjugations, and also for native Japanese words. The latter is used for loan words or the like from overseas, such as vocabularies of tabletop RPG (they're from US and UK). Dungeons & Dragons is "ダンジョンズ＆ドラゴンズ (Da-n-jo-n-zu A-n-do Do-ra-go-n-zu)". Too long, so we just call it D&D. Not only 100 phonograms (practically, 48*2=96 of them are used in modern Japanese) but you also need to know at least 2000, preferably 4000 to 6000 kanji, the chinese loan characters, to read articles in books, journals and newpapers. In fact, over 6000 kanji are used in Japanese literature..........I guess the burden to learn reading and writing in schooldays here in Japan may be pretty harder than that of Euro or American countries.
Euangelion 02-17-07, 01:21 PM	I try to pronouce each use of "ber" in the three progenitors the same, accented, rhyming with burr. Thus Ky-BER, Eh-BER-ron, Sih-BER-is.
dunkeykong 02-18-07, 12:42 AM	WOW. If this thread teaches us one thing is that WOTC needs to have some online courses in pronunciation of Eberronic terms. I think the first thing is to look at real world correlations between Eberron words and real words. We have very few concrete relationships in this regard, I think we can agree that Karrnath words would have a slavic bent to them whereas Thrane would have a old french feeling. i would think that nailing down the rest of the regional vocalization of Eberron would explain most things.
dunkeykong 02-18-07, 12:44 AM	And my english teacher said Id never amount to anything. TAKE THAT MRS. SIMPSON!!, BOO-YAH!!!
Darth Syntax 02-18-07, 12:50 AM	Indeed. I seem to be the only person to pronounce Cyre as something like 'Kaier' or 'Kireh' (unless I am using the 'archaic' pronunciation which I render as something like 'kürey')
Joni-san 02-19-07, 03:50 PM	I use Finnish when pronouncing D&D and Eberron names. It's the only method that makes any sense ;) None of that silly cApItAl lEEtEEr nonsense and things like Vec-nuh. (I kid/rant because I find "How to pronounce X" threads and the english language amusing)
thiha 02-20-07, 07:19 AM	WOW. If this thread teaches us one thing is that WOTC needs to have some online courses in pronunciation of Eberronic terms. I think the first thing is to look at real world correlations between Eberron words and real words. We have very few concrete relationships in this regard, I think we can agree that Karrnath words would have a slavic bent to them whereas Thrane would have a old french feeling. i would think that nailing down the rest of the regional vocalization of Eberron would explain most things. "Karrnath words would have a slavic bent to them whereas Thrane would have a old french feeling." -- Interesting, I'm gonna consider to use Slavic for Karrnath words and words with old-french feeling for Thrane. BTW I use Japanese for Darguun goblinoid words, since in my own Eberron setting, classes such as Samurai, Ninja, Shugenja are allowed only for goblinoid NPCs, half-orc or human PCs from the goblinoid nation. To take those classes, human PCs need to know Orcish or Goblin speech as part of the background prerequisites (in my campaign):D . In this regard I'm now wondering how the orcs and (other) goblinds relate to each other in the world of Eberron:confused: :confused: .
thiha 02-20-07, 07:24 AM	I use Finnish when pronouncing D&D and Eberron names. It's the only method that makes any sense ;) None of that silly cApItAl lEEtEEr nonsense and things like Vec-nuh. (I kid/rant because I find "How to pronounce X" threads and the english language amusing) Vec-nuh:confused:
Seghan 02-20-07, 09:22 AM	I pronounce "Aundair" : AY - yun - dare (silent e, like the word dare). "Siberys" I usually cut the middle syllable : SI - bris. Now you know.
Arokosaki 02-20-07, 09:33 PM	You all are quite with the zany! (*said most mockingly*) anyway... Personally, the pronunciations I've used (and heard people in the area use) are: Siberys: Sih-bear-iss OR Sib-air-us Aundair: Awn-dare Cyre: Sigh-er (but I've heard Sigh-ree on occasion)
Darth Syntax 02-20-07, 10:37 PM	You know, these pronunciation thread show up every couple of weeks. Moreover, it always seems to draw the same crowd (myself for example). Maybe we should request a "Pronunciation in Eberron" thread become stuck to the top of one of these excellent forums . . .
dunkeykong 02-21-07, 03:11 PM	Ok guys, were getting nowhere. I would imagine that someone(i.e. the guy who invented them) knows how to pronounce these terms. As much as we discuss the different possibilities for ethnic vernacular, in the end its all just speculation. I implore Mr. Baker or someone in WOTC to help us out with this. Ever since I saw this thread, the topic has been gnawing at me.
Darth Syntax 02-21-07, 03:22 PM	Keith's got his pronunciations up somewhere (either at his website or at the Eberron Journal), but I didn't begin pronouncing them the same way, and it's, at this point, impossible (and somewhat painful) for me to pronounce Cyre with c = s. So each of us has our own pronunciations which are 'correct' for our versions of the world. All that said, it would be good to have a place to direct people so that they can read over the discussion.
AvonRekaes 02-21-07, 03:58 PM	Keith also suggested that every way to pronounce a word is correct. Native Cyrans might pronounce it "Sigh-ree" while people from Breland call it "Seer" due to regional accents. Breland might be pronounced "Bree-land" or "Breh-lund" depending on where you are.
dunkeykong 02-21-07, 04:04 PM	good point on both you guys. Ultimatley, they can say it however the hell they want. Now, that said, id love to see that pronunciation guide, does anyone have a link?
okaynowa 02-21-07, 04:04 PM	while people from Breland call it "Seer" due to regional accents.Heh heh, seer. That sounds like "cheese" in Czech.
AvonRekaes 02-21-07, 06:36 PM	Must be hard to play a psion focusing on clairsentience with a straight face there then :P
thiha 02-21-07, 10:32 PM	You know, I started this thread out of curiosity about the problem between Japanese scripts and roman alphabet. You can pronounce a certain spelling in various ways as you prefer, but it's not the same for us when using different scripts than roman alphabets. For instance. as for Japanese, there'd be one way, nobody would recognize Siberys as /SIGH'-ber-ris/, /SIB'-ber-ris/, /sib-BEH'-ris/ or whatsoever, except /s(h)ee-BAY'/ and the like:embarrass . Any Eberron pronunciation guideline or sth like that by Keith Baker? I'd appreciate it if someone posts such links if they're availble online:) . Also, I'm interedted in D&D books printed in non-roman letters. I guess there would be some in Russian Cryllic, and maybe Israeli Hebrew:confused: ? Maybe there'd be no Arabic one, maybe... As far as I know, we have Japanese and Traditional Chinese versions of published D&D3.5 here in Far Eastern countries.
Dragom 02-22-07, 12:54 AM	"Psi-Beer-ies" For me.
Siberys 02-23-07, 12:27 AM	"Psi-Beer-ies" For me. You're a drunken beholder wilder?(!)
Edymnion 02-23-07, 12:34 PM	I just call it Seabiscuit. :P But seriously, we have no right to complain about how names get translated. Just look at all of the HORRIBLE corruptions of foreign words that English has. Ten gallon hats have nothing to do with liquid measures, but with your hair, for example. Forgive my spelling, but the original spanish word was galleon, which were essentially large braids. A ten galleon hat was a hat big enough that you could wrap ten galleons around it, or ten braids. I won't even get into how we pronounce things down here in the south. Only place on earth you'll find a city named Lafayette that is pronounced "lah-FAY-eht"
thiha 02-23-07, 07:48 PM	I should've posted it as "sea-BAY", maybe. Wanna eat seafood.