Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

Hi, a Pm from SACarrow got me thinking about the pronunciation of Ta'agra words. I often talk to myself, trying to imitate the Khajiiti voice (poorly) and think about how certain words are pronounced. I have an excellent grasp of pronunciation of foreign words, even though i might never have heard the spoken form. So i thought I'd try to create a pronunciation guide for those who would like to voice act Khajiiti NPCs

This is what i told SACarrow:

rolling your R's is important, as it will give a more growling feel to your voice. it may take some practice to get it right, if you can't do it already. the vowels are pretty straight forward, but the A's (in Ta'agra) are pronounced like the last A in Banana, not as in apple

Some pronunciation examples from the Ahzirr Trajijazaeri (Azeer Tra-jij-azery) (not certain on the translation)

"q'zi no vano thzina ualizz" "when I contradict myself I am telling the truth"
Q'zi would be like K'zee, no would have the o sound from ordinator rather than nose, va(banana)no(like the previous no) thzina is real difficult, even for me, just make the th sound, like in the, but instead of the e say zina (like Xena), ualizz, would be ooaalizz.

"gzalzi vaberzarita maaszi" "absurdity has become necessity"
gzalzi would be like gazelle, but omit the a when speaking it, then have the zi (zee) on the end. vaberr would be spoken pretty much how it's spelt, zarita wouls be zarreeta. maaszi has a long a, so make sure you can emphasize it. the s is silent so far as I can tell in this case.

"Renrijra Krin" "Mercenaries Grin"
Renrijra would be Rrenrrijrra, and Krin is like grin, but roll the r's again.

I have (very) limited Spanish, and so I'm planning to use that to influence my pronuniciation. Some thoughts:

- My plan is to pronounce the vowels like Spanish; roughly:
a - ah, e - May, i - feet, o - torn, u - too. The major diff in Spanish is that they are pronounced shorter and tenser. If you listen to English vowels, they tend to run on a bit; Spanish vowels are very clipped. Tenser means to tense the muscles of the lips more than in English; if the lips are drawn back, draw them back more. If they are rounded, round them smaller.

- For consonants, I plan to pronounce the "puff" consonants (t, k and p for example) without the puff.

For other sounds, I want to emphasize sibilance and roll my Rs. Renrijra Krin gives me fits; my English-trained lips want to put a pause between the n and a rolled r. Doubled vowels are held longer, while an apostrophe acts as a stop, so Taagra and Ta'agra would sound slightly different.

About the th sound - voiced (the) or unvoiced (thin)?

I'll post some samples tomorrow (EDT).

Share your thoughts,
Steve

thin works better,

about the e's i think bread fit in better, but may would work too.

Yeah, my pronunciation is influenced by japanese