How do you pronounce...?

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May 2013

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[Criada Resident]

I asked Laja to separate this Topic now, as it is an interesting discussion, but has nothing to do with the topic.

I see you point, Micah, as I said, but you ignore mine. In the German books it is written Ubar, which is in German pronounced Oobar, if the word had only one way to pronounce it, it would have been spelled Jubar in the German books. So to assume Ubar is always pronounced in English is simply wrong. Of course we can assume that JN was simply too lazy to really think about the Gorean language and how it is pronounced and therefore made a mistake with the translation in different languages.

I’m normally thankfully when I get corrected, as that helps me to learn English I’m far from being perfect, but I think that in this case it was 1. done rudely while derailing the topic and 2. it is a thing to discuss but not to take it as a fact so easily, I would be curious how Ubar is spelled in a French book.

But honestly I take it as compliment of Dyce, he seemingly didn’t notice I’m not a native English speaker to point it out in the way he did 

[Micah Jules]

I asked Laja to separate this Topic now, as it is an interesting discussion, but has nothing to do with the topic.

I see you point, Micah, as I said, but you ignore mine. In the German books it is written Ubar, which is in German pronounced Oobar, if the word had only one way to pronounce it, it would have been spelled Jubar in the German books. So to assume Ubar is always pronounced in English is simply wrong. Of course we can assume that JN was simply too lazy to really think about the Gorean language and how it is pronounced and therefore made a mistake with the translation in different languages.

I’m normally thankfully when I get corrected, as that helps me to learn English I’m far from being perfect, but I think that in this case it was 1. done rudely while derailing the topic and 2. it is a thing to discuss but not to take it as a fact so easily, I would be curious how Ubar is spelled in a French book.

But honestly I take it as compliment of Dyce, he seemingly didn’t notice I’m not a native English speaker to point it out in the way he did 

You are completely accurate this spin of the conversation is off topic and has been from its first introduction to the thread.  It likely would make a great thread all on its own since its a common occurrence in RP.

I do however disagree that any of the posters who offered rationale for the various ways of pronouncing the word were attempting to be rude irregardless of which side of understanding the issue they fell on.  I know it was not my intent.

As for how it is pronounced in french I believe Poisonous Adored might be able to tell us in the new thread.

[Criada Resident]

Micah, I did not mean you to be rude, but I found the post of Dyce very rude. I think it is rude to the TE and to me too. Try to imagine you type in a foreign language and get jumped on like he did in his first statement.

[Elzbieta Balfour]

First.  Lorcan.  Perhaps that perfumer is the former ubara after plastic surgery (lots of it since I think she is too pretty to have birthed Lorcan )

I am lost on this discussion regarding the pronunciation of Ubar/a.  Phonetic rules suggest it should be a short vowel sound since it precedes a consonant.  So how can anyone say with certainty it is 'yoo' versus 'oooo' versus 'uh'?

[Oor Breen]

I go with an. Purely because I think Norman's copyeditor and proofreader were probably the same person, and both ingesting a lot of hallucinogenics while they 'worked'.

Unintentionally, of course. Someone spiked their tea or something. No law suits, plx.

A valid point if the author didn't also use the same approach to the word in his interviews which likely were not serviced by the same copy editor.  An example...

JN: Other polities might reckon time in terms of Archon Lists, years of a Ubar’s Reign, and so on. For example, one would not expect Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and so on, to reckon time in the same way.
http://ereads.com/2011/10/an-in-depth-interview-with-john-norman.html

The author is a native English speaker so to assume he would suddenly switch his vernacular to that of a German speaker or any other language is a stretch.  I think you have to use the rules of language of the writer rather than the reader particularly when they are annoyingly consistent.

When transcribing for an interview piece and confronted with a word that doesn't exist within the English language other than as part of a fictional series, it would be normal for a journalist to consult said fictional series if unsure about how to treat a particular word. The choice of the indefinite article in this case could be nothing more than a parrot-style furtherance of the error made in the initial text. Or maybe it's just an error in pronunciation on Norman's part, and he actually meant it to be 'yubar'. If he did, then he should have followed the written conventions that would have led to that phonetic outcome.

Native English speaker or not there are some glaring mistakes. He didn't notice when he was writing, his copyeditor didn't pick them up, he didn't pick them up on his check of the copyedit, his proofreader didn't pick them up, he didn't pick them up when he was checking his galleys and pages, and they went into publication.

Ubar, for example, shouldn't be capitalised in most of the places in the books where it's captalised. But it's a mistake that a LOT of people would make.

@ Elzbieta - The vowel preceding a consonant doesn't necessarily affect the indefinite article before the word. See umbilical, umbarella, under etc. What does make a difference is the fact that the consonant in question (b) is a stop (or hard vowel) rather than a fricative (or soft vowel). So it would be an 'oo' sound (as in ubiquitous) and not a 'you' sound (as in unicorn). Making the indefinite article 'an'.

Wouldn't be the first author with a grammar quirk, and definitely won't be the last.

[Oor Breen]

On second thoughts, fricative may not be the right term there. It's been a couple of years since I wrote any papers on phonetics, so forgive me if it's wrong. I don't have time right now but I'll double check later. "Hard" and "soft" describe the convention just as well though.

[Daved Calderwood]

I always thought it was pronounced "oobar". JN should have consulted Gene Roddenberry, they had to hire linguistic experts just to create the Klingon language (as well describe the pronunciation of the words).You would be surprised how many writers have to develop a language in fantasy/sci fi settings, it is a difficult task. One comes to mind is Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" ,  "Ka-tet", Khef , and "Char" was one of the many one of the many words the writer had to invent and then describe it's pronunciation and definition. I get the same thing when pronouncing "Treve" , I say it like "rev" but some other folks pronounce it like "Steve. " I suppose anyone's take on it would be correct unless it was described in the books how it was pronounced.

[Alaria Voss]

This might sound odd, but ya know, here on Earth, English is spoken as the official language in many countries.  But even the way words are spoken (pronounced) can change from region to region let alone country to country.

Even close neighbours such Australia and New Zealand (my neck of the woods) pronounce things differently....Austrailians can't count to seven they always get distracted by sex!   

But even in the British Isles, home of the mother tongue and all that, they pronounce words differently in parts of the city, let alone different districts.  (Cockney for example).   And someone from Yorkshire will say words differently than someone from Kent. 

Language evolves too, the english that is widely spoken today, has been bastardised from the mother tongue so much I am sure our ancestors would wonder if we even spoke english at all.

So what am I getting it?  apart from the fact I really don't care if it is Oobar or Yubar in pronounciation, different regions may well pronounce it differently anyhow.    And some regions have dialects that are not gorean at all, but rather local language and who is to say they don't pronouce it Jubar?

Assides it is Oobar!  cos i said so    (JK by the way).

[Oor Breen]

I LOVE LANGUAGE EVOLUTION! It's a fascinating topic, as is colloquial use of a specific language and regional differences in dialect. I like reading about the North/South Korea dialectal differences. But probably just because of my long-running fascination with North Korea.

ANYWAY. Enough nerding out. While I agree that it really doesn't matter, and that people pronounce things differently all over the place and that it really is fine - the written conventions of English insofar as grammar goes tend to be pretty universal. Like you, I'm not bothered either way, and people can pronounce it whenever they want - but there are set conventions that strongly suggest that is would be pronounced a certain way and therefore preceded by a specific indefinite article. When a person with English as a second language uses the correct conventions and gets 'corrected' by someone using made-up conventions, it makes sense to correct the correction. If that makes sense!

I'm pretty sure I just said 'enough nerding out' immediately before nerding out again. Sorry. I love English like this guy loves crayons...

[Drevan Darkbyrd]

I have Tarnsmen of Gor on audio book and the English Actor narrating it clearly pronounces it Yoobar. Is this definitive proof, no, but When this was made wouldn't John Norman had input in its making and been likely how certain Words were pronounced?

[Oor Breen]

Or maybe it's just an error in pronunciation on Norman's part, and he actually meant it to be 'yubar'. If he did, then he should have followed the written conventions that would have led to that phonetic outcome.

Yup. Could be that Norman just isn't familiar enough with phonetic convention to have accounted for it.

[Micah Jules]

Or maybe it's just an error in pronunciation on Norman's part, and he actually meant it to be 'yubar'. If he did, then he should have followed the written conventions that would have led to that phonetic outcome.

Yup. Could be that Norman just isn't familiar enough with phonetic convention to have accounted for it.

Which rule of phonetic convention do you believe he is violating?  Clearly there are other words which begin with "ub" that are treated similarly in the English language such as ubiquity (yoo-bik-wi-tee).  He was also consistent in how it was treated with the use of "a" versus "an" for all of the novels which would have had different copy editors over the span of this series with 4 different publishers.

ETA: You also mentioned that the article was not conclusive enough given that the writer might have "researched" the usage of Ubar.  Isn't it more likely he simply translated to print what he heard particularly when most interviews are taped in order to facilitate going back and capturing every nuance of what has been said.

[Adoveea Rau]

Now I just look at it as über -click on the little *hear the word said* arrows next to the names on this website and hear the word.

http://www.forvo.com/word/%C3%BCber/

Then from this site:
http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=uber


In German it means "over".
You never heard the slang phrase ubercool? uberhot?

[Raven]

You know what would be awesome?  Pronouncing "Ubar" like "Bubba".  "Ubbar".

[severus koskinen]

You do not want to know how it sounds with an Irish accent....