Nabooru Pronunciation[]
I'm not very good with writing the pauses in IPA, like the apostrophe, comma, and period, but I do understand the letters and pronunciation. Perhaps you could explain to me the difference. The comma is for a long vowel, tho, right?
Now as for the pronunciation, what I hear now that I look it up on YouTube and listen to it with headphones is the nɑ being reduced into a nə, and the OO being pronounced ɔ instead of o like I had it originally, but like you said, she pronounced it with a standard R (r) (rather than an English R (ɹ) which tends to get a bonus ə right before it). I definitely don't hear the R being with the OO like you do. I hear it with the U. I know it makes more sense for some consonants (like an English R) to attach to the end of an open vowel, but I don't think a standard R would be one of those. Also, isn't the comma for elongating a vowel? She definitely pronounces the OO as a long vowel, and the U at the end is pretty short. So I'm quite certain the IPA for that actor's pronunciation would be nə'bɔ:ru, assuming I have the spacing markers correct. Schwarzorn (talk) 23:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
- All right, let's see... /ˈ/ is directly before a syllable with primary stress, /ˌ/ is directly before a syllable with secondary stress, and /./ is a syllable break. /ˈ/ and /ˌ/ are also implicitly syllable breaks, so that /.ˈ/ and /.ˌ/ are redundant. /ː/ immediately after a vowel indicates that it is phonetically long. Now, still reading your comment...
- As for exact pronunciations of words, trying to reach an exact complete phonetic pronunciation accounting for speaker and accent is not necessarily a good idea. The English language comes in all sorts of different accents, each with their own pronunciation quirks. While "Nabooru" is presumed to be a word in some stage of the Gerudo language, the dialogue of the English version of Breath of the Wild is (not surprisingly) in English, so a "broad transcription" of sounds in English is used for the pronunciation. That means /r/ is transcribed even where it would be silent for British or Australian speakers, and /ɔːr/ (as in NORTH) and /ɔər/ (as in FORCE) are distinguished, and so forth. When speaking of broad transcriptions of English vowels, there are various opinions on the wisest way to go about it, but the prevailing wisdom is to treat vowels as part of a "lexical set," which makes it relatively easy to discuss different vowels and what makes them different. Now, what are the vowels in "Nabooru"? On inspection, it sounds like the COMMA vowel, then either the NORTH or FORCE vowel, then the GOOSE vowel. The most likely alternative to the COMMA vowel for the first syllable is probably the PALM vowel, but I would say it's not this vowel because Urbosa pronounces it too lax such that it becomes a "weak vowel." And most (but not all) accents today pronounce the NORTH and FORCE vowels the same way (/ɔɹ/ in North America, /ɔː(ɹ)/ in England), but usually, the rule in determining which is which is by context—is the "o" understood to be "long" or "short" (even if the pronunciation difference has been lost)? With such a test, the "o" in "for" is a "short" "o", while the "o" in "fore" or "four" is a "long" "o", and some accents still distinguish this (like /fɒr/ vs. /foːr/ in Ireland) even if many of us no longer do. I'm going with the general assumption that the "oor" in "Nabooru" is a FORCE vowel (with "long" "o"). For historic reasons, largely concerned with reflecting meta-differences between North America and Britain, the NORTH vowel is broadly transcribed /ɔːr/ while the FORCE vowel is broadly transcribed /ɔər/. Using a more exacting pronunciation for Gerudo language words would be a fool's errand as long as the phonology of the fictional Gerudo language itself is not well defined and documented such that we can cite it as a reference—we can only really rely on how the words filter into broad English phonotactics. - Dermotmacflann (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
- As for whether the "u" in Nabooru is a strong vowel or a week vowel, broad English transcriptions generally don't distinguish this in final vowels. /i/ (HAPPY) vs. /iː/ (FLEECE) are traditionally distinguished because they actually differ in some accents (Scotland in particular), but final /u/ vs. /uː/ aren't distinguished at the ends of words because practically no natively-spoken accent of English treats these as separate phonemes which can be assigned separate lexical set terms. So there's a GOOSE vowel, but no separate HINDU vowel, if that makes sense. A lax /u/ can theoretically exist word internally, and I like to non-standardly call this the MINUET vowel (/ˌmɪnjuˈɛt/), which can have a lax realization, [ˌmɪnjʊˈɛt]. But if you speak the vowel at the end of a word, in pause, it does not really differ from the tense version of the vowel. Some people to say HAPPY (/ˈhæpi/) more narrowly as [ˈhæpɪ], but how many people pronounce "Hindu" /ˈhɪnduː/ more narrowly as [ˈhɪndʊ]? I'm going to guess hardly any native accent of English has this as a feature. The meta-vowel /i/ exists because some accents tense it to [iː] while other accents lax it to [ɪ] or even [e] (again, Scotland), separately from /iː/, even at the ends of words. The same can't really be said of /u/ vs. /uː/ at the ends of words. - Dermotmacflann (talk) 00:03, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply. Sorry I didn't reply sooner. Work got crazy and I lost all freetime for a while. Now, one thing I don't understand is...how can we even use Urbosa's ingame pronunciation as a reference if the pronunciation we're giving on the wiki has been changed into something else? I understand and admire the attempt to present to knowledge-seekers a pronunciation that adheres to no one particular accent; however, what are the rules on this? Currently the wiki seems like it uses a mishmash of accents fighting eachother. It's a bit confusing.
By "broad English transcriptions", do you mean something like this...? --> Most Americans pronounce AU/AW as [ɑ] (which I would assume is how it was pronounced back at the beginning of Modern English), but most British (or just the English?) pronounce AU/AW as if it were a Short O [ɔ]. Thus 'Paul' becomes 'poll' in Britain. Similarly, most Americans pronounce A that way when before an R or L, but the British, again, change that to a Short O sound, thus the word 'ball' is pronounced like 'bowl', which is why they changed the spelling of 'ballocks' to 'bollocks'. I would say that the Americans are pronouncing these words in an "accentless" way and should be used over a British pronunciation. However, on the flipside, the British pronounce a Short O like in 'cot' with a Short O sound [ɔ], while Americans pronounce it with an AU/AW sound. Thus 'cot' becomes 'caught'. So in this case, it would be the British who are 'accentless' and preferable. ...Well, if they weren't pronouncing 'caught' as 'cot'. Some states don't have this merger, tho, and keep it "accentless", and that seems like the best way to go on the wiki as apposed to choosing a side. Schwarzorn (talk) 03:34, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
- Broad pronunciations are often conventionally used in scholarly publications, including dictionaries and encyclopedies. Here is what Wikipedia uses, for example. Some of the subtleties vary from publication to publication, but the basics are generally well-established: Short O is broadly /ɒ/, even though its actual realization ranges between [ɔ] (RP and AuE) and [ɑ] (GenAm) depending on accent. The history of pronunciation within the same accent can also complicate this, as only a few decades ago, even RP speakers genuinely said [ɒ], and most dictionaries still use this symbol to stand in for the short O phoneme. The purpose of all this is to aid the international reader who is practiced in a conventional form of English, even if English is not necessarily their native language. This learnt convention is overwhelmingly based on either RP, GenAm or AuE, so an international broad transcription encompassing all three is logical. Of course, this doesn't necessarily cover conventions of English that preserve details that the primary accents don't (such as in Scottish English, Hiberno-English, Welsh English, etc.), but the distinctions these accents make are mostly regional and tend not to be taught internationally, which is why we indicate Urbosa as /ɜːrˈboʊsə/ rather than, say, /ʌrˈboːsə/. If a specific character uses a specific narrow pronunciation that can be identified as Scottish, Hiberno, etc., then that pronunciation can be listed additionally. But the in-game accents for Breath of the Wild are overwhelmingly either GenAm or RP, and conventional IPA transcriptions for covering both accents are already readily available and documented. Indicating pronunciation as /ɜːrˈboʊsə/ already implies both RP /ɜːˈbəʊsə/ and GenAm /ɝˈbosə/, and because of longstanding media exposure, people around the world can already recognize and correlate both pronunciations as variations of the same word (mutual intelligibility). Until these accents no longer form part of the continuum of one united intelligible international language, and as long as the readers are from around the world and overwhelmingly trained in established conventions, broad IPA transcriptions will continue to play a necessary role. - Dermotmacflann (talk) 10:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
I see. My concern, however, was more about the accents used. There doesn't seem to be a page on this wiki dedicated to explaining the "accent" to use, which is probably why I've seen crazy pronunciations like the letter A being pronounced like a short O for some names on here. I think it was for Volvagia. Of course, it doesn't even have a pronunciation on here anymore. But still, if we are to ignore the in-game accent that influenced the pronunciation, there should be a help page explaining that, and explaining that the pronunciation we give must be an accentless-as-possible blend of the main three accents.
As for the in-game accents, you really only have one real accent...plus Zelda. You've of course got Zelda's English accent, and then everyone else's American accent. King Rhoam and Princess Mipha both have pretend English accents for some reason. King Rhoam can't even say his own name correctly in the accent he tries to use. And then they have the Gerudoes at least saying the names from their own language in their own accent, but only like half of them. I think they say "Naboris" and "Nabooru" in the Gerudo accent, but not "Urbosa" or even "Gerudo". I don't think the voice director cared much at all about the pronunciations OR accents in this game.
Finally, I feel like giving more than one pronunciation should be possible. I'm sure it could be beneficial for some names. Also, more importantly, I feel that giving most-likely-meant-to-be-pronounced-like-this pronunciations should be a thing. There are names that may never be spoken aloud in-game (most names, probably), but people come to this encyclopedic website in an attempt to LEARN how to correctly pronounce the names. Why can't this encyclopedia be allowed to let them learn? Behind the Name is a great website for learning pronunciations (of which there can be multiple) and etymology. If a name's origin is only speculated by scholars, then it will simply say so while still providing that bit of potentially correct scholarly knowledge. It's better than nothing, and so long as it's clearly stated to be a highly researched guess (or guessES), then there should be no problem. It would only serve to help people seeking knowledge, who don't have the required combination of English and Japanese linguistic knowledge to figure it out for themselves and end up having to go to a forum and get incorrect information.Schwarzorn (talk) 22:28, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
- Zelda Wiki already has a long-established pronunciation guide page: Zelda Wiki:Pronunciation Guide. For each vowel, it lists some example words containing that vowel, and this is in general agreement across the major accents. Determining which vowels are used in each word is a matter of comparing them to the basic sounds. In "Naboris," the first vowel "a" is a schwa like in the word COMMA, the second vowel "or" is a FORCE vowel, and the third vowel "i" is a schwi (a weak vowel in free variation between the COMMA and KIT vowels). And it's easy to describe these vowels in words here, because I'm drawing on lexical sets, a method invented decades ago by English linguist John C. Wells to easily associate English vowels with English words as they differ across the major accents, so that if I say "Zelda" has the DRESS and COMMA vowels, or that "Hyrule" has the PRICE and GOOSE vowels, it's fairly clear what I mean no matter our individual accents. And these distinct vowel phonemes have fairly standard international IPA transcriptions, as also used on sites like Wikipedia. There's no reason for Zelda Wiki to not also use these kinds of well-established conventions.
- As for pronunciations that have since disappeared on the wiki (like "Volvagia"), they have been removed because they are unsourced, often reflecting fanon at best. Zelda Wiki no longer describes pronunciations that cannot be attributed to official referenceable sources, whether it be game voice acting or official interview/comment videos. - Dermotmacflann (talk) 23:28, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Oh, thank you! See, this is what I've been asking for forever now, and no one apparently knows of its existence except you. Haha. It's be nice if this was easier to find... Anyway, about the lexical sets... They seem like a very nice idea, however, I'm not sure how accurate they are. For example, CLOTH and THOUGHT (as well as 'taut' and 'hawk') are said to be pronounced with the O as /ɔ/ in GenAm, but most Americans would pronounce it with /ɑ/. I think maybe a few places like New York City and Philadelphia might pronounce them that way. I know they seem to pronounce the word 'on' as /ɔn/ instead of /ɑn/ like the majority of the US. So altho you say "it's fairly clear what I mean no matter our individual accents", it's really NOT to most people (325 million in the US versus 62 million in the UK). Most English speakers who see "AW" are going to think it's pronounced /ɑː/, not /ɔː/. Now, that might not be a problem sometimes (so long as they don't know IPA), it can cause problems with words like origin, which -according to the lexical set list on Wikipedia- says 'origin' is pronounced the same way as 'cough' and 'long'. But that's not the case at all. You could write 'cawf' and 'lawng' and the pronunciation wouldn't change, but 'awrigin' wouldn't work since most people in the US say 'origin' with an OR (ɔr) sound as apposed to an AW (ɑ) sound. Schwarzorn (talk) 23:24, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
- Lexical sets are a general rule of thumb, and there are exceptions, including words like "on"—I think some accents that pronounce it with a CLOTH vowel may be influenced by its pairing with "off," which is unambiguously a CLOTH word. As for the four-way merger of PALM-LOT-CLOTH-THOUGHT vowels in parts of the United States, this is mostly found in the central and western parts of the country, and is furthered by the media and entertainment influence of Los Angeles where the merger predominates. Most of Canada also has that four-way merger. But most of the eastern U.S. maintains the LOT-CLOTH distinction, merging LOT with PALM but merging CLOTH with THOUGHT. One exception is eastern New England (including Boston), which merges in a different direction—LOT-CLOTH are merged there as they are in the western U.S., they don't necessarily merge with PALM or THOUGHT (except in places like Boston itself, where LOT-CLOTH-THOUGHT merge but are distinct from PALM). Then there's informal lexical sets I'll just call "SORRY" and "ORANGE", which varyingly have the same vowel as START or NORTH depending on North American dialect. So, summary:
| Lexical Set | PALM | LOT | CLOTH | THOUGHT | START | SORRY | ORANGE | NORTH | FORCE | CURE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central Canada | ɑ | ɑ | ɑ | ɑ | ɑɹ | ɔɹ | ɔɹ | ɔɹ | ɔɹ | ʊɹ |
| Western U.S. | ɑ | ɑ | ɑ | ɑ | ɑɹ | ɑɹ | ɔɹ | ɔɹ | ɔɹ | ʊɹ |
| Eastern U.S. | ɑ | ɑ | ɔ | ɔ | ɑɹ | ɑɹ | ɑɹ | ɔɹ | ɔɹ | ʊɹ |
| Eastern New England | ɑː | ɒː | ɒː | ɔː | ɑː(ɹ) | ɒː(ɹ) | ɒː(ɹ) | ɔː(ɹ) | ɔə(ɹ) | ʊə(ɹ) |
| Southern England | ɑː | ɔ | ɔ | oː | ɑː | ɔɹ | ɔɹ | oː | oː | oː |
- Dermotmacflann (talk) 03:25, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Source Info on Image Uploads[]
Hey, make sure you provide information for your source in the source field when you upload an image. If you obtained the image yourself, go ahead and use {{Original Source|Dermotmacflann}}. If you obtained it another way, please state or link where. Thanks. -- Hylian pi (talk) 06:17, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
- I forgot where I got it from, except that I was doing a bunch of Google Images searches. But I can try to retrace my steps. - Dermotmacflann (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
- Here. The same image has been passed around lots of sites. I could never tell you where it originally came from—just that it matches the Wii U channel image at apparently the same resolution. - Dermotmacflann (talk) 22:36, 18 April 2017 (UTC)