How many times have you been in a gaming session and someone pronounces the name of a D&D race, character, or place in a way that makes you think you have been reading different books? I am not talking about cases where the person was trying to be funny, read something incorrectly, or has a regional accent different from yours. Examples of this from my own experience include “homonuclei” instead of “homonculi”, or “salad” instead of “slaad”; yes, I really have heard both of these in gaming sessions. I am talking about cases where you realize that you really have no clue how to pronounce the name.
Two examples spring to my mind immediately and both are names of creatures. The first is “flind”. Does this rhyme with “wind”, or “wind”? You know the blowing of air or the thing you do to an old-timey watch. I purposefully used “wind” as an example to keep people from posting saying that “flind” rhymes with “wind”. While mildly amusing, this statement does not do much to clear up the situation. I have always pronounced this with a short i, but I have been known to pronounce a great many words incorrectly at one time or another, so I am probably not the best person to ask.
The second word that springs instantly to mind is “baatezu”. I have heard both bay-ate-zoo and bah-tee-zu. I am not convinced that either of these is correct – it could be bay-ate-ee-zu or bah-ah-tzu for instance – but, for what it’s worth, I say the former.
Since all of the examples that come to mind seem to be names of creatures or groups of creatures, most of the problem could be eliminated by providing the pronunciation in the description of potentially difficult to sound out names. Not all entries would need this; for instance people agree on what “spider”, “elf”, “horse”, “hydra”, and many other monsters’ names sound like. Or, WotC could put a wiki on their site with pronunciations for the more difficult say names (preferable not in IPA as I hate looking up each letter in a guide). Or better yet, have sound files of someone saying each of these names as well as the printed description.
Please feel free to add your own confusing D&D names or terms in the comments, maybe we can even come to a general consensus. I can add a poll for words that seem particularly tricky if need be. Also, if anyone from Wizards of the Cost is reading this, feel free to comment with the correct way to say “flind” and “baatezu”.
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That’s so true, we need something like the Wikimedia, where you click the icon and a woman tell you how to read “that”.
In my case its something different, because we are in Colombia, so we speak Spanish, and all of the books are in english. Not big deal, since we all speak english, but when it comes to monsters…. translating the names its bored, so we agreed to pronounce them in english no matter the “spanglish” trouble ^^
And I think the most difficult are all from the demons and devils.
Not to mention that the names of some of the deities are Sumerian, Babylonian, Nordic, Germanic, etc. So even if English is your first language, you may have problems pronouncing them if you are not sure how the vowels should be said.
I’ve always gone the other way with flind, rhyming it with blind. No explanation other than that’s how I say it.
The other one that comes to mind is the ever-popular drow. Pretty sure the official pronunciation rhymes with mow, but I started rhyming it with cow, and even though I know it’s wrong, it just seems wrong to change now.
I’m sure there are others that I’m just assuming I know how to pronounce.
I have started saying drow as in mow in the last couple of years, but I used to rhyme it with cow. For what it’s worth, I still think it sounds better rhymed with cow.
I’ve only ever heard it pronounced rhymed with cow.
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I think one of the most debated pronunciation is the one regarding the question, “Does drow rhyme with crow or brow?”
Speaking of drow, is Lolth pronounced with a long o or short o? Is the 2nd l silent? I’ve pronounced it fairly close to Lahwth.
How, exactly, do you pronounce otyugh? I’ve said Oh-tyoo.
Is Tiefling prnounced Ty-fling or Tee-fling?
I started playing in 1978. You’d think, in 32 years, I’d have found answers… but I think its fun to leave these mysteries (and their accompanying debates) alone. There are things mortal men were simply not meant to know…
Llolth: I have always pronounced this with the second l silent and a long o
otyugh: Again, I am no expert, but I have always said ah-tee-ugg
tiefling: I say ty, but I have friends that say tee
I could also be that NPCs in different regions could pronounce them differently and could make for interesting game-play. However, if two players pronounce names differently enough that they cannot understand each other, problems could arise.
In Dragon #93, they published a pronunciation guide with the definitive pronunciations of some of the more difficult words. Of course, they didn’t have “Bah-tee-zu” or “Teef-ling” (which did not, at that time, exist, and by rights should not now– but I digress–), but they did have:
oytugh = “AT-yug”
Lolth = “lalth”, or “lolth”
Drow = “drow”, or “dro”
and my personal favorite…
Glaive-guisarme = “glayv-gwee-ZARM”
Ah, how could I have forgotten the glaive-guisarme. Thanks for posting that one, I never knew quite how to say it. Glaive was easy, but geese-arm always sounded like a mad scientist’s project gone horribly wrong. “Igor, my creation has no appendages, bring me the geese arms!”
In 2E, I remember a book, either, a Greyhawk or FR fluff book that had a guide in it that mentioned Drow.
They said that it was acceptable to pronounce it either way, Crow or Brow.
I’ve always gone with Crow. I also say Teef-ling and Bay-tuh-zoo.
Bay-tuh-zoo is a variant that I have not heard but, given how many vowels are in the word, there are probably dozens of ways to say it.
Everyone I know who grew up in the midwest says ty-fling but I have two friends that grew up on the east coast who say tee-fling. I wonder if this is a regional difference.
Another D&D creature that has driven people up the wall is the Bullette.
Does it rhyme with buffet or pronounced as boo-lay (which I believe is the French pronunciation).
I have actually seen the pronunciation for this once, but I can’t remember where. The latter is correct; assuming what I read was correct anyway. The pronunciation I saw was boo-lay. If I have a chance, I’ll look through my old issues of Dragon Magazine from high school as I don’t know where else I would have ran across this.
Well, for what little it’s worth, my pronunciations have always been (and I’m sure some are probably wrong!):
Bulette: bull-ETT
Drow: rhymes with cow
Tiefling: TEEF-ling or tee-EFF-ling
Baatezu: BOUGHT-eh-zoo
Flind: rhymes with sinned – I’ve heard some people say it as FLEEN-d
Glaive-Guisarme: glayve GWEESE-arm
Llolth: HLAW-th (assuming the LL is like the Welsh LL)
Homunculi: hum-UNC-you-lie
Slaad: rhymes with flawed
Thanks for adding to the growing list. That’s a new one to me, I have never heard FLEEN-d. I pronounce Slaad like lad with an s at the beginning, but for all I know, it could be slay=aid.
At least it seems that everyone can agree on some of the more common ones like giant and vampire. 🙂