How is "Caeliar" pronounced?

[Starbreaker]

*woosh*

 

[Enterprise1701]

Isn't Korean known as the most onomatopoetic language, able to render Human sounds that aren't even part of formal language (grunting or whistling)?

I've never heard of this, but I'm far from an expert on the matter. That being said, I disagree with that idea, seeing as Korean has only 2 fricatives (sʰ and ɕʰ), no dental consonants (such as θ and ð), no labiodental consonants (such as f and v), and no uvular consonants (such as χ and ʁ).

Apart from that, the pronunciation of Latin words is generally easy in German or Russian, because words are pronounced the way they are written. Only the letter "c" introduces ambiguity, as it can be either "s" or "k". As a German, I'd pronounce Caeliar as [ke:lɪɑ:].

But I thought (standard) German only has "a" and no "ɑ".

By the way, Markonian, how do you feel about "ß"?

 

[Idran]

It's KAY-lee-ar.

Your opinion will do until the experts weigh in.

He wrote the Destiny trilogy. And this is 21st century English-language science fiction. How much better can you get?

I figured they were joking about exactly that, since they picked out his post out of everyone's in the thread to make that comment.

Edit: Whoops, didn't see the new page.

 

[David Mack]

However we're pronouncing it, there's a lot of pleasing symbolism to the name. Given that Caelus is Uranus (I don't believe he ever existed as a separate figure, it's simply the Roman translation), it recalls some interesting and appropriate details from mythology. Caelus Nocturnus, god of the night starry sky (and in some sources Uranus is the son of Nyx, representative of night). We have the association of Caelus opposite Tellus, reflecting how Caeliar are a counterpoint or opposing pole to Humans - and in concert they make quite the couple, with the union of Earth and the gods of night changing the course of galactic history in a very significant way. The birth of the hideous Titans and Cyclopes would be the birth of the Borg as a broken gestalt of Caeliar and Human, a blend of the two races. There's also the idea of Uranus being castrated by his own children (not the Borg, but the inhabitants of the displaced city ship that was catapulted back billions of years. Also, it was Cronus, Time, who performed the deed, so that fits if we're so inclined). Also, while castrated, it was from his cast off testes that Aphrodite was born. The Caeliar surrendered their reproductive capacity - and implicitly their potential for evolution and adaptation - when they converted to a state of near-static perfection, with only their Great Work keeping them even remotely vital; yet they wind up riding out the Erigol disaster converting Hernandez to something other than a "Mere Mortal", and she later revitalizes them in turn, bridging the Human-Caeliar divide to produce the positive mirror to the Borg. We can recall that Hernandez' most important action in the entire trilogy is when she tells the Caeliar (paraphrasing slightly) "I don't know if you can ever get back your ability to reproduce, but it's not too late to learn to share".

I'm not saying any of this is iron-clad or anything, but it's there.

I've also wondered if the apparent location of Erigol/the Azure Nebula in the general direction of Caelum on the Star Charts plays a role in the name, too.

Get this man a cigar! Ladies and gents, we have a winner in the "What was Mack thinking when he wrote Destiny?" contest.

 

[Markonian]

But I thought (standard) German only has "a" and no "ɑ".

By the way, Markonian, how do you feel about "ß"?

a would be like a regular "a", and the IPA told me ɑ goes for "-ar" endings. We don't pronounce a full "r" at the end of words - and that's of the major stumbling block for me when I try to speak Russian, because they have that.

As for ß. I would not eliminate it from our language. ß signifies a difference in pronunciation. We have a saying: "Sachsen trinken in Maßen, Bayern trinken in Massen." (Saxons drink in measures, Bavarians in masses.)

I'm also writing ß when I'm conversing with Swiss when I know they're familiar with High German.

However, I'm a proponent of frequent spelling reforms, and I frown when I see somebody write "daß" instead of "dass" - because the pre-reform from does not reflect pronunciation. We 've got to write the way we speak (in formal High German) or else we can jettison proper spelling altogether.

However, a spelling reform needs the hand of a surgeon instead of the butcher's knife. I'd love to skip a few letters here and there in German. Fortunately, it's not anywhere as bad as in Irish, where the etymological origin was preserved in the spelling...

 

[Christopher]

We 've got to write the way we speak... or else we can jettison proper spelling altogether.

Wow, you must hate written English... We Americans still spell most words the way Noah Webster's contemporaries spoke them 200 years ago.

 

[Markonian]

We've got to write the way we speak... or else we can jettison proper spelling altogether.

Wow, you must hate written English...

In German, that is. Different languages follow different rules.

I must love English - it's the subject I'm studying at university.

 

[JD]

Fortunately, it's not anywhere as bad as in Irish, where the etymological origin was preserved in the spelling...

The only Irish I'm familiar with are the names Siobhan (shi-vawn) and Saoirse (seer-sha), and it really baffles me how you get those sounds from those spellings.

 

[Markonian]

Fortunately, it's not anywhere as bad as in Irish, where the etymological origin was preserved in the spelling...

The only Irish I'm familiar with are the names Siobhan (shi-vawn) and Saoirse (seer-sha), and it really baffles me how you get those sounds from those spellings.

S is pronounced either "s" or "sh", depending on the following vowel. B + h becomes "w". Usually the last vowel in a string is pronounced. In the case of Saoirse's aoi it's the i [ee].

 

[Enterprise1701]

I have pretty much no idea how Irish's broad (velarized) and slender (palatalized) consonants are supposed to be produced by the human mouth.

i.e. broad b in "bain"/[bˠanʲ] or slender l in "Gaeilge"/[ˈɡeːlʲɟə]