How the hell do you pronounce "Uxkhal"

[Koikat]

Like seriously, how?

[ULTRA]

I pronounce everything precisely as Tuidjy does

[White Knight]

If I really cared, I would probably consider the advice from a polyglot above all others, since multiple languages offer a better perspective than anything a monolinguist can hope to come up with.

Since it's just a fantasy video game, I'll just continue to make up my own pronunciations and carry on. Also, I don't ever talk about these games with people - at best, I might talk to myself as I type in here. How I pronounce a made up name really has no bearing upon anything.

For what it's worth, I also use Ucks-hall (rhymes with sucks balls). Cur-raw sounds like two English words when I say it. Veluca is similar to the name of a nasty little girl from a children's book, Veruca Salt, so I pronounce it the same way - Vel (like velvet) uca (like hooka).

Every place name and character in the game requires some interpretation. If it mattered, I would expect someone would have included a glossary for pronunciations.

I suppose that TaleWorlds would have to sort it out if they ever decided to go with voice actors or make a feature length movie or something? Until then, we're on our own.

[ULTRA]

Shvadia

[Donathan Cheadledge]

I pronounce it how it's written, roughly: Ux-kal. Just make the k part a bit harsher 'cos there's a H on it for reasons.

Dunno if there's a correct way or not, for all the city names I just say what feels most natural. Veluca throws me a bit tho gotta admit

[Twinkletoes]

Автор сообщения: Mountain Man

Shvadia

Swaydia

[Stridswombat]

Автор сообщения: Twinkletoes

Автор сообщения: Mountain Man

Shvadia

Swaydia

I pronounce the A kind of as in the start of apple. Swa-dia.

Автор сообщения: Retired Messiah

I pronounce it how it's written, roughly: Ux-kal. Just make the k part a bit harsher 'cos there's a H on it for reasons.

Dunno if there's a correct way or not, for all the city names I just say what feels most natural. Veluca throws me a bit tho gotta admit

Yeah I do that too. I pronounce the k roughly the same way you'd pronounce it in khan. As it sounds, in other words.

As for Veluca, I pronounce the start as in velvet and if you've ever played Final Fantasy I pronounce Luca the same way. Ve-luca.

I pronounce Curaw cu-raw, cu as in cucumber or maybe pool cue.

[Twinkletoes]

Im just playing.

I pronounce it Swa-de-ah

Also Veil-uca

and koo-raw.

[SapienChavez]

Автор сообщения: Velox

Автор сообщения: General Koikat

Ookshal?

Uks-hal.

"Tell me of your home world, Uks-hal"

[Fritz Bittenfeld]

There's a K in it?

[Stridswombat]

Why do people find it so difficult to pronounce the K? X and K aren't pronounced that similarly, you can anounciate both.

[Tuidjy]

Автор сообщения: AK Rowling

Why do people find it so difficult to pronounce the K? X and K aren't pronounced that similarly, you can anounciate both.

It is not hard, it just does not make sense.

I speak a few languages, I cannot think of a single word which has the four sounds 'k', 's', 'k', 'h' in a succession. And one of the languages in question, Bulgarian, commonly lines up four consonants in a row. Hell, I just though of an English word that contains 'rksk'

But all the words that are spelled with 'skh' in English and French are of Russian origin, and the 'kh' is pronounced as the Cyrilics 'x' / English 'h'. In both Arabic and Slavic transliterations to the Latin alphabet, 'kh' stands for a single sound, a hard 'h'. So why would I try to pronounce in any other way?

I can pronounce, easily, Kursk, krsten, hrtka, etc. which are legit words in Slavic languages: a city name, baptized, and hound.

I see no reason to pronounce Uxkhal in a way that would not fit any language I know.

[Stridswombat]

Автор сообщения: Tuidjy

Автор сообщения: AK Rowling

Why do people find it so difficult to pronounce the K? X and K aren't pronounced that similarly, you can anounciate both.

It is not hard, it just does not make sense.

I speak a few languages, I cannot think of a single word which has the four sounds 'k', 's', 'k', 'h' in a succession. And one of the languages in question, Bulgarian, commonly lines up four consonants in a row. Hell, I just though of an English word that contains 'rksk'

But all the words that are spelled with 'skh' in English and French are of Russian origin, and the 'kh' is pronounced as the Cyrilics 'x' / English 'h'. In both Arabic and Slavic transliterations to the Latin alphabet, 'kh' stands for a single sound, a hard 'h'. So why would I try to pronounce in any other way?

I can pronounce, easily, Kursk, krsten, hrtka, etc. which are legit words in Slavic languages: a city name, baptized, and hound.

I see no reason to pronounce Uxkhal in a way that would not fit any language I know.

Well it's a fantasy world. Anything can be pronounced in any way, it doesn't have to make sense to real world languages. If it can be pronounced that way, and if that's what the spelling suggests, then that's probably what's intended otherwise it would not be spelled that way, surely? Besides, isn't Uxkhal held by Swadia? Doesn't seem like a particularly slavic faction to me.

I'm a swede and it doesn't sound that odd to me to pronounce it that way, even with more "english" pronunciation. Yxskaft (meaning axe-haft/handle) is probably the closest example I can think of to something with that pronunciation.

[Twinkletoes]

"Well it's a fantasy world. Anything can be pronounced in any way"

Dosen't this kinda defeat the point of your initial complaint?

I mean maybe your right and the K is not silent, but what if it is? Isn't it the players choice?

[Stridswombat]

Автор сообщения: Twinkletoes

"Well it's a fantasy world. Anything can be pronounced in any way"

Dosen't this kinda defeat the point of your initial complaint?

I mean maybe your right and the K is not silent, but what if it is? Isn't it the players choice?

Sure, but I'm just pointing out how real world language logic may not work here. That doesn't mean that pronouncing it as it sounds still isn't likely to be correct. As it stands there's a K there and with no other information to go on, we can probably assume it's meant to be pronounced if it has been put there.

We'd actually need something to suggest it's silent to assume that it is and we don't really have anything like that. It could be either way but until I have anything more to go by, I'm going to pronounce it as it sounds. I was just surprised so many people didn't pronounce the K or thought it difficult to do so.

[Tuidjy]

Автор сообщения: AK Rowling

Автор сообщения: Tuidjy

I speak a few languages, I cannot think of a single word which has the four sounds 'k', 's', 'k', 'h' in a succession. And one of the languages in question, Bulgarian, commonly lines up four consonants in a row. Hell, I just though of an English word that contains 'rksk'

But all the words that are spelled with 'skh' in English and French are of Russian origin, and the 'kh' is pronounced as the Cyrilics 'x' / English 'h'. In both Arabic and Slavic transliterations to the Latin alphabet, 'kh' stands for a single sound, a hard 'h'.

I'm a swede and it doesn't sound that odd to me to pronounce it that way, even with more "english" pronunciation. Yxskaft (meaning axe-haft/handle) is probably the closest example I can think of to something with that pronunciation.

Oh, I can think of a dozen words with 'ksk' and 'gsk' in them. It's a pretty common combination in consonant heavy languages, and lets not forget 'sharkskin' in English.

It's the 'h' that follows that makes me avoid the second 'k' in Uxkhal. Pronouncing a 'h' after a 'k' sounds to me like a hard 'h' in Slavic, Turkic and Arabic languages, the same one that, not incidentally, is commonly denoted by 'kh' in English (khan, paskha, khaki, khalifat, etc.) Note that while all those are often pronounced with a single 'k", the originals have a hard 'h' instead.

So, I definitely want to pronounce the hard 'h', and then the 'k' before it disappears... unless you insert a mid-back unrounded vowel like /ɤ̞/ or /ə/.

----


Of course, this is a silly argument, but I'm always curious about how people from different cultures feel about pronunciation. And to be honest, I do not know enough Swedes who like to talk. All the ones I've met have seemed extremely reserved and reticent to speak about frivolous things, bigoted as it may sound.