BreTONEia

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

Why does everyone pronounce it like that ? I’ve always said BreTONNia, because there’s a double n. You wouldn’t pronounce Britannia BriTAHnia or BriTAYnia, would you ?

[somegeezer 18431xp 0]

Rules for pronunciation of genuine words are useless enough without getting into fictional ones. Magdalene College, Cholmidsley, Oswaldtwistle, “it’s as though they haven’t thought it through thoroughly enough”.

English is stupid.

[avernosKeymaster 33947xp 1]

would you pronounce it canon or cannon?

[pagan8thParticipant 10863xp 1]

Is that a trick question?

They are both pronouced like the large gunpowder fuelled weapon aren’t they?

[blinky465 17028xp 0]

@wolfie65 – it’s spelled Britain (bri-tayn) but pronounced Brittan (or Brittun or Brittin or, most likely, Brit’n depending on your dialect – British dialect is very “guttaral” with our nasal truncation and glottal stops!). So the spelling doesn’t really give much away.
I guess there’s an argument that Brettonia with the double-t would reinforce the -o sound.
It’s probably just down to the “rhythm” of spoken British-english? We would say it as a four-syllable word “bre-toe-knee-yah” and we often elongate the middle of words – or put stress on vowels in the middle of a word, while the ends of words tend to “trail off” (that’s the glottal stop again).
Bre-tonn-nia just sounds a little “alien”; like the emphasis in the word is in the wrong place – even if, according to some rules of spelling, it might be the more accurate way of pronouncing it.

If you say it out loud as Bre-tonn-nia, you have to make a nasal sound around “ton”.
But we tend not to put truncated nasal sounds in the middle of spoken words – it makes it sound like two words, not one. So we elongate the vowel sound, to keep the “flow” or rhythm of the word going, to make it clear it’s all part of the same word.

Just guessing.
But I’ve an Italian brother-in-law, a Welsh wife, a German grandson and a sister who’s all but Irish – and hearing the differences in the rhythm of their speech is what makes their native tongues so interesting to listen to.

[grantinvanman 2180xp 0]

It’s “Breh-TONE-yeah”

 

GW’s first attempt at making ELVES into “Aelfqgrsdes” and the crap they love to do

 

like Tonya Harding  only less legs getting broken or whatever

 

 

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

First, make sure we all have the correct spelling.  it’s BreToNNia – single T double N.  That should guide you down a certain route. I have always pronounced it Bre-TONN-ya, using the short “o” sound, because of the double N.  It’s very uncommon in English to use the long vowel sound prior to a double consonant; an long vowel sound is normally indicated if a vowel is followed by a single consonant followed by an “e” (as in Fame) or sometimes an “ia” (as in Albania).   Another example would be Comma and Coma.  So anyone pronouncing it “Bre-tone-ya” (or “Bre-tone-ee-ah”) is, well, wrong. probably.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

@onlyonepinman – Thank you for confirming that everyone except me is wrong…..☺

@blinky465 – I often hear ‘Bri-un’, the glottal stop completely eliminating any ‘t’s, see also ‘ba’oh’ (battle), et.al.  Isn’t it fun how languages like English or German have many dozens, maybe even hundreds of local dialects, some of them hard to understand even for native speakers if they’re not used to that particular one.

@grantinvanman – I hope that WHtOW sells so well that Ao$ and all the nightmarish silliness that came with it will soon be just a bad memory….

@somegeezer – I can pretty much guarantee you that every single American will get Worcestershire wrong – and I can’t say I blame them, the way it’s written has little to do with the way it’s pronounced – could almost be Gaelic in that regard…..

[grantinvanman 2180xp 0]

@wolfie65 – it’s been 10 years, and Age of Shitmar STILL makes me angry.

I would buy the Old World rules – if I could find them. Sold out EVERYWHERE.

 

I hate Nomad Investments and what they’ve done to GW with all my soul. Kirby looks like a saint of better days, and that is saying something.

[frankeleeParticipant 1364xp 1]

“Why does everyone pronounce it like that ?”

While it’s hard to say why everyone pronounces it that way, it’s comforting to know that everyone knows the correct way to pronounce it.

[grantinvanman 2180xp 0]

@onlyonepingman

 

Tonya. Defies the logic you presented. It’s Tahn-yah, not TONE-yeah.

This whole thing is so funny. I can’t believe I get to use one of the worst human beings in history to counter-point English pronunciation. ?

 

She’s like the Putin of Olympic figure skating, with her sneak attack! Or “special operation”, as the Orcs would say.

[grantinvanman 2180xp 0]

@frankelee – agreed.

[redscopeParticipant 2718xp 0]

Because we are all doing monty python fake french accents when we say it. We also say for “ZE lady” when our knights charge into battle.

It is best not to question things and just join in fun. !!!

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

@grantinvanman – I call it the A$$ of Sickmar. Repeating myself – yet again – I still think the very best they could have done regarding a re-launch of WHFB would have been to issue a public apology to players and customers worldwide and go the soap opera route explaining what happened: Grey Seer Splinter (…) indulged in WAY too much warpstone one fine evening in the sewers of Altdorf and the resulting horrible nightmares were what we have come to know as The Bland Times, followed by the above mentioned A$$ of Sickmar. (soap opera storyline: ‘It’s ok Heather, last season didn’t really happen ,you were just in a coma.’) But he is now recovered, all is well, Karl Franz stil sits on the throne of the Empire, Finubar rules Ulthuan, all the trees are still there in Athel Loren and so on. As you were…….

I’m glad that the moniker Nomad Investments is catching on, it really is a more accurate desription of the company as it is today.

I’ve never heard Tonya pronounced any other way but TUN-yah. Figure skating is a funny sport. I know, I took lessons for 2 1/2 years.

Getting into a political discussion would most likely get me banned, let’s just say that the action in Ukraine has TOTALLY different reasons than what the media (….) are reporting.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

@grantinvanman Tonya is only Tahn-ia in America.  In England it would be Ton-ya, like Tania only with an O.  However, even excepting that obvious mispronunciation (or misspelling), Tonya being pronounced Tone-ya doesn’t break the rule of not using the long vowel sound if it is succeeded by a double consonant – and that is the principle rule at play here.  Bretonnia has a double N following the O which typically limits the vowel to its short sound – Bret-on-ya.  So regardless of what the convention is in terms if how people are saying it, the correct pronunciation is Bret-onn-ya.

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