Pronounciation

By FatherTurin, in Star Wars: Armada

Disclaimer: This is a tongue in cheek post.

Stop calling the Imperial Light Cruiser some variation on "Arrghkittens" or "ar kittens" or anything like that!

If it was a real word it would be pronounced "ah-kwi-ten" (as near as I can tell).

We have any French speakers who can back me up? Come on Québécois, I know there are some of you out there!

Edited by FatherTurin
1 minute ago, FatherTurin said:

Disclaimer: This is a tongue in cheek post.

Stop calling the Imperial Light Cruiser some variation on "Arrghkittens" or "ar kittens" or anything like that!

If it was a real word it would be pronounced "ah-kwi-ten" (as near as I can tell).

We have any French speakers who can back me up? Come on Québécois, I know there are some of you out there!

That's how I pronounce it as an American raised in the South, if that helps your case any (though I pronounce it with a mild "r" on the first a-, the -qui- is definitely "kwi").

1 minute ago, GiledPallaeon said:

That's how I pronounce it as an American raised in the South, if that helps your case any (though I pronounce it with a mild "r" on the first a-, the -qui- is definitely "kwi").

You know, now I have this mental image of imperial officers being snooty space Europeans who insist on proper pronunciation, and the Rebels as firefly-ish "space hicks".

"Now ya see, the problem is we can't much afford ta take on that there are kit tens Cruiser from the side, we ain't got the shields ta handle it."

I pronounce it are-quit-tenz

I need to find a way to get them up to 10 dice so I can just call them "arcing-tens" instead.

Are you suggesting that the Empire has a ship with a French name?

I don't know why we don't call it a light cruiser. Seems easiest.

But at my group it is simply the arc. Like the math term for part of a circle between two endpoints.

Honestly my group just calls 'em kittens, we all know that's not how to pronounce it, but we're tired of stuttering through the real name lol

I disagree with your pronunciation with the soft "R" sound in the first syllable. The word "Arquitens" is the Roman name for the constellation Sagittarius, the archer, and comes from the root word "Arcus" which means bow, and the verb "Tenens" which means to hold.

The latin pronunciation would roughly be Arq-i-tenz, with the qui carrying over the hard "C" sound from the root Arcus.

Edited by BrobaFett

It's Arrr (like a pirate would say it) and kittens.

How hard can it be? :lol:

23 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

Disclaimer: This is a tongue in cheek post.

Stop calling the Imperial Light Cruiser some variation on "Arrghkittens" or "ar kittens" or anything like that!

If it was a real word it would be pronounced "ah-kwi-ten" (as near as I can tell).

We have any French speakers who can back me up? Come on Québécois, I know there are some of you out there!

As a French speaker, I can tell you that they would pronounce that 'q' as a 'k' sound, not a 'qu' sound. In fact, if you were basing it on French, it'd probably be 'Ar-ki-to(n)' (not fully pronouncing the 'n', and certainly not the 's').

I'm pretty sure that Broba has nailed it. The only thing I'd add is that I'd stress the 'tenz', so it didn't sound like a Yorkshiremen talking about 'Our kittens'.

2 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

I disagree with your pronunciation with the soft "R" sound in the first syllable. The word "Arquitens" is the Roman name for the constellation Sagittarius, the archer, and comes from the root word "Arcus" which means bow, and the verb "Tenens" which means to hold.

The latin pronunciation would roughly be Arq-i-tenz, with the qui carrying over the hard "C" sound from the root Arcus.

Whether to accent the A or the E would be a matter of location and preference so I left it off. It could go either way depending if you bent is more English or French/Spanish. I would say that pronunciation either way could be argued.

Either ARC-i-tenz or arc-i-TENZ.

Most important pronunciation notes for this word are the hard "C" sound and the fact that it 3 syllables and not 2.

29 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

You know, now I have this mental image of imperial officers being snooty space Europeans who insist on proper pronunciation, and the Rebels as firefly-ish "space hicks".

"Now ya see, the problem is we can't much afford ta take on that there are kit tens Cruiser from the side, we ain't got the shields ta handle it."

Interestingly Americans have tended to be far more conservative with spoken English than the British, most variation between "British" English and "American "English come from changes and abuse of the laungauge by a the British ( since the 17 hundreds). Which is the exact reverse of the written language in which the British keep the same spelling of a word even when they have completely changed how a word is pronounced. The Americans on the other hand have had a perverse need to change how a word is spelt to reflect its pronunciation. That's why we spell some words differently but prounce them the same way and spell some words the same way but pronounce them differently.

I just call it "that POS I just killed".

58 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

You know, now I have this mental image of imperial officers being snooty space Europeans who insist on proper pronunciation, and the Rebels as firefly-ish "space hicks".

That's exactly what Star Wars sounds like, with very few exceptions.

In French it would be something like r-kih-tehn. In English I would pronounce it something like r-kwi-tens

- a francophile Canadian

Pretty sure its pronounced arghkittens.

Ark ih tens

33 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Pretty sure its pronounced arghkittens.

Indeed. It's pronounced " AAaarrrgh! " (as in, the sound you make when a feline has just knocked all the game pieces onto the floor) " ...KITTENS! " (as it was probably a young feline, as they are especially mischievous)

3 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

I just call it "that POS I just killed".

I have yet to have one die so

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That said, I want to get more games in with them. I'm not sure I've quite got a feel for them yet.

They are speedy enough to keep up with my typical ISD rush, but I've run one of the board, and the last one I used never got a shot off since Vader murderized all its potential targets. Though, in fairness, it had been set up for an excellent double arc shot on an MC30's flank (pre-Vader kill-fest).

I really like its arc arrangement.

Edited by Deathseed

I'm from Somerset (UK) therefore my use of the English language is not good on the best of days, so I shall have to keep referring to them as Kittens

4 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

I disagree with your pronunciation with the soft "R" sound in the first syllable.

Surely the r-sound just depends on your accent?

I don't know enough to have a proper opinion on /ki/ vs. /kwi/ though, and now I'm not even sure which one I've been imagining in my mind. I've only ever talked about Armada out loud in Finnish, and we tend to do all kinds of weird stuff to foreign names.

That being said, I might have to start pronouncing it with (my terrible imitation of) the full-on French guttural 'r' and nasal '-ens' from now on. Vive l'Arquitens!

Which ever way you break it down, there's definitely a 'wih' sound in there.

If you say Arq-uitens then you've still got 'Arq = Ark" and "Uitens = Witens"

Or "Ar = Ar" and "Quitens = Kwitens"

For me, it's not the way people pronounce Arquitens, it's more the ''kittens'' reference that I dislike.

This is maybe not a strong ship if we look for it's structure value but it can bring some good dammage at long distance and I think it diserved a little more respect :P

2 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Which ever way you break it down, there's definitely a 'wih' sound in there.

If you say Arq-uitens then you've still got 'Arq = Ark" and "Uitens = Witens"

Or "Ar = Ar" and "Quitens = Kwitens"

There is absolutely not a W sound, despite how it appears when written. It is one of those foibles of pronunciation that requires looking past the word as written to the Latin roots of words as the fundamentals of forming language. You are looking at the word and forming syllabic breaks where they should not be, and again, it is important that it is a 3 syllable word, and you only have one break. You can not separate the U from Q, because it is fundamental in forming the word Arc(u), but you can separate the I from U and T, and this is correct. The I here is similar to the bridge "y" in Spanish, another Latin based language. It is a bridge between arco and tenens formed by the assimilation of the two into a single word, nothing more. It should not interfere with someone who knew the individual Latin roots of this word from understanding it's meaning based on how it was said, which happens if you throw a W in there or contract it to two syllables.

I know I am nothing but an internet poster, but I do know pronunciation, and I can guarantee to you that I am not just speaking out my butt here. It is pronounced as I have explained above.

.

Edited by KnightHammer
22 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

I know I am nothing but an internet poster, but I do know pronunciation, and I can guarantee to you that I am not just speaking out my butt here. It is pronounced as I have explained above.

I'll back you up on this. I don't think anyone will perceive any of us as more than internet poster, but I certainly can do more than speak out my butt on this (and some of the forum posters know exactly how many languages I know and at what level).

Edited by Vergilius