19 replies to this topic

[Dungeon 206]

why do the commentators pronounce it as Night GEAR....?

[Jay Leon Hart]

It sounds less stupid than Night Jeer or Night Gyre ?

[Queen of England]

They're following a proud tradition! The game itself mispronounces Gauss rifle.

[Jay Leon Hart]

What? Not a fan of Gorse Rifles?

[Shifty McSwift]

Because a rose by any other name still smells the same.

[El Bandito]

Jay Leon Hart, on 30 September 2017 - 07:46 AM, said:

It sounds less stupid than Night Jeer or Night Gyre ?

[Randall Flagg]

Dungeon 206, on 30 September 2017 - 07:44 AM, said:

why do the commentators pronounce it as Night GEAR....?

because the common name is "night gear" no one cares if it's "jeer" or not.

themoreyouknow.jpg

Edited by SKINLESS, 30 September 2017 - 08:26 AM.

[Asym]

OK, stop........ How is it supposed to be pronounced??? I operate them a lot and never really found out !

[Verilligo]

It's pronounced "juhr." Like jury, but without the "ee" at the end. Night Juhr. It's named after the gyrfalcon, a particularly large bird, much like the mech is a particularly large robot.

[Ryokens leap]

I pronounce it Night Giner, as in baginer.

[Bombast]

Dungeon 206, on 30 September 2017 - 07:44 AM, said:

why do the commentators pronounce it as Night GEAR....?

THANK YOU. It was driving me crazy but I didn't want to say anything.

As for why, I suspect it's because 'Gear' is a common name for mecha these days, so it was the first way to pronounce it that popped into their head, and that was that.

[Rovertoo]

Really? I thought it was "Ger" like "Grrrr! im angry!"

[MechaBattler]

Queen of England, on 30 September 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

They're following a proud tradition! The game itself mispronounces Gauss rifle.

To be fair I like calling them Goose Waffles.

[Appogee]

It's definitely 'jeer'.

As pronounced in 'GyrFalcon'.

[N0ni]

You're all wrong, it's Night Gyr (gahy-rer, guy-rer). Doing Sader a solid here.

[Mawai]

Yep ... lots of weird pronunciations in this thread.

"Jyer" or "Guyer" appear to be the accepted pronunciations.

Links below have definitions and pronunciations ... none of them include "juhr" or "jeer" or "gear" as options though there can be differences in regional pronunciation too.


Oxford (British/Canadian etc):
https://en.oxforddic...definition/gyre

Merriam-Webster (US):
https://www.merriam-...dictionary/gyre
https://www.merriam-...g&file=gyre0001

Dictionary.com (US):
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/gyre

[ocular tb]

This is something I was curious about too. When seeing the name here on the forums I assumed it was GUY-ER, rhyming with DIRE (as in Dire Wolf). But having looked it up it seems that JEER or JURR is more accurate (depending on region/dialect perhaps?) but for our purposes here I tend to like GEAR better. Seems to just roll off the tongue better.

As for the Gauss Rifles, I prefer GOSS (rhymes with BOSS) as opposed to GOWSE (rhymes with HOUSE).

Edited by ocular tb, 30 September 2017 - 05:20 PM.

[Tarogato]

I enjoy linguistics a little bit, and I'm a bit of a stickler for pronouncing things "right", so I like to do my research. Here's what I found on this one:



The word "gyr" is taken from the bird of prey, the gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus).

The spellings "gerfalcon" and "jerfalcon" are commonly listed alternatives, but not widely used. You can find them in Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster, and the spelling "jer falcon" is the usage employed by Audobon/MacGillivray in their 1831 book, "Ornithological biography... "

The word is in Middle English. Old French preceded it with "gerfalcon", which probably borrowed from Frankish (a Germanic language that has evolved into modern Dutch) where it was rendered as "girfauc", which is a combination of the Proto-Germanic "ger" (meaning vulture), and the Latin term "falco" (meaning 'hawk'). It is supposed that the Latin term "falco" may have originally come from a Germanic source given how pervasive the word is in Germanic languages such as Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English, Proto-Germanic, etc). Alternatively, it could be said that the Frankish word "girfauc" was constructed entirely from Latin, "gyrus" + "falco", where "gyrus" came from the Greek, "gyros" (and perhaps came from Proto-Indo-European, "geu-", meaning 'bend/curve'). The modern form of this word is "gyre", but it evolved indepedently alongside "gyrfalcon" and therefore I believe can not be credited as an etymological source.

http://www.etymonlin...?term=gyrfalcon
https://en.wiktionar...alcon#Etymology
https://en.wikipedia...alcon#Etymology
http://www.dictionar...rowse/gyrfalcon

It's worth noting that you'll occasionally come across people who think the "gyrfalcon" was constructed from newer words, such as the Old High German "gir" (vulture) which came from the same Proto-Germanic root, "ger-" (vulture) and apparently evolved into words like the Old Norse "geir" (pronunced "gayer", as in 'more gay'), and the modern German word "geier" (pronounced "guyer", like 'guy'), all of these words meaning "spear". But I believe that the word for "spear" did not come from Proto-Germanic "ger-", it came from gaizaz, which is where we get "gar", "geirr", (but not "guerre").

You may find that the Germanic name for the Bearded vulture (Vultur barbatus) is lämmergeier. The name "lämmergeier" is a younger word, and "geier" can refer to a whole family of carrion-eating birds. Again, I believe "geier" comes from Old High German "gir", and remember that the name "gyrfalcon" has older sources than that. If I am wrong about this, I would like to see your sources, as I haven't tracked exact time periods very closely.

So the source of the word "gyr-" in gyrfalcon is either Proto-Germanic "ger-", as in "vulture-hawk", or it came from Greek "gyros", meaning "circling-hawk". Given that gyrfalcons don't tend to circle much, I think the former is much more likely.

As for pronunciation, the furthest I can trace it back, Proto-Germanic "ger" was pronounced with a hard G, like "grrr" or even more likely, "gɑr", but not like "jer". This is the root that was taken when the word was born into Frankish. The Frankish "girfauc" would have been pronounced with a hard G and close front unrounded "i", so... it would sound much like our modern English word "gear". From there, it went to Old French, which still has the hard G and the vowel morphed to a close-mid front unrounded "e", pronunced like a cross between the modern English words "gay" and "gear". Middle English adopted the word as "gyrfalcon" and this completely changed the pronunciation as far as I am aware. The Middle English consonant G is soft when predeceding the vowels E, I, or Y. The Middle English vowel Y (close front rounded) is pronounced similar to the modern German Ü, there is no modern English equivalent. So the pronunciation in Middle English could be something like "jür". BUT, in other cases the Y vowel in Middle English was pronounced identically to the vowel I (this is common in many European languages). In which case it's a close front unrounded I, pronounced "jeeeer". Because the spelling of the word changed from "ger" in Old French, to "gyr" in Middle English, then I have a feeling that the grapheme Y was chosen for a specific reason, and such this is intended as a true Y vowel, pronounced like Ü. In Modern English, we simply don't have that vowel anymore, which might explain why people can't agree on the pronunciation of the word "gyrfalcon". It's for this reason that I pronounce it as /dʒəːfɒlkən/ or "jer-falcon", and similarly "Night Gyr" is "Night-jer".






A male gyrfalcon is referred to as a jerkin, or a gyrkin. The latter appears to be less common.
http://www.peregrine...dictionary.html
https://sites.google...lconry/glossary
http://www.themodern...om/glossary.htm
http://raptoriduk.tr...ry_of_terms.htm





Here are some IPA's from several sources:

Oxford Dictionary: /ˈdʒəːˌfɒlk(ə)n //ˈdʒəːˌfɔː(l)k(ə)n/
https://en.oxforddic...ition/gyrfalcon

Merriam-Webster: ˈjər-ˌfal-kən , -ˌfȯl- also -ˌfȯ-kən
https://www.merriam-...onary/gyrfalcon

Wikipedia: /ˈdʒɜːrfɔːlkən/ or /ˈdʒɜːrfælkən/
https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Gyrfalcon

Wiktionary: /ˈdʒəːfɔːlkən/
https://en.wiktionar.../wiki/gyrfalcon






Here's some more anecdotal sources:

This dude notes that it seems "jer" is common in the UK, and "jeer" is common in the US.
https://www.reddit.c..._pronunciation/

BBC video, a professional falcon handler calls it "juhr-fawlkin". Note that the handler himself says /fôlʹkən/ and the journalist says /fælʹkən/.
/watch?v=ZFaHMKqK8UQ&t=48s

Another falconer and ornithologist, pronouncing it more like "jehr-fælkin", (but when he says the word "falcon" or "falconer" he uses /fôlʹkən/ )
/watch?v=fn68tlW6gh4&t=1m37s

Another falconer, saying "jaer-fælkin"
/watch?v=pVegHNKqoH0&t=16s

Here's a video with a journalist-type saying "jeer-fawlkin", but the actual local guy he interviews clearly says "juhr-falcon".
/watch?v=Hzs3Fq-yYWw&t=1m20s
/watch?v=Hzs3Fq-yYWw&t=2m6s

Another falconer (breeder, it seems) who has a peregrine-gyrfalcon crossbreed, he pronounced is "juhr-peregrin".
/watch?v=YpVItD029dM&t=10s

Edited by Tarogato, 30 September 2017 - 08:31 PM.

[BanditB17]

Because its an animated GIF not an animated JIF dammit!

Edited by BanditB17, 30 September 2017 - 09:15 PM.

[Davegt27]

when I tell people I am from TX they just leave me alone