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teefling here.
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Tea-fling.
Like when you throw your tea at somebody.
Tea-fling.
Like when you throw your tea at somebody.
+1
Tief, rhymed with knife. I have heard both though.
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Tea-fling.
Like when you throw your tea at somebody.
This is how I pronounce it, and have always heard it pronounced.
For the sake of argument (or at least just adding more Chaos to the discussion), however, maybe it could be "TOY-fling" - since we're talking about a person distinguished by unholy lineage, and "Teufel" (TOY-fell) is German for 'devil,' so that, at least, provides some semblance of a rational foundation for the word.
I always thought it was "tie-fling" (as in throwing formal neckwear), but one of my co-players is of the beverage-tossing conviction. I don't remember ever seeing a pronunciation guide, so probably either is fine. :)
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I believe an official answer could be found on the audio CD for the Planescape Player's Guide.
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"Tief" is german for "deep" and is pronounced teef/teaf. Tiefling just means "deep ones". Those with blood from the lower planes.
I've heard "teef-ling," "TIGH-fling," "tehf-ling," and any number of other permutations. Is there an official answer to this? Or at least a consensus?
I agree with those in favor of tea-fling.
Now, how does one pronounce Aasimar?
I've heard "teef-ling," "TIGH-fling," "tehf-ling," and any number of other permutations. Is there an official answer to this? Or at least a consensus?I agree with those in favor of tea-fling.
Now, how does one pronounce Aasimar?
"Azz-ih-mahr"
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"Tief" is german for "deep" and is pronounced teef/teaf. Tiefling just means "deep ones". Those with blood from the lower planes.
This is a cool thing I didn't know.
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Tea-fling.
Like when you throw your tea at somebody.
I do that when I run out of ammo. Sometimes you just get desperate. I hate wasting good tea :(
"Tief" is german for "deep" and is pronounced teef/teaf. Tiefling just means "deep ones". Those with blood from the lower planes.This is a cool thing I didn't know.
Etymology is cool. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any hidden language tidbits in Aasimar (I say that one ass-eee-marr).
teefling here.
same here, then again I may be influenced by my habit with German in deciding this is the proper pronounciation for something so spelled.
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I am given to understand that it is "tea-fling", using the same sound as "grief", but for many years I stuck to English phonetics which would read it as "tie-fling" (pie, lie, vie).
It's not uncommon for fantasy words to have differing pronunciations based on the person reading them (we usually learn them by reading, not hearing them), so we all know that drow rhymes with bow, but does it rhyme with cow or snow?
Another for "tea fling". The word looked kind of German to me, so I based it on that.
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It's pronounced "best-planetouched-ever*" >:)
*the classic 2e/3e/PF version anyway
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I am given to understand that it is "tea-fling", using the same sound as "grief", but for many years I stuck to English phonetics which would read it as "tie-fling" (pie, lie, vie).
Actually, since the word contains the obvious ending -ling (as in changeling, fetchling, halfling etc.), you should compare the pronunciation to grief, fief etc.
Also, German.
TEE-fling
Another vote for tea-fling.
Now, how does one pronounce Aasimar?
The double-A is quite ambiguous, as this letter sequence is not generally used in English. As a result, there's no consistent rule to go on.
The most technically correct approach would be to treat it as two separate syllables, with the first A pronounced as with the long form and the second A pronounced with the short form ("lame" is pronounced with a long A, "lamb" is pronounced with a short A). This would mean Aasimar would be pronounced as "ay-az-i-mar"
The other likely possibility is that the double A is supposed to be read as a single syllable, however it's unclear whether that should be a long A or a short A. If it's intended to be a long A is really should have been spelled Aesimar, which better fits English conventions. If it's intended to be a short A then the double vowel is completely unnecessary and it should have been Asimar.
I was originally introduced to the word with the long A form, so "ay-si-mar" is how I reflexively pronounce it. I've come to prefer the double syllable version of "ay-az-i-mar", but old habits die hard.
For the sake of argument (or at least just adding more Chaos to the discussion), however, maybe it could be "TOY-fling" - since we're talking about a person distinguished by unholy lineage, and "Teufel" (TOY-fell) is German for 'devil,' so that, at least, provides some semblance of a rational foundation for the word.
That actually supports the "tea-fling/teef-ling" consensus. If you pronounce "tiefling" as if it were a German word, that's how it would sound.
"Tief" is german for "deep" and is pronounced teef/teaf. Tiefling just means "deep ones". Those with blood from the lower planes.
I was going to say "if it is derived from the German language, it would be tee..." because the second of two neighbor vowels is typically pronounced, though I did not realize it was a word.
And now that I have a sound etymological justification, I'll attempt to change my habits! Thanks, Internet. :)
Ah-sim-AR or something like that. Spaniards are straighforward at that: you don't know how to pronounce something? Read it as it would be phonetically pronounced in Spanish. That's how I end mispronouncing a lot of names xD
For serious, though, I pronounce aasimar as "Ay-suh-mar" or sometimes "ay-zuh-mar"
"aah zee mar", then again, I'm French... with a definitely prolonged a, indeed pronounced like the English short a.
Arse-ih-mahr for me.
I did a some more sleuthing since I last posted on the pronunciation of "Aasimar", and have found frustratingly little.
The origin of Aasimar appears to come from the "satanic panic" era of D&D where they were renaming anything with biblical or religious overtones. Devils were renamed Baatezu, demons were renamed Tanar'ri, and angels were renamed Aasimon (from which Aasimar is derived). This would explain why there doesn't appear to be any etymological origin to the name - it was explicitly designed to break with the real-world religious inspirations it derived from. Any other evidence I've found is circumstantial at best.
All we can say for sure is that this is a proper noun that was made up whole cloth by English-speaking people, but they chose a form of spelling that is not conventionally used in English and has no widely accepted pronunciation. Unless someone can find a definitive authoritative source, I'd say the three common pronunciations (long A, short A, and two syllable) are equally valid.
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I pronounced it tye-fling, but the local Planescape fans called it tea-fling, so I bowed to the consensus.
As for aasimar, I wondered briefly if it was like Hawaii, and the two vowels were hard and soft, so Ay-ahsimar, but that sounded weird, so I just went with ignoring the extr 'a,' like aardvark.
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Well, Morte pronounces it teef-ling in _Planescape:_Torment_, and Annah's a main NPC (so she gets referred to a lot), so that's always been canonical for me.
I'm only aware of one English word that starts with that double a: aardvark. (I know it has roots in another language, etc.) I would say that this gives some evidence that the short a pronunciation is probably the correct one.
That's the problem, its a noun that was translated from another language. You can choose other nouns containing double A's that come from non-Dutch origins to get other interpretations. For instance, "baal" is pronounced "bay-al".
If the word had Dutch etymology I would strongly agree with this, but it's a proper noun made up by an English-speaking person. Without some insight into their thoughts, it's impossible to know what they may have been thinking and whether they had any specific reference language in mind.
I feel so much better seeing the agreement with thrown-beverage pronounciation of tiefling, all the more so because in my local gaming circle, I was beaten into submission until I said yes, drow rhymes with cow, not with crow (in other news, there are five lights).
Tea fling represent
okay, let me as an Austrian and therefore native German speaker have a crack at it:
while it's true that tief in German means deep, it is also true that Teufel means devil and if I'm not completely mistaken, that should be the root for pronounciation purposes. Not the modern Teufel though, but instead older forms of that word.
the oldest form of that written word dates back to the 8th century as tiufal which later on transformed into tiuvel, tievel, tīvel and tivel during the 11th to 14th century in Middle High German.
Now, tiufal itself might have (and experts still aren't sure about that) been a mixture between the Greek word diábolos (διάβολος) which of course was used by the church in a latinized form and the word tiuf which, suprise, was the 8th century version of tief which, as we have already established means 'deep'
Now that we know that, take a look at German dialects that are still the closest to MHG: Bavarian and most Austrian dialects explicitly. In those, the word for 'devil' would be Deifi, Teifl, Deifel, Deibel or similar variations, with the [ei] sound sounding like the word tie (as in: formal neckware), which indicates that this pronounciation might be correct.
That written, I still pronounce it tea-fling
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It's pronounced a lot like "Drow".
Tea fling represent
Stop throwing my tea everywhere, I have perfectly good guns for the shooting!
