How do you pronounce "Tian Xia"?
Tee-ahn Cha?
Tye-ahn Zha?
Any help would be appreciated.
WJ
How do you pronounce "Tian Xia"?
Tee-ahn Cha?
Tye-ahn Zha?
Any help would be appreciated.
WJ
If it's anything like chinese cities there are mulitple ways to pronounce hence different work spelling of the same city. The city Xian is also be spelled Tian of Cian depending on whose saying it. Same thing as Beijing and Peking, same city spelled as spoken. Xi in in Xian is prononuced "She" or fully "She-ahn" That's the knowledge I have. I.m not sure if Xia is 1 sylable or 2, knowing how Xian is said I would guess 2. So I would say you are looking at Tee-ahn She-a
From
http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/Xia
Xia is pronounced Shee-AH
There is no listing for Tian
I think I will use "Tee-ahn Shee-ah" for now. Thanks for the quick responses!
i pronounce it Tee-Ahn Jhaw.
Assuming that the name is at least inspired by the Chinese 天下, I would expect it to be pronounced something like Tee-en Shya.
Tianxia is as far as I know actually a word in Chinese, it is an ancient word for the world, which is why I assume that Paizo chose it as the name of the setting.
Assuming that the name is at least inspired by the Chinese 天下, I would expect it to be pronounced something like Tee-en Shya.
Tianxia is as far as I know actually a word in Chinese, it is an ancient word for the world, which is why I assume that Paizo chose it as the name of the setting.
Tian Xia 天下 literally means "under heaven", so it could well stand for the world (of man) as opposed to the heavens.
Tian 天 in modern Mandarin Chinese is monosyllabic, so it is not really pronounced like "tee-ahn" (2 syllables) but more like "tyen".
Ti'an (if such a word exists - I don't know, but my knowledge of Chinese is only rudimentary) would be pronounced something like "tee-ahn" in fact.
Also note that there is a big difference in pronounciation between Xi'an (the city - composed of 2 characters) and xian (composed of one character).
Xia 下 is pronounced something like shyah or shah
Oddly enough, my son Tian, is pronounced "tee-ahn" and means tall man reaching to heaven in Chinese Canton. And Tian Xian is "tee-ahn Shaw" with the Hong Kong set I have hung out with. But there are so many dialects and languages it really does not matter so much. Also just for laughs- Tian is the Swedish $10 Krona, and its a Swiss "Harvest Dish" and also the casserole dish its cooked in. I am a Russ/Swede/German who hangs with Chinese people and I married a Danish/Swede who hangs with Chinese people. We visit Europe including Switzerland and so got to have Tians of both kinds...
Is the language of Tien Xia tonal? if so what would be the tones for Tien Xia?
Just curious
I don't know what the designers had in mind for the fictional language(s) of Tian Xia.
I can only tell you what the tones for Tian Xia in real Chinese (Standard Mandarin) would be, if it's that what you mean.
Tian 天 has the first (even) tone, while xia 下 has the fourth (falling) tone.
Is the language of Tian Xia tonal? If so, what would be the tones for Tian Xia?
Just curious.
Speaking unofficially, of course...
Be bold! Embrace word-level tone—maybe the stressed or penultimate syllable gets high tone, while everything else is low or neutral!
Be bolder! Maybe there's grammatical tone—singular nouns are low, plural nouns are high, present tense*/imperfect verbs are rising, past tense/perfect verbs are falling, function words are neutral, etc. You get the idea.
And if you want to really have fun, maybe there are tonal and non-tonal dialects depending on the region. Think the non-tonal dialects will be easier? Better be good at distinguishing massive quantities of homophones...
* Assuming there's tense, which is not a given.