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Pronunciation of 'Teixcalaan'

Science Fiction & Fantasy Asked on April 1, 2021

I was wondering what the correct pronunciation of the word ‘Teixcalaan’ (in Teixcalaanli) is. I rewrote the word using the IPA and arrived at (except using the sound ‘l’ for the letter ‘l’ instead of ‘ɣ’ which the book suggests — a typo?):

tʰeɪkskɑːlɑn

pronunciation

But in the audiobooks it sounds different, namely the second ‘a’ has a longer sound rather than the first. I know it sounds counterintuitive but based on the IPA equivalents mentioned at the end of the book, in Teixcalaanli, ‘a’ is the longer version of the ɑ sound and ‘aa’ is the short one. So what am I missing here?

One Answer

This is what the author says:

Teyks-kah-lan. First vowel is the sound in 'hey', second vowel is the 'a' in 'father', third vowel is the 'a' in 'sample'.

This is not as precise as rendering it in IPA, but hopefully it helps. The "a in father" is (typically) a long vowel [ɑː] whereas the "a in sample" is short [æ], which seems consistent with the Teixcalaanli rule of "a" being the long vowel and "aa" the short one.

Correct answer by Clara Diaz Sanchez on April 1, 2021

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