Forum - View topic[OT] How do you pronounce "Gaea?"
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11507 Location: Frisco, TX |
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This is off the topic of anime, well maybe not, if you've watched Escaflowne, but I was wondering how people pronounce the name Gaea.
I ask this because a friend of mine recently bought the PS2 game Disgaea, and my other friend is annoyed because the guy who bought it keeps calling it "Dis-gay-uh." I believe the name Gaea originated from Greek or something, and every other time I've heard this name it's always been "Gai-ah" or somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm no expert on Greek phonetics and am not even sure how to handle them in this case. However, I think I know enough Japanese phonetics to sound out some of it: G = hard 'g' as in "Gokuu" a = 'ah' as in "Lavie" e = 'eh' as in "Lafiel" a = 'ah' again as in "Char" So even in Japanese "Dees-gah-eh-ah" is nowhere even near "Dis-gay-uh," right? Oh, and my friend also pronounces Ninja Gaiden as "Ninja Gay-den." Could you all comment on that too? I've always said "Gai-den." |
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Inu-Yasha
 Posts: 373 Location: Quad Cities, Iowa |
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I pronounce it like Gaia or very rarely Gaea. That kinda boggles my mind I never really thought about how I say it a second thought till I saw your topic
 . Also for your friend's postion I don't why he says it like that, odd oh well.
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ev0luti0nzer0
 Posts: 40 Location: Australia |
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In Japanese, Gaea is
Ga = 1 Letter e = 1 Letter a = 1 Letter So it sounds like = Gaa + eh + ah in English. |
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Glory Questor
 Posts: 456 |
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http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=Gaea
You can even hear the word pronounced.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Yes it is. She is the goddess personifying the Earth. Also spelled as Gaia. Gaea is pronounced as "JEE-a" and Gaia is pronounced as "GAY-a" (<- don't make fun from it). I don't know the relationship between Disgaea and Gaea. However, it is quite evident that Shoji KAWAMORI is a follower of Gaia theory. Just look at Escaflowne and Arjuna. BTW, Gaia in Wikipedia even has Escaflowne in it! 
To be exact, Gaiden (外伝, がいでん, spinoff / side story) should be pronounced as "ga-i-den". When speaking quickly, it becomes "gai-den". Any "a-i" combination could be pronounced as "I".
Although Japanese are known being poor at the pronunciation of Latin-based languagues due to extensive use of katakana transliteration, they are not that bad. Haydée in Gankutsuou is written and pronounced as エデ (e-deh), which is quite correct, instead of "ha-i-de-e". 
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ShellBullet
 Posts: 1051 Location: I hit things, with my fist. |
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Tony, Gaia is a Greek word, so why go through transliterating from Japanese? Katakana is not the best alphebet in the world for writing western languages in. In the case of Gaia the transformation isn't that bad, but in other cases it's more severe. |
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zaphdash
 Posts: 620 Location: Brooklyn |
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I haven't taken a Greek class since my junior year of high school, but I don't recall there ever being a soft G sound in the language. "γαεα" would be pronounced [ga-e-a] (with a and e both being strong vowels, they won't form a diphthong, if I recall correctly) "γαια" would be pronounced [gai-a] (with a and i being a strong and weak vowel, respectively, i becomes a semivowel forming a diphthong with a that sounds like the English long I sound) That is, if I remember right. And that all applies to ancient Attic Greek, which is what I was taught. I haven't a clue about modern Greek, so if it plays by different rules and you were going by that, I wouldn't know about that and I apologize for making an incredibly irrelevant post. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11507 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I'm only asking about the pronunciation of "Gaea" from a possible Japanese perspective. I haven't played the game Disgaea and I have no idea if it was developed with Greek semantics in mind or if it was just a name made up by a Japanese creator to make the game itself sound cool. If it's suppose to be Greek then my friend is correct in calling it "Dis-gay-uh," but if we're going by a transliteration from Japanese to Romaji then I'd like to know if the name is said as "Dis-ga-i-ya" or whatever instead. This is just trivial information and I'm only trying to prove between my two friends whether this is the right or wrong pronunciation  .
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Glory Questor
Posts: 456 |
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Sorry, I searched on the Internet for you, but couldn't find anything else that can help you.
(You know, abunai is probably the best person for answers like this... )
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Bruce Lee
 Posts: 715 Location: Seattle, Washington |
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I never really put much thought into the pronounceation, but I'd have to go with "dis-guy-uh". Maybe that's not right though...
Great game, anyway. I'm currently playing another Nippon-Ichi title, Phantom Brave - also good (and easier to pronounce )
Maybe I'm dating myself, but this reminds me of back when Mortal Kombat came out, and everybody called the bad guy "Shang Too-sung"? |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I learned my pronounciationo from the old Captian Planet cartoon, but since you're looking for the Japanese version, that probably wouldn't help. I personally haven't heard any difference when I hear it spoken in anime.
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