Imma Goblin

a name, a promise, a threat

[iaminfactagoblin]

Why are the Ferengi so cute

I mean they're awful little goblins, but

they're cute

[spockvarietyhour]

[iaminfactagoblin]

it's a common trope in garashir fics for Garak to mispronounce Julian's name in an exotic alien way, but what about the opposite?

Garak comes up to Julian and sadly confesses that his name is actually pronounced Gh'raaque and everyone has been mangling the pronunciation all this while. he doesn't want to make a big deal about it, but the lack of respect for Cardassian culture and language is making him depressed. Julian really takes it to heart and spends the next several days correcting everyone's pronunciation.

Then he find out Garak made the whole thing up just to troll him.

[annecoulmanross]

So I've been playing around with making a version of Kardasi that uses all of the existing fanmade Kardasi grammar, syntax, vocab, and phonetics, and based on how most people interpret the language, I actually do think that Julian pronounces Garak's name wrong.

Now, he wouldn't be the only one—both Tain and Garak himself pronounce Garak's name the same way that Julian does, as EE-lim GARE-uck, or in IPA, /ˈiːlɪm ˈɡærək/, but we could assume that this is the effect of Universal Translators making the name more accessible to speakers of Standard.

But in the version of synthesized Kardasi I've been developing, Garak's name should be pronounced more like eh-LEEM GAH-rahk, or /ɛ.ˈlim ˈgɑ.ɾɑk/. Ironically, Julian gets closest to pronouncing Garak's surname "correctly," partly because he seems to be speaking it with a subtle nod toward Arabic phonetics (he sometimes taps the r, and he often makes both vowels a little more open). Unfortunately for Julian, the conventional spelling of "Elim" seems to purposefully disobey Kardasi phonetic rules. Which is a very very Garak thing to do.

[iaminfactagoblin]

Interesting idea, but I hope that the Universal Translator wouldn't randomly change the pronunciation of people's names to make them more palatable. That would feel insensitive even today, much less in the utopian 24th century, lol.

Plus, Eh-LEEM doesn't seem much harder to pronounce than EE-lim - I could maybe see it if Standard was based on a language where the stress pattern always falls on the second-to-last syllable, but it seems to be based on English, so I don't see any particular reason for the change. So personally I assume that Garak's name is pronounced exactly the way we hear him pronounce it.

[annecoulmanross]

I think maybe we're talking past each other—I'm sorry about that, and if you'd rather I just delete all this so you can do the same, that's entirely fair and I'd be happy to do so! (I probably shouldn't have added to a pre-existing post in the first place.)

I think you're absolutely correct that the show itself can't possibly have intended for Garak's name to be pronounced any other way than Garak himself pronounces it, I definitely don't disagree! But there's a long history of Star Trek languages built around a few scattered words and names—that's how Marc Okrand created Vulcan and Klingon after all—and that's what I've seen lots of other fans trying to do with Kardasi, going all the way back to the 1990s. You're also completely right that eh-LEEM wouldn't be harder to pronounce than EE-lim, but it's interesting that Garak's the only canon Cardassian character whose name starts with an E for whom that E is pronounced as a long, stressed "EE." Other Cardassians with E-names might have that vowel length (e.g. Gul Evek, ee-VEK), or the stress (e.g. Entek, EN-tek), or neither (Ekoor, e-KOOR; Enabran, e-NAH-bran), but not both. And of course there's no apparent consistency in how Cardassian names are spelled in Standard. Ultimately, I'm not at all trying to make a truth claim about the show, just playing with the fragments of language we get from character names.

[iaminfactagoblin]

no need to delete, it's not that far off topic and I like language nerdery. I have no objection to inventing a Cardassian language that's different than what we hear on the show, I was objecting to the idea that the Universal Translator would be programmed to change people's names to make them "accessible". My field is sorta tangentially related to both linguistics and accessibility, and I have a name that English speakers (or just people who don't speak my native language) often consider difficult, so that part stood out to me. Regarding Cardassian, I have no particular thoughts or feelings of my own but what you said above is quite interesting. I didn't think there was enough of it on the show to play but I guess I was wrong about that lol.

[iaminfactagoblin]

it's a common trope in garashir fics for Garak to mispronounce Julian's name in an exotic alien way, but what about the opposite?

Garak comes up to Julian and sadly confesses that his name is actually pronounced Gh'raaque and everyone has been mangling the pronunciation all this while. he doesn't want to make a big deal about it, but the lack of respect for Cardassian culture and language is making him depressed. Julian really takes it to heart and spends the next several days correcting everyone's pronunciation.

Then he find out Garak made the whole thing up just to troll him.

[annecoulmanross]

So I've been playing around with making a version of Kardasi that uses all of the existing fanmade Kardasi grammar, syntax, vocab, and phonetics, and based on how most people interpret the language, I actually do think that Julian pronounces Garak's name wrong.

Now, he wouldn't be the only one—both Tain and Garak himself pronounce Garak's name the same way that Julian does, as EE-lim GARE-uck, or in IPA, /ˈiːlɪm ˈɡærək/, but we could assume that this is the effect of Universal Translators making the name more accessible to speakers of Standard.

But in the version of synthesized Kardasi I've been developing, Garak's name should be pronounced more like eh-LEEM GAH-rahk, or /ɛ.ˈlim ˈgɑ.ɾɑk/. Ironically, Julian gets closest to pronouncing Garak's surname "correctly," partly because he seems to be speaking it with a subtle nod toward Arabic phonetics (he sometimes taps the r, and he often makes both vowels a little more open). Unfortunately for Julian, the conventional spelling of "Elim" seems to purposefully disobey Kardasi phonetic rules. Which is a very very Garak thing to do.

[iaminfactagoblin]

Interesting idea, but I hope that the Universal Translator wouldn't randomly change the pronunciation of people's names to make them more palatable. That would feel insensitive even today, much less in the utopian 24th century, lol.

Plus, Eh-LEEM doesn't seem much harder to pronounce than EE-lim - I could maybe see it if Standard was based on a language where the stress pattern always falls on the second-to-last syllable, but it seems to be based on English, so I don't see any particular reason for the change. So personally I assume that Garak's name is pronounced exactly the way we hear him pronounce it.

[spockvarietyhour]

It's not even a Torture the Chief Episode!!!

[iaminfactagoblin]

Season 1 didn't have any real O'Brien Must Suffer episodes, but season 2 quickly set out to correct that oversight.

That's why a Klingon kicked him in that wound not five minutes later. Get used to your new role in the show, Chief!

Maybe you should have stayed on the Enterprise.

[nightlysleeper]

Odo receives the most crushing blow of his entire life

[iaminfactagoblin]

I randomly started thinking about replicators (as one does lol), and now I've got a question that won't leave me alone. There might be an answer somewhere in canon but I don't remember so

Can you get alcohol from a (Federation) replicator?

yes

no

synthehol only

Voting ended onJul 16

[cosmicparadiseee]

Needed to dump my photos of them somewhere gwah 🫩🫩🫩🫩

[sirellas]

@ds9week day 3: from different worlds

[duztdevl]

get it julian

[iaminfactagoblin]

it's a common trope in garashir fics for Garak to mispronounce Julian's name in an exotic alien way, but what about the opposite?

Garak comes up to Julian and sadly confesses that his name is actually pronounced Gh'raaque and everyone has been mangling the pronunciation all this while. he doesn't want to make a big deal about it, but the lack of respect for Cardassian culture and language is making him depressed. Julian really takes it to heart and spends the next several days correcting everyone's pronunciation.

Then he find out Garak made the whole thing up just to troll him.

[iaminfactagoblin]

(from Proud Helios by Melissa Scott)

Genderless Odo rep in a tie-in novel from 1995 is unexpected but appreciated

[small-delta]

together we are deep space nine

[pippinstook]

oh ezri dax i could never hate you.........

and a plain one cause idk how i feel about the comp...

[spockvarietyhour]

DS9 "Whispers"

[ynngaa]

Javert who?

[evviejo]

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - S2E25 Tribunal

[trekcore]

Miles did it: