"Tolwyn"

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Eh... I've always pronounced his name with a short 'o'. Tall-wyn sounds like an American accent. Writing it as Toll-wyn is ambiguous, though. At first I thought you meant to pronounce it with a long 'o'.

~sigh~ The difficulties of trying to write sounds, I suppose.
 
From my ears I'd say neither "tollwin" or "tallwin" are quite correct (concerning the vowel in the first syllable), but in reality it's somewhere in between... So it's like "toll" with the o having tendencies towards a, or you could also say it's like "tall" with the a having tendencies towards o. :D

The end (yn) is pronounced like "in".

There also might be some slight hint of an "h"-sound between the w and y, but I'm not too sure about that.
 
The first episodes of Wing Commander, closed captioned without a script, call him "Commodore Tallwood".

Take that as you will.

(They also fight the Kilrapi.)
 
Strangely the switch to prepared scripts about half-way through the run... and the captions start including things like the names of characters that don't actually appear in the dialog (ie, the Kilrathi pilots in the stealth fighter episode).
 
It's "Toll-win". Simple. In the games and the movie you hear it pronounced by both American and British actors, so you know it's not "Tall-win", Americans sometimes pronounce As in a way that's different to the rest of the English-speaking world, eg. "Hahn Solo" whereas English people would just say "Han" like "can".

I don't know if it's a real surname but it sounds Welsh, interestingly several things in Wing Commander 2 are named after places in Wales; Caenarvon Station, Gwynedd System. I wonder if Chris Roberts ever lived there, I understand he lived in Manchester while growing up.
 
As an English-born, that sounds very back-to-front to me. Americans seem much more inclined to say 'Han' rather than 'Hahn'. Just compare the word 'dance' in English and American-based accents.

I think that, perhaps, Hampshire may be a part of England that follows American pronunciations as I have an English colleague who seems to think in a similar way about certain pronunciations as you do.
 
Tolwyn seems to be a purely artificial name, at least I don't find anyone or any family which actually carries a name like that. Hence we can't use any cultural background as a pronunciation aid.
From the spelling, it's pretty cleverly done - it can be pronounced in almost any language without changing much, and without gathering any undesirable connotation.

So if Tall-wen or Toll-win or even To'wən, we all recognize the guy when he's talked about.
 
Wedge009 said:
As an English-born, that sounds very back-to-front to me. Americans seem much more inclined to say 'Han' rather than 'Hahn'. Just compare the word 'dance' in English and American-based accents.
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English-born... but how much time have you actually spent in England? I've spent my whole life here. Some regional accents (mostly southern) say "darnce" (dance), "Carstle" (castle) and "grah-ss" (grass), whereas northern accents tend to say "dannce", "Cass-tle" "grass". By the way a Hampshire accent is nothing like any American accent (neither is any British accent).

But I was saying *sometimes* Americans pronounce As differently in certain words because in Star Wars, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher say "Obi-Wahn" instead of "Obi-Wan", "Hahn" and "Chewbah-ca". It all depends on accent, but I don't think any English-accented person would pronounce those names that way (unless somehow they thought that was how they were supposed to be pronounced)
 
Long enough to remember how things were said. But I was from London, which matches what you say about northern and southern accents.

I can remember C-3PO saying those names in an English accent, but not Luke and Leia. Maybe it's time for another viewing.

BTW, I don't like how your tone continues to sound so accusing.
 
Wedge009 said:
BTW, I don't like how your tone continues to sound so accusing.
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I'm sorry, Mr Sensitive. If we were talking over the phone or something it would easier for me to be more friendly, but plain text is always open to an individual's interpretation. I just thought it was funny because you know, I'm the one who lives in England, you're not the expert here, although I'm sure you weren't really trying to be like that ;) Anyway, I have no idea what age you were when you moved to Australia so I suppose can't assume how much/how little memory of England you have, maybe you know it as well as most English people. I didn't mean what I said to be like "you don't know what you're talking about" I was just wondering how long you lived in England.

I don't know why Han gets called "Hahn" in Star Wars, but when Americans say "Tall" it sounds a bit like "Toll" whereas English people say "Tawl" (it's hard to write exactly how a word sounds in a particular accent.) I think this confused the OP.

Anyway, it's "Toll-win" that's how all the actors (British and American) in Wing Commander say it
 
You apologise, and then immediately follow up by calling me something condescending.

I don't want to continue this conversation, so let's just drop it and put my obvious lack of expertise to my only being familiar with Londoners, okay?
 
Well I think you are being a bit too sensitive. This is the second time you've tried to chastise me for having too much attitude (in your opinion). If I offend you that much than don't talk to me anymore.

Look, I can see how the first two sentences of my first reply to you (comment #14 in this thread) could be taken as being a bit curt. I didn't really mean it to be, I'm sorry.

I'd better stop now anyway before I end up getting banned for arguing with a senior site member (because that's what often happens with newbies on websites).
 
You're mistaken if you think I have any position of seniority or that new people are banned for arguing with such people.

You also have to consider that not everyone thinks as you do. You say I'm too sensitive. That may be true - I know it's a huge failing of mine. So what do you in recognition of that? Say things to further hammer against that sensitivity. Perhaps not the most appropriate course of action. I hope you can note that I have not responded with insults or back-biting in return, where others might, so please, just recognise that everyone is different and try to adjust accordingly, okay?
 
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