Guild Wars 2

This is probably silly but I am curious.

Why is Quay pronounced as Kway? As in Triskell Quay – Kessex Hills story chapter.

In my part of the world (Australia) Quay is pronounced ‘Key’ and Google Translate agrees with me so I know it is not just the usual Aussie practice of mangling vowels.

Are there places in the world (ok, the US) where Quay is really Kway or did the voice actors get it wrong?

I’ve never heard it pronounced ‘key’, but where I’m from it’s pronounced ‘kway’. Most of our words that start with ‘qu’ have the ‘kw’ sound, and many words that end in ‘ay’ have the ‘long a’ sound. Thus, kway.

Then, again, I’ve never been to Australia.

Well, I don’t guess we own the word or can dictate how it is pronounced – well not yet.

Still, maybe it is something to pencil in your travel diary if you do come here because you might confuse the locals.

I will do the same – kway.

Lol, I doubt I would change my speech pattern when traveling to Australia. I don’t when I travel elsewhere. Would be cool if I could imitate all the different dialects and accents, but..alas…I have no talent for it.

(I’m not likely to ever end up in Australia, anyway, but I suppose anything is possible.)

; )

I do not think it is just Australia. Here in Europe we pronounce it also without “w” sound, just like Quebec is “Kuh-back”.

Lol, just to be inconsistent, we Aussies would pronounce Quebec as Kwuhbec.

In English it is “key”.
In American it is “kway”.

Don’t worry. It could be worse. The word in question could be “buoy”.

:)

(Or “minotaur”. Or “centaur”.)

I think it is a “Frenchie” thing… I looked it up ;-)

quay (n.) Look up quay at Dictionary.com
1690s, variant of Middle English key, keye, caye “wharf” (c. 1300; mid-13c. in place names), from Old North French cai (Old French chai, 12c., Modern French quai) “sand bank,” from Gaulish caium (5c.), from Old Celtic *kagio- “to encompass, enclose” (cognates: Welsh cae “fence, hedge,” Cornish ke “hedge”), from PIE *kagh- “to catch, seize; wickerwork, fence” (see hedge (n.)). Spelling altered in English by influence of French quai.

“buoy” would be a word from the Dutch “boei” ;-p

i’m no native speaker, so this could also be my accent showing thrugh, but I’d speak it “Kay”.

AcidLex.4879:

“buoy” would be a word from the Dutch “boei” ;-p

dont pat yourself on the shoulder jsut yet as it is derived from spanish AND dutch.

probably from Middle Dutch boye, boeie, from a Germanic base meaning ‘signal’. The verb is from Spanish boyar ‘to float’, from boya ‘buoy’.

I stand corrected – olé!!!

mcwurth.2081:

AcidLex.4879:

“buoy” would be a word from the Dutch “boei” ;-p

dont pat yourself on the shoulder jsut yet as it is derived from spanish AND dutch.

probably from Middle Dutch boye, boeie, from a Germanic base meaning ‘signal’. The verb is from Spanish boyar ‘to float’, from boya ‘buoy’.

Well for a long time the Hanse was nautically and economically very strong in the whole northern and baltic sea area and their language was a kind of low German, mixed with english…old Low German and/or Frisian sounds a lot like Dutch.
As a nautic term, it fits that it would come from that region. In German it is “Boje” pronounced “boye” with an unstressed “uh” sound at the end.
When i think of Lions Arch I get remindet of all the independed hanse cities in Europe during the middle ages and early modern times…capitalism at its finest.

That is a very nice thought, so we should call it Hansestadt Löwen Bogen ;-)

AcidLex.4879:

That is a very nice thought, so we should call it Hansestadt Löwen Bogen ;-)

I always thought of the Black Lion trading company as the equivalent of the Hanse, because of the of the economical aspect.
but I’d love to have something like the hanse when the expansion with Bubbles comes out…like many independent seaport cities that trade goods among each and the cities being controlled by boatbuilding and shipowning companies and traders, like the show already in LA.
The German name is “Löwenstein” (Lion’s stone) I think it is to correspond with the name for DR, “Götterfels” (rock of the gods).
We could call it “Freie Hansestadt Löwenstein.”

Yes, I settle for that name.

Also nice idea for the Economy, I hope it will not go unnoticed.

I hope so. It would make the world look less static.
Yep sounds good.

It’s pronounced ‘key’ in Britain too.

It could be regional variations, but given there’s at least 1 NPC who also pronounces the W in sword, and ‘kway’ is the phonetic pronunciation it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was a mistake by the voice actors.

Look at words with similar spellings …. play, may, stay, bay. An ‘ay’ suffix is often a long ‘a’ in most accents I am used to but English ones tend to be …. different.

For an example that is relevant this time of year, take Samhain. It is not, as you might expect, /sam/hane/ but instead /sohw/ihn/. Spellings do not always match vocalizations. So quay being pronounced differently in different places is certainly believable. I just never would have guessed “key” though, as that is an island (the florida keys).

I can also add that in Elder Scrolls Online, quay is pronounced ‘key’. I have checked 2 or 3 different sites that actually says the word to give the correct pronunciation. They all said it like ‘key’. So I have pretty much accepted that that is the correct way to say it.

As long as it’s consistent throughout the game, it doesn’t matter to me how it’s pronounced. After all, this is Tyria, so the pronunciations are Tyrian. If “kway” is the Tyrian pronunciation, then "kway"is correct.

For another example, until I heard it pronounced, I thought Tyria was pronounced Tie-REE-ah. Now that I have heard native Tyrians pronounce it, I know the correct
pronunciation sounds like the back part of “cafeteria”.

Since I’m living in their world, I’ll pronounce it their way (even if it sounds goofy to me).

Where in game is it pronounced out loud? I’m guessing in the PS? I never noticed it, and though I am American I have always pronounced it “key” so I’d hope “kway” would have been jarring to my ears. I’ve done the Vigil defense of Triskell more than once, too.

I’m from the US and have never heard it as key. That just sounds strange

Yeah, the /kw?ei/ pronunciation is pretty much exclusive to the US, and even some regions of the US say it as /ki/.

Hooray for regional differences of the same language.