[RPG] How to pronounce Yuan-ti

dungeons-and-dragonspronunciationyuan-ti

I've heard Yuan-ti pronounced in various different ways by different people or video games (but some of these would have been English people and some would have been American, so there's that aspect to add some confusion to this as well).

For the first part–"Yuan"–I'd pronounce that something like "you-ahn". The obvious alternative is "you-an" (as in the name "Anne").

It's the last part–"ti"–that confuses me the most; is that "tee" or "tai"?

Is there an official canon pronunciation of Yuan-ti out there somewhere?

Best Answer

You-Ahn Tee

Dndbeyond has the pronunciation as You-Ahn Tee when you select the audio clip.


This is also confirmed (Thanks NathanS!) in Dragon Magazine #93 in the "Ay pronunseeAYshun gyd" section on page 30. It's listed there as "yoo-an-TEE", which matches the audio clip from Dndbeyond.

As for the "an" part, on p. 24 of that magazine explains that:

The letter A has several treatments. Short A (as in "far") is left alone, but long A (as in "fate") is always followed by Y ("fayt"). The narrow, back-of-the-throat A (as in "fat") is written as "@"–so that the word is "f@t."

So it seems that "an" matches up with the "ahn" that we hear in the audio clip.

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