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dissonancengine:

More Welsh stuff, I guess, because horrorwine.

Hogwarts House Names (approx.)

Slytherin - Slafennog

Ravenclaw - Crafangfran

Gryffindor - Llereurol

Hufflepuff - Wfftitwff

In fact, Wfftitwff is really easy to pronounce: oof-tee-toof. All the w’s and f’s are there because of Welsh pronunciation rules. Being a Celtic, and not a Germanic or Romance language, Welsh uses the Roman alphabet the way it wants and follows an internal logic different from English, Spanish, etc. W either sounds like English word-initial W (as in “word”) or as “oo” when being used as a vowel. A single F denotes a v-sound rather than and f-sound, so double-f is pronounced as English F in borrowed words. Otherwise, the letter V is pronounced like English F. So the sounds are just switched.

Double-L is a little more complicated. Welsh uses a sound called an unvoiced lateral fricative which is not present in English. However, its name tells us how to make the sound. It is unvoiced, meaning the vocal cords are not used (s and z in English, for example, are an unvoiced and voiced pair of sounds - try it out). It is a fricative, which means a continuous stream of air exits the mouth around the tongue (think f or v in English). And finally, it is lateral, meaning that the air travels around the sides of the tongue rather than over it (as in most sounds); the L-sound in English is a lateral sound (an approximant). So, in order to pronounce an unvoiced lateral fricative, place your tongue where you would to say “L,” then just blow air out around your tongue. Easy! This sound is also found in Navajo and Aztec (Nahuatl, which contains the sound as the end) and its voiced companion is present in Mongolian.

WFFTITWFF PRIDE