posted
I recently saw one of my students graduate last week, a brilliant young man by the name of Jan who pronounces it "Yawn". It led me to question for the first time in my 25 years of reading Legion whether Element Lad's first name is to be read as Jan (like Jan Brady) or Jan (like Yawn). I've always said it like the former but I think I prefer the sound of the latter with the last name Arrah.
From: Canada | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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It's a fairly common Scandanavian name (equivalent to "John", I believe) pronounced like "Yawn".
That's usually how I pronounce it.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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i always did it jan. i saw an issue of the legion (*levitz) where they showed the pronunciation of the legion names in the letters column. (am i remembering right?
[ July 03, 2005, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Disaster Boy ]
From: Ninja Land | Registered: Nov 2004
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I do know that Northern European Jan* or Jon's name is probably pronounced yawn, but when I say Element Lad's name aloud it rhymes with tan. Jan (<-rhymes with tan) uh-RAW.
*I have Jan Hammer to thank for not only the theme to Miami Vice but this info.
Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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I like to imagine Jan speaking with a Swedish accent, myself!
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart.
Personally, I think of him as Jan with a hard "j" sound.
Usually, the writers aren't too region specific when scripting the Legionnaires dialogue, but I do recall during the TMK 5-Year gap days that some of the Legionnaires sounded very American mid-western at times, like when they'd say "s'okay" for it's okay, for example. That was kind of neat, although I think that I prefer non-region specific dialoguing since this allows readers to intuitively choose accents for the characters themselves.
Do you know what I'd love to see as an experiment? A page of dialogue scripted in the language of interlac. Not the actual characters, but the wording itself, like when they wrote a page or two in one of the Ambush Bug comics where he briefly spoke in future english. It was so well done, in fact, that it was actually fairly comprehensible [sp?]. The writers would even have some pre-existing material to work with in the form of futuristic expletives and exclamations that have been used in past Legion incarnations, such as "My Gawn; Frak; Squaj;" and--my own personal favourite--"Grife".
In that vein, I must say that I've enjoyed the textual decisions in the current book to do such things as "blogging" the name, Tolling4rd, and spelling Brainy's use of the word God with a zero rather than an "o".
[ July 04, 2005, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Mediocre Boy ]
-------------------- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so the meek[s] shall inherit inherit the Earth, but what about the geeks? I still want Baffin Island--polar bears and all! :)
From: Brampton, Canada | Registered: Feb 2005
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Ive Always Pronunced it as "Yon" (or "Yawn...depending on your spelling).
But I pronounce My name "Yosef".
But not YO
never YO.
-------------------- Remember : It's not technically a suckerpunch if you yell ''DEFEND YOURSELF SPROCKER!'' two seconds before you let him have it.
From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2005
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But as ABC once put it (paraphrase) - i would never ever "shoot that poison Arrah through my heart"...
From: Adelaide, Australia | Registered: Jun 2005
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I've always pronounced it as "Jan" with a hard 'j'. But I kind of like 'yawn' with 'arrah', so I might start pronouncing it that way now.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
It's weird at first, but cool once you get in the habit of it!
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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I thought this was an "Element Lad is boring" thread. Nevermind.
I'm sticking with the hard "j" pronounciation just out of sheer obstinacy, but the idea is not entirely without merit. The surname ARRAH (a real, albeit rare name) is English and very possibly of Norse origin. And in the Golden Age Legion story, Jan was cast as a Polish freedom fighter. The "Y" sound also applies to the Polish pronouncation of Jan.
From: Reimagined Trom | Registered: Jul 2003
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I like the idea of pronoucning it "yawn" but can't bring myself to do it after all these years. It would be like finding out Eryk prounounces his name "aw-reek" or something...
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