As a side note, a while back there was a kidnapped Chinese girl that there was a huge manhunt for, around Toronto, whose name was Cecilia Zhang.
The newscasters KEPT mispronouncing the name as JHONG (which sounds kind of like Hmong's 'tsoo')
(they said thong, and made a j sound instead of the t sound)
Bugged me to no end. (both the kidnapping and the pronounciation)
sorry if this is left field, I just needed to say it.
Upsen.
not only that but the amount of space that each vocal would take and we'd see the hard drive requirements balloon up to 4 gb much like you see in EQ2. Its a cool feature but one i'm glad to live without for the sake of hard drive space.
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actually, the Tsoo are definately Hmong in origin. One of the pedestrian comments in Talos is "Those Tsoo make the rest of the Hmong community look bad."
I spose you could argue that pedestrian doesn't know what they are talking about, but once you start ignoring the in game info sources, then you leap off into the wonderful realm of unsupported hear-say.
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One of the Skyway contacts tells you outright that they are Hmong.
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The oriental guy in the lower levels near the tram right? Thao Ku, magic contact, L15-20 missions.
(though looking at artphobia/cohol, it could be Kong Bao or Cho Ge too)
Upsen.
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I think I remember Kong Bao tells you explicitly they're Hmong as well. His description is that he's a Hmong community leader who works with the city to help the Hmong immigrants. He's upset at the Tsoo for giving his people a bad reputation.
hehe... hard drive space shouldn't be issue for many... most "standard" size is around 30GB (if that small) a lot of new base machine starts off at 40GB
4 GB is nothing.. unless you got tons of pron.
i prefer to call the tsoo "Sue" like the female name.
Down here in the south you know, both pronuciations come out the same. I had various friends, some from florida, some georgia and some alabama try and say them and i couldnt tell the difference between the two. Fer us sun tzu and sun sue are the same. The best tho was a buddy from was out in the booneys who just prunounced it T-soo, and then said What'r-n-the hell is a T-soo fer? 
Just having a conversatoin about this with a co-worker today.
So is Striga... Strih-gah or Stry-gah? (or *-guh)
interested in all opinions, not just dev.
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I think I remember Kong Bao tells you explicitly they're Hmong as well. His description is that he's a Hmong community leader who works with the city to help the Hmong immigrants. He's upset at the Tsoo for giving his people a bad reputation.
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You remember correctly. I was going to mention this but then I saw your post and thought I'd just back you up instead
EDIT:
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So is Striga... Strih-gah or Stry-gah? (or *-guh)
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I believe its pronounced with the i as in hit and u as in but
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If only there were in-game voice tracks. 
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Localization would have become a LOT more expensive.
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I'm unclear on the term "localization." From context, I'm guessing that has to do with different language versions?
This is a very cool thread. Yes, Tsoo is apparently a Hmong word, but the art style of their dress draws from various asian influences, mostly Japanese it seems thouhg. I'd love for one of the designer or artists to chime in on this thread to say where they drew their styles from.
As for localization, yes, they meant translation for different regionalized versions of the game. Not only would they have to translate the text but they'd have to record new audio as well, meaning finding new voice talent, rerecording. et al. Personally I think it would be worth it for an expansion, as the game has proven both profitable and to have legs.
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ok just wondering how do you pronounce Tsoo?
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It's pronounced Throat Warbler Mangrove
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I don't think so, because then it would have to be spelled "Raymond Luxury-Yacht"
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ok just wondering how do you pronounce Tsoo?
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It's pronounced Throat Warbler Mangrove
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I don't think so, because then it would have to be spelled "Raymond Luxury-Yacht"
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You're a very silly person, and I won't interview you. 
BTW, has anyone brought up the fact that there are Chinese characters on the Ancestor Spirits' belts? I can pick out 'death', and I think 'star'. Not sure about the rest.
Links to my Virtueverse crap
Well, my main is 41.. and I have seen no Tsoo over lvl 30ish.. so I now pronounce it like "tissue"
I pronounce them with the 'Ts' sound from the 'Tsunami' with the T in it, and the rest of the word with the 'o' sound from "So" or "Sew"
So it'll become something like "Tsew"
Or just "NNNINJaaaah"
TechDefender Rad/Ele Defender
D'20 Gladiator DM/SR Scrapper
Cyclonite Cat Fire/Fire Blaster
[url="http://www.dutchfurs.com/~taross/w/screenshots/Ferretgal/Ferretgal.jpg"]Ferretgal Claw/Inv Scrapper[/url](Virtue)
@Cyclonite Cat
(Names changed at GM 'request')
Me? I go for the Ts in Tsunami, or more commonly in it's, since we can't even agree on how to pronounce tsunami.
As for Striga, I pronounce the 'i' and 'a' like I do in pizza. Stree-gah. Not Peezzaa, Pizza.
My suggestions?
Striga would be "Stree gah," emphasis on the first sylable.
Kheldian, "Kell dee ann", emphasis on the third. As in English, the K ("keh") sound is made by a short click and an exhale, simply elongate the "h" in the normal K sound, but not as much as if you were pronouncing it with an extra H... that is, "kehh", not "keh-hh"
And the paramount cause of this thread, Tsoo:
Having already adopted Japanese speech patterns, I would pronounce this in keeping with those standards. Typically with a Japanese name, the T sound in this would pronounced VERY briefly. It's not so much a "t-soo" noise as it is an S with a hard start.
(As a sidebar, I'm not certain where the name came from, but as "tsu" and "tsoo" are both romanized forms of Japanese sounds, and as "tsoo" itself is an acknowledged phonetic symbol for German ("zu" is "tsoo" in several cases), as well, one just make a random guess and be somewhere in the vicinity of correct.)
15 pages to resolve Tsoo pronunciation.
Wow.
I like cheese and the color blue.
Anyone else?
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I just call em tacos.... what? I was hungry the first time I ever encountered a Tsoo...
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this wins it for me - for ever more they are TACO'S!
i just thought some dev orderd some Geral Tso's chicken one day, and thought, "hey, add a o, and that'd be a good name for a villan group". and have none of you ever orderd chinese food before?
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It's pronounced Throat Warbler Mangrove
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But it's Spelled Raymond Luxury Yacht, and take off that Polystyrene nose! Your a very silly man and and I'm not going to interview you anymore!
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15 pages to resolve Tsoo pronunciation.
Wow.
I like cheese and the color blue.
Anyone else?
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The cheese is moldy. Whaere is the bathroom?
LOL, this is great. I always wondered how others did as well, I go for the combined 'ts' sound like in tsetse fly or however you spell it. Else without the 't' it sounds like an insult to the Native American tribe of the Sioux.
well.. I pronoune Tsoo as Tzu sound (being half chinese/half thai) but most of my american friend just call it soo or sue (close to it) it is kinda hard when trying to "type out" what a person would pronounce like...
but I might start calling them Sue.. cause well.. it is funny