Aximili's name

[Estelore]

Need I mention Es/Est/Estel/Este/Esty as opposed to Estelore?
*chuckle*
And then there is the confusion between me and the two Estrids, and Escafil Device, and a few others.

[Darth Revan]

It's human nature to be impatient, we don't want to have to say your entire name, a simple single syllobic sound that gets your attention. That's what humans try to attain. They have long drawn out names so that they can be told apart from others, but really, if someone was named "ugh" That'd be humanity's dream person.

[Shark Akhrrana]

i suppose plus there are nicknames and petnames

Aximili's father calls him Kala right so who knows.

[morfowt]

if someone was named "ugh" That'd be humanity's dream person.

LOL I know what I want to call my kid if I ever have one... (j/k)

[voodooqueen126]

To Summarise:
His name is abbreviated because it is easy and people like nicknames.
Weathel discusses the major problem of Andalite communication: lacking any concept of verbal communication until they discoverd Z space flight, they wouldn't communicate with thoughts in sentences (like i am thinking in words right now) but they would send pictures and lacking sounds totally wouldn't have things like shrom which sh-r-oo-m as they don't have a voiced language. Since names have meanings for example 'Claire means light' Ursula means bear like and Samira means friend, muhammad means praise... arabic names tend to have pretty obvious meanings because arabs tend to have arabic names whilst Claire and Ursula are separated from their original meanings because we don't speak old french or latin. Likewise in the Ellimist chronicles the children are called things like Star, Tree and Grass... But later andalites are called aximili and elfangor (names that presumably mean things like 'tree' 'rock' etc) but because Andalites have no spoken language there should be no language drift into names being divorced of their original meanings.

Andalite script is presumably pure hieroglyph/chinese minus the abjad aspect of hieroglyphs and the vocalised elements of chinese that is to say symbols represent objects rather than symbols represent sounds.
Cool thought: the Andalite names and words like Elfangor or nothlit or shrom are Ketran (Ellimist's) words for 'whatever elfangor means' or 'trapped' or 'tail blade' that andalites somehow remember through genetic memory, hence Andalite linguistics are Ketran linguistics.

[yunyun]

i always pronounced it ax-i-mill-E , h-or-k-ba-jer ,tax-on , and-a-light(andalite), e-lee-mist (elimist) ch-ee and i pronounced elfangor how ever they did on the show

i pronounced tobias as tobis at first t'ill my friend read animorphs and corrected me.

[FATELUVR95]

lol, I pronounced Tobias To bos. I don't know why, I just did.

[Dogman15]

That's like me ripping on Brits for being all "'Ello guvna!  Chip chip cheerio!  Oim a li'l chimney-sweep Oi am!"  Maybe it's the lack of teeth?

That was fun to read out loud! Thanks!
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The last two have the disadvantage of not actually appearing in cannon.

You mean canon.
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i suppose plus there are nicknames and petnames

Aximili's father calls him Kala right so who knows.

I thought Noorlin used Kala as a suffix of endearment, as in "Aximili-kala".
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I used to pronounce Tobias as "Toe-bus", but now I know that the rest of the English-speaking world pronounces this very common boy's name as "Toe-bye-us".

According to http://web.archive.org/web/20071214221436/http://www.scholastic.com/kaapplegate/speaks2.htm, the official pronunciations of certain Animorphs words are: Hork-buh-JEER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hork-Bajir), Visser/kisser (short "i"), Toe-BYE-us, ELF-un-gore Sir-RIN-ee-ul Sham-TOOL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul), Ket Hal-PEK, and AN-duh-lite. Other words should be easy to figure out.

[Intrepid]

Not able to read through the whole thread at this time; but I wanted to put my two cents in anyway.

Just because Andalites don't have mouths, doesn't mean that they can't associate sounds with words. "Shorm", as a best example, could be thought of as an onomatopoeia for the sound of a tailblade whipping through the air. I'm not entirely sure yet about the other Andalite words, but I'll keep pondering...

 

[SuperBlue]

Lol you're two years too late to berate him for it

[Serraph105]

I said his name wrong until I watched the TV show

for some reason I kept thinking it was "Ax-mealy" b/c I'm dyslexic or something idk

the fact that I needed the TV show to correct me made me sort of mad

b/c there was a lot I wanted to correct on the TV show

same here. It's like the one thing that the tv show got right.

[Dogman15]

I probably said this somewhere else, but I alternate between "Acks-ZIM-il-lee" and "Acks-im-ILL-ee". K.A.A. never addressed Ax's name's pronunciation.

[Noelle]

I happened upon this by chance, I really like this thread.


I'm glad I'm not the only one that was bothered by the logic of Andalite naming and telepathy in the book.

One name I can think of off the top of my head.  Coaldwin, that doctor guy that was all *ZOMG THEY HAVE NO TAIL*.  The name looks aesthetically pleasing.  I may even consider naming my kid that if that didn't make me feel ridiculously insane.


The problem is, there is no logical reason for an Andalite name to contain a "C."   Hard C sounds can be described with the letter "K."  Soft C sounds can be described with the letter "S." 

My logic could be off, I'm not sure.  I'm going to go back through this thread later and re-read it because I'm just happy I'm not the only one that thinks about this stuff, lol.


_____


As for Ax's name, when I was young reading the books (they were a BIG thing in my group of friends)  we always pronounced it Axe-ih-mill-EYE.

A single one of our friends pronounced it "Ax-ih-MILL-ee."  The rest of us were like "ew, why would you pronounce it that way?  It sounds ugly obviously it was meant to be the other way."


Then the TV show came out.  (Even though technically it was Ax-IH-mill-ee, he was still the closest.)


....


Well color me surprised and wrong.  Kudos to the kid that stood his ground when we all called him silly, lol.


For the longest time hearing Ax say his full name on the show still really bothered me, it was like nails on a chalkboard.


Though, had I thought it through...according to the logic at the top of my post, Ax-ih-mill-ee, is the only way it could be pronounced, because we could only reason that all the i's in his name have to sound exactly the same.  Andalite script would have to differentiate between sounds, and that would translate into English as different phonetic symbols, because we have the correct phonetic symbols to differentiate different sounds in his name.

Wait...but then his name would be "Ax-ih-mill-ih"...

I'm just going to stop while I'm ahead.   (Technically I'm behind but maybe they won't notice...)






(I have to point out something...I think this makes me a little nostalgic for my own generation.  In our youth, we debated phonetics and linguistics.


Now, they debate between Team Creepy Stalker Dude and Team Just Wont Give Up Already.

  



I really am getting old.  I never though I'd be one of those "These dern' kids" types)

[XtheoniongirlX]

It's a shame he didn't choose a female as his human morph because then the Animorphs could call him by the last three syllables of his name instead of the first syllable. Then we'd have 3 males and 3 females in the team whenever they were all human. Jake, Marco, Tobias, Rachel, Cassie and Emily.

On an unrelated note I always found it slightly strange that they never shortened Tobias's name. 3 syllables isn't long or anything, and 'Toby' was eventually taken by the one Hork-Bajir prodigy, but I couldn't help but notice they've always called him that. Even Rachel. Speaking of which, I used to think her name was pronounced as Raquel for the longest time until I gave the TV series a watch. No offense to anyone named Raquel, but personally Ray-chel sounds so much softer on the ears :3

[yunyun]

It's a shame he didn't choose a female as his human morph because then the Animorphs could call him by the last three syllables of his name instead of the first syllable. Then we'd have 3 males and 3 females in the team whenever they were all human. Jake, Marco, Tobias, Rachel, Cassie and Emily.

Now that you mention it, it does sound sorta like Emily. But Ax didn't exactly choose I guess. I think the morph just ended up male. But if he's female in human morph, then there's like gender switch and I guess it can get sorta confusing