# How do you pronounce 'Gawain'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254 "2006-03-21T05:44:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/21 "2006-03-21T18:08:55Z")
> [@Dijon Warlock](#): > > It’s educational television, right? That explains why there’s a talking potato on the TV. ---
**Author:** ![shamrock227](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@shamrock227](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shamrock227)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/22 "2006-03-21T18:10:38Z")
Sorry, hit “submit” while trying to close the window when I heard my boss coming :eek: I will flip through a selection of the aforementioned books and try to get you some sites. I think I even have a dictionary of Arthurian names handy in that group. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/23 "2006-03-21T19:04:40Z")
> [@shamrock227](#): > > Sorry, hit “submit” while trying to close the window when I heard my boss coming :eek: > > I will flip through a selection of the aforementioned books and try to get you some sites. I think I even have a dictionary of Arthurian names handy in that group. Yes, please! I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you could take a minute to type in a couple of cites, I’d be eternally grateful. ---
**Author:** ![Interrobang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/interrobang/32/17463_2.png) [@Interrobang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interrobang)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/24 "2006-03-21T19:26:54Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > But see the thing is, I’m in a writing group, and one of us is writing this Arthurian thing, and he says “guh WAYNE.” I corrected him. I was jumped on by the rest of the group, told that I was nuts. It’s seven to one against the TRUTH!!! Oh, the trials and tribulations of life as a prescriptivist. Thank god I’ve avoided those pitfalls. (Would you have corrected Byron’s pronunciation of Don Juan? Huh? Huh? You’re stifling his creativity, man!) ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/25 "2006-03-21T19:32:42Z")
> [@Interrobang!?](#): > > Oh, the trials and tribulations of life as a prescriptivist. Thank god I’ve avoided those pitfalls. > > (Would you have corrected Byron’s pronunciation of Don Juan? Huh? Huh? You’re stifling his creativity, man!) No, but I would definitely correct someone who pronounced it the correct way now. You can’t read the poem properly without hearing [JOO-un] instead of the Spanish pronunciation. **lissener** is being a descriptivist. He wants the pronunciation to be described accurately. That is the way the word was pronounced. ---
**Author:** ![Interrobang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/interrobang/32/17463_2.png) [@Interrobang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interrobang)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/26 "2006-03-21T20:00:27Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > **lissener** is being a descriptivist. He wants the pronunciation to be described accurately. That is the way the word was pronounced. In case it wasn’t clear, I was not particularly serious in my response. And of course, Gawain was, at the time it was used, pronounced in a particular way that was the correct way. **lissener** wants to win an argument, and if I recall my English lit classes correctly, he’ll do it. However, now Gawain is pronounced in a variety of ways, and being historically accurate is not the same thing as being “correct.” It’s unlikely that **lissener** ’s friend really _cares_ how it’s pronounced in his story – not the way Byron needed Don Juan to be intentionally mispronounced in his poem. But he’s the author of the story, not **lissener** , so, like Byron, he gets to dictate how Gawain is pronounced within the context of his own work. Of course, if that author claims that there’s only one way to pronounce way to pronounce Gawain and it’s gaWAYNE, he’s wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/27 "2006-03-21T20:13:51Z")
> [@shamrock227](#): > > I have about 3,265,857 books of Arthurian Literature at home… Don’t forget the one that slipped behind the radiator. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/28 "2006-03-21T20:22:18Z")
> [@Interrobang!?](#): > > In case it wasn’t clear, I was not particularly serious in my response. And of course, Gawain was, at the time it was used, pronounced in a particular way that was the correct way. > > **lissener** wants to win an argument, and if I recall my English lit classes correctly, he’ll do it. However, now Gawain is pronounced in a variety of ways, and being historically accurate is not the same thing as being “correct.” > > It’s unlikely that **lissener** ’s friend really _cares_ how it’s pronounced in his story – not the way Byron needed Don Juan to be intentionally mispronounced in his poem. But he’s the author of the story, not **lissener** , so, like Byron, he gets to dictate how Gawain is pronounced within the context of his own work. > > Of course, if that author claims that there’s only one way to pronounce way to pronounce Gawain and it’s gaWAYNE, he’s wrong. Well, to clarify. We had read the story–actually a screenplay (see what I get when I try to edit the truth for clarity over accuracy?)–on our own. When we began discussing it, I was the first person to mention the character Gawain aloud. Another member of the group corrected me, saying “It’s guh Wayne.” The author agreed with her. I said, “Actually, it’s GOW @n.” The first person said, “Nuh uh, I’m getting this directly from THWhite.” I said, “Well, maybe you read it off the page that way, but the actual historically correct pronunciation is GOW @n.” She rolled her eyes at me, and everyone else in the group said, “I think she’s right.” So, this is not so much about me trying to impose my pedantry on a lone author. I’m trying to defend myself here. And the fact that it’s a screenplay means that it’s meant to be heard, not just read off the page, otherwise I’m not sure I wouldn’t have dropped it. In any case, all I’m looking for is a factual cite, so I’m not sure why the aspersions on my motivations. I kinda think I’m fighting ignorance here. That I have a minor personal stake in it doesn’t strike me as particularly egregious. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/29 "2006-03-21T20:28:19Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > No, but I would definitely correct someone who pronounced it the correct way now. You can’t read the poem properly without hearing [JOO-un] instead of the Spanish pronunciation. They had somthing similar on an arts programme on the BBC last week. The subject was Don Quixote. The presenter announced “Don Key-HO-teh” and all the academics said “Don QUICK-sote”. In the short discussion that ensued, Melvin Bragg defended this by saying “we’re speaking English, not Spanish”. Same applies, apparently, to the pronunciation of Majorca. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/30 "2006-03-21T20:30:12Z")
Oh and, prescriptive v. descriptive is a perfectly valid discussion in re: grammar. grammar is the original open source software; we can all claim equal authorship. A proper name, however, does have a single correct pronunciation. Names may evolve over time, but one individual’s name is not likely to go through the same kind of changes over that person’s lifetime. Unless you’re Steven Segal of course. The answer to “How would Gawain have pronounced his name, if he was a real person?” does have a correct answer. Because of the intervening history, the final correct answer may be unavailable to us. But there’s enough scholarship in that area that we should be able to get pretty close to it. Certainly we can reach a consensus on a binary question like “Is it GOW @an or guh WAYNE?” If scholarly consensus is 50-50, I’ll concede the point. If it’s 90-10, I’ll call that close enough to conclusive, considering. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/31 "2006-03-21T20:33:48Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > They had somthing similar on an arts programme on the BBC last week. The subject was Don Quixote. The presenter announced “Don Key-HO-teh” and all the academics said “Don QUICK-sote”. In the short discussion that ensued, Melvin Bragg defended this by saying “we’re speaking English, not Spanish”. Same applies, apparently, to the pronunciation of Majorca. That’s a British thing. THe British have historically been very imperialist in their approach to foreign language. Thus we have Don JOO-@n and Don QUIX-oat. That, plus the fact that before the era of recorded speech, fewer people were familiar with accents other than those immediately familiar to them. So just because, for various reasons, a mispronunciation acquires a sense of tradition, doesn’t make it right; it just makes it entrenched. Besides, Gawain is British. ---
**Author:** ![NE\_Texan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e99b99/32.png) [@NE\_Texan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NE_Texan)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/32 "2006-03-21T20:39:18Z")
> [@The Chao Goes Mu](#): > > Ooh, I didn’t know they spoke Gullah as far west as Texas! Cool. Heh. Actually, I picked up that type of pronunciation from living in **N** ew **E** ngland for a few years - it reminds me of how people I knew in Maine spoke. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/33 "2006-03-21T20:49:15Z")
I took a class in grad school in which I had to read \*Gawain and the Green Knight \* in Middle English. The prof pronounced it “GOW-ann.” Gow@n. However you spell it. So that’s how I pronounce it. ---
**Author:** ![Interrobang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/interrobang/32/17463_2.png) [@Interrobang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interrobang)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/34 "2006-03-21T21:35:58Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > In any case, all I’m looking for is a factual cite, so I’m not sure why the aspersions on my motivations. I kinda think I’m fighting ignorance here. That I have a minor personal stake in it doesn’t strike me as particularly egregious. I’m not in any way intending to cast aspersions on your motivations, and I’m sorry if it came across that way. I’ll try to avoid lightheartedness without smiley faces in the future. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/35 "2006-03-21T22:07:10Z")
> [@Interrobang!?](#): > > I’m not in any way intending to cast aspersions on your motivations, and I’m sorry if it came across that way. I’ll try to avoid lightheartedness without smiley faces in the future. Naw, I know. I saw the twinkle in your eye. Sometimes I think you enjoy testing my devil’s-advocate tolerance. . . . [twinkle] My response was more defensive than, um, explicatious. (expletive?) [twinkle twinkle] ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/36 "2006-03-21T22:45:53Z")
> [@The Chao Goes Mu](#): > > Ok. Pardon my ignorance. Where is **NB**? Sorry to sound so damn nosey but I’m wondering if NB has a large Welsh population. > > I’m going to kick myself when you tell me, huh? I know it’s been answered already, but I would like to clarify that it is the province of New Brunswick, in Canada, that I am speaking of (and not New Brunswick, New Jersey). Also, we’re mostly a bunch of Irish/French mutt mixes, but, at least where I’m from (Charlotte County), there’s a damn good dose of Welsh in there, as well. I worked with three Welsh ladies at the factory, and was taught by no less than five Welsh teachers (as well as two Irish, one Scot, and three from England). So, yes, those with the family name of Gawain, though they didn’t have a Welsh accent, could easily and very probably have had Welsh ancestors. You know, for years I wondered why not **all** Canadians spelled “colour” with a “u”, or “realise” with an “s”, or pronounced the letter “z” as “zed”, since we had that drilled into our heads and were told that was the “Canadian Way”… and now, rereading my post, it hits me. Well, I’ll be damned. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/37 "2006-03-21T23:36:36Z")
Just to throw a little extra confusion into the mix: J. R. R. Tolkien was a well-regarded medieval scholar. (I think he wrote some novels too.) In the tradition of medieval scholars, he penned modern-English translations of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and several other Middle English poems. He spelled it **Wawain** , and as far as I have been able to ascertain, intended it to be pronounced “WA-wayne.” I am not making this up. Apparently (and I’m going way out of my zone here), the confusion derives from an old Welsh consonant, approximated “gw” in our alphabet. That’s as far as I’m going to assert. I did find [this site](http://www.thetolkienwiki.org/wiki.cgi?FAQ/Why __is__ Gawain __sometimes__ spelled__Wawain), which says in part: > [@](#): > > Gawain seems to appear first in Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (as Walgainus, though in Latin the name seems to also appear as Galvaginus and Galvanus) and is frequently identified with Gwalchmai (‘hawk of May’) of Celtic history (and/or mythology), though some authors (including R. Graves) note that the name Gawain derives from Gwalchgwyn (‘white hawk’) rather than from Gwalchmai. (Side note: A few years ago I wrote a screenplay in which a couple of medievalists, meeting by chance while one is robbing the other’s apartment, share a snicker over the word “Wawain.” They later start an “applied rhetoric company” and become successful underworld persuaders. It wasn’t very good.) ---
**Author:** ![shamrock227](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@shamrock227](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shamrock227)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/38 "2006-03-21T23:39:45Z")
> [@Elendil's Heir](#): > > Don’t forget the one that slipped behind the radiator. Who told you? :eek: Bad news from the book front. The ones I’ve checked so far have tons of variations on the name, but no pronunciations. The only one is _Myths & Legends of the Middle Ages_, Guerber, Helene, 1909 ed which shows it as Ga’wain. Sorry. I’ll keep at it since I refuse to believe that I have been saying it wrong all this time. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/39 "2006-03-21T23:44:57Z")
Yeah, I’m surprised I’m finding such a balanced range of cites online, considering any “authority” I’ve ever talked too–and I used to be a hardcore Arthur buff; have met more than one authority–pronounced it GOW @n. But the guh WAIN pronunciation has become so widespread in the “vernacular” that it’s given equal weight at all the online cites I can find. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254/40 "2006-03-21T23:45:02Z")
> [@Dijon Warlock](#): > > But…but… > > According to the PBS show “Between the Lions,” it’s pronounced to rhyme with “Wayne” only with a ‘G’ at the beginning. > > “Gawain’s Word, Gawain’s Word, Party On, Excellent!!” According to the experts, it does have schwa in it. “Schwa right! As if!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-gawain/349254.md?page=3)