The Welsh bard’s name – how is it properly pronounced?
I’m not Welsh, but I say it is like Tal - yes-in.
Someone might come along to express it more tidily and properly linguistically. 
Spring Green, Wisconsin, the site of Taliesen East, Frank Lloyd Wright’s original workshop, is just a few hours east of here. It is pronounced “Tally-ay-zon” by the locals. But we have a Madrid pronounced “Mad-rid” and a Trier pronounced “Tree-air” and a Tripoli pronounced “Trip-pole-la.” What do we know?
Don’t forget Wisconsin’s “Prairie du Chien” as “Prairie du sheen”. You can’t trust what any of those cheese-eaters say.
[sub]Menomonie, doo doo, dah doo doo[/sub]
I thought it was pronounced “Tal-EYE-ess-in” but I don’t know why. Basically, how Spavined Gelding pronounced it. I’d like to get official word so I don’t keep saying it wrong if I am.
I’ve always heard “tally- ES-en”, but I’m sure that’s the American pronunciation. I don’t know if that’s correct in Welsh.
Well, I did live and work in Wales for a time without anyone throwing things at me for bad speech, but I daresay U.S. placenames are allowed to be, um, “quaint”. As far as I know, for one example, they even pronounce “Bryn Mawr” oddly in your far-away country of which I know little.
The poster Elenfair would be a good one to ask, it now occurs to me.
But it’s way past sleepy time here, so nos da.
Nine of ten sites on Google agree that it’s… (doot dee doot doo)
…Tally-ESS-in. Hope this helps.
Just so y’all can point and laugh, my art teacher (and therefore I) pronounced it “Tol-Yee-Sun” and I have exaggerated the vowels so you can get the Southern accent involved. The key syllable is the Yee one.
Over the nearly 40 years it’s been since then I have observed a lessening in the strength of long vowels as a generalization to pronunciation in my area. The long a in area (first syllable) has given way to a short e or a schwa sound. And almost any name derived from the Hebrew has had its long vowels replaced with short ones. Example: Isaiah is less an Eye-Zay-yuh thing and more a Ee-sigh-yuh one. And Moses has gone from Moh-zez to Muh-shuh.