Personally, I think Dr-oh sounds better, and that's how I pronounce it. Menzoberranzan is said how it is written - at least, that's how I say it. Men-zo-berran-zan. Or Menzo-berranzan. Always pronounce the z's as z's as in bzzz for a bee. Drizzt is definitely NOT Drizzit. It is said Drizzst. The double z means that it is a sharp s followed by a t. At least, that's how I say it.
Guenhwyvar is a difficult one. I mostly pronounce it Gu-eni-var (pronounced faster, so it rolls off your tongue), but if I look closer at the spelling I'd say it's more of a Guen-wyvar, the wyvar bit as in wyvern. But I'm not sure. Practically all of this is only my opinion, but most of my friends who are into fantasy pronounce it that way.

PS: No offence, but I thought the drow pronounciation, Dr-ow, as in Ouch, was American, and that the Dr-oh was English. Hey, at least I spellt your country with a capital! :D No, sorry, no offence was meant.

I just can't get over the fact that a thread for masters of English has a misspelt word in the title....

No offence intended Sythe, I know where you're coming from. I have no idea on how to pronounce those. I always get a little bit paranoid talking about books and games with people as when you've only read a word you don't know how everyone else thinks it should be pronounced. I remember the biggest disagreement I've ever had was on the evil dwarf fighter from BG1. Dammit! Can't remember his name now! but suffice to say we couldn't agree on how to pronounce it...

uhh...all those names are hard to pronounce, let even type it. why can't they just use chinese or japanese names?

Hehe I had a little chuckle over that myself ;)

But in fact the biggest problem with the title of the thread isn't the spelling mistake but the notion that people who are good at English will be able to pronounce foreign words - not hardly! It's hard enough figuring out how to pronounce words that are actually English, let alone words that are not! English is referred to as an "orthographically opaque" language - meaning the spelling-to-sound (and sound-to-spelling), or the way words are pronounced according to how they're spelt, is not at all obvious. The word drow is a perfect example. When you encounter a novel word, the only way to pronounce it is to examine the components and work out what phonemes correspond to what letter strings. So drow is 'd' 'r' 'ow'... ?? How to pronounce ow? What english readers know is that 'ow' is not regular, that is, it can be pronounced various ways. It could be oh, as in 'tow' or 'low' or 'own'. Or it could be ow, as in 'now' or 'dower' or 'allow'. (Just for kicks too, suppose you heard the word 'drow' and it was pronounced 'droh' as in 'low' - how to spell it? Dro? Droe? Droh? Bah :D )

Drizzt is even worse. 'izzt' is not a conventional letter string in English. There are no analogous words that you can use to generate its pronunciation. So, supposing there wasn't extant evidence of its pronunciation (eg in BG2) an english speaker would pretty much have an open slate. You could say well, izzt, spelled sorta like wrist with a z-ier sound, but not necessarily. Look at a word like yacht. Based on its spelling it should be yatchet, like hatchet, or maybe yatched, like hatched, or even yacked or yacket, supposing you pronounced the ch as a /k/. But it's 'yot'. Indeed ;)

Yes, he is from Fae'run. He should know the spelling!

Quote:

I remember the biggest disagreement I've ever had was on the evil dwarf fighter from BG1. Dammit! Can't remember his name now!

Kagain? I say it as it is written.

Really? For me it's the other way around. What is your native language?</font>[/QUOTE]Croatian ;) .

I know where Wales is, but I understood that the word has meaning in Welsh, not only similar structure.

Kagain? I say it as it is written.</font>[/QUOTE]Yes! Thats the chap - but is that pronounced Kay-gun (i.e. with the first syllable long and the second one short) or Ka-gane (i.e. the other way round). Anyone?