I pronounce em as I see em

Dark-Seed

Rah's All Ghoul

Another good reason to give the pronounciation used in "Batman: The Animated Series" (Ie. "Raysh Al Gool") credit as being the correct one would be the episodes "The Demon's Quest" part one and two, these episodes are an adaption of the very first story that the Demon's Head appeared in, and are, just like the original, written by O'neil himself. You'd think he'd know how he'd like the name pronounced, no?

Batman Begins, unfortunately, got it wrong, that's about the only thing that annoyed me about that otherwise brilliant movie (well that and the absence of Harvey Dent, poor Dent, got cut just because he couldn't be Bruce's love interest...).

Regards
Melkhor, oh and the lack of the "z" sound in ancient arabic is pretty damning evidence as well:)

Actually, this was asked at Wizard World Philly at the DC Panel. The answer corroborated the pronounciation in the Batman Begins movie and noted the Animated Series got it wrong. It wasn't the writer, but the director who mispronounced it. Denny O'Neil was cited as the source of the pronounciation by the person who answered.

There's a good comics related podcast called "Comic Geek Speak" where this tale was related.

How about we ask the UDE guys to verify the pronounciation and post it here sometime. Hopefully that'll settle the argument.

Personally, I've been pronouncing it properly all the time, even when wierdoes who'd watched too many cartoons pronounced it all wrong ;-)

My arab friend who obviously speaks arabic confirms that in arabic you say raysh which means head.

docx with the SAVE! :) Who cares if it's not correct Arabic, it just SOUNDS BETTER!

that is so lame, I edited my post...not double....friggin' eh.

meh, I totally prefer the Arabic pronunciation. Sounds way more natural to me as i dont have a natural lisp.

Race Al Goul babay, yeah

*shudder*

Hm, interesting. According to my source, Kurt Busiek (http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/t...eID=2000859406)
Denny pronounces it in the proper Arab fashion (Ie. Raysh etc. etc.), but I for one would be more than happy to have UDE provide an official answer for us to settle this conundrum.

Regards
Melkhor, who'll most likely keep pronouncing it "Raysh" no matter what though, you know how it is with old dogs and new tricks...

Upper Deck has no real say on pronunciation.

Neither does Denny, really.

Pronunciation depends entirely on the language used, though creators are often liberal in their use of it.


In terms of asthetics, I can't believe anyone prefers a "z" sounds over a "sh" sound. "Z" is a harsh letter, and rarely sounds good. "Raz" in my opinion sounds terrible, like a lame heavy metal guitarist.

EXACTLY

I pronounce it wrong and I know I do. I just choose not to fix the problem.

I'll take Denny O'Neill and Kurt Busiak's word over unamed con panelist and Hollywood dip####s' any day. I'd be surprised if either of the latter could even spell Ra's Al Ghul.

Not to mention that I consider the animated series a more reliable source than a Warner Brothers film. I mean, come on! They greenlighted all of those sequels to Burton's Batman and that joke of a Catwoman movie. You expect me to trust their judgement!?!

This is a healthy opinion.

For example, I've been pronouncing Ra's as "Raz" and "al Ghul" as "Berry".

Hee... Larry... YES!

wait , isn't Ra's al Ghul pronounced Rice All Cool ?
;)