This has been a long standing debate in the BIONICLE community since basically word go. I’ll try and break it down a little.
Lewa has at least four common pronunciations. LEE-Wah, LEH-wah, LEW-ah, and LAY-wah.
LEE-wah is the most common, and mostly among North American speakers. It’s my preferred way of saying it, along with Greg Farshtey’s. It’s also the way it is said in BIONICLE: Mask of Light and Generation 2.
LEH-wah is in a similar vein to saying LEH-go, and it’s fairly straight forward.
LEW-ah is also fairly straight forward, since the first three letters are LEW with an ah tacked on. It’s most common with folks outside North America.
LAY-wah is a manufacturing with no real sense to it. Greg Farshtey has said he wrote it that way in the guides because his Scandinavian co-workers would pronounce it in a way similar to “Leyva,” and that was the closest he could get. He wrote it that way figuring they’d want that and he needed the guides approved. But recall, Greg himself has said he says it “LEE-wah.”
So at the end of the day… It’s up to you how to say it. No one really cares at the end of it all (even if I joke about it), and Greg has even said that while he considers the movie pronunciation the correct one, you can say it however you see fit.
I’ve always said LAY-wa because of The Official Guide to BIONICLE from 2003. I never saw the movies growing up, so LAY-wa is just what got ingrained in my head. That being said, I don’t see a problem with any of the other pronunciations, as they each have their own logic to them. Just don’t try and tell me I’m wrong.
I did not expect such a simple bit of confusion to get so many posts.
why.
Next thing I know people are going to tell me that the canon pronunciation of Uxar is “You-xar” instead of the more obvious “Oo-xar”
This has been a debate easily since 2001. People say things wildly differently, it’s just how languages work. I know I pronounce names differently from time to time as well, even if they don’t exactly line up with canon 100% of the time.
My just straight-forward answer would be [le.wa]/(le-wa), though you could possibly get away with [lɛ.wa]/(leh-wa) or [leɪ.wa]/(lay-wa).
Okay, long story: English and other Germanic languages have the sound [ɛ] or “eh” in the language. This is unique to Germanic languages. However, most other languages have [e]. The sound [e] is in English, however, only in the diphthong [eɪ] or “ay”. Since Maori has only the [e] vowel, the only English alternatives are “leh-wa” and “lay-wa”.
Note: It is possible for English speakers to pronounce the [e] vowel. Just make the “ay”, yet cut short so you don’t finish it.
. I have never heard [lɛ.va] before.