Yes. Non-Jews can’t have Jewish names.
Thanks for reminding me just how creepy Ras was in this series. shudders
If he isn’t Jewish then he doesn’t pronounce it the Jewish way, especially a guy born 700 years ago. Old time rulers and societal codes did not let ethnicities mix, Jewish people above all.
Non-Jews having Jewish names is actually a pretty recent thing, looking at the length of time Jews have been around, and virtually all instances of Jews marrying non-Jews were Ashkenazi, who lived outside the general region Ra’s was born in.
History, yo.
I’m going to need to see citation on that motherfucker because it sounds like you pulled this out of your brown eye.
On what? The fact that ethnicities weren’t allowed to mix? Ashkenazi developed Haskalah, which was the Jewish movement that sought to integrate Jews into European society starting about 250 years ago. It was part of the larger liberty movement forming in Europe at the time. This would include basic rights like not being forced to only live with other Jews in places like ghettos (literal ghettos, as in the thing that Jews were forced into). Napoleon was pretty famous for entering Venice and declaring its ghetto abolished. It would also allow a more secular approach to whether people of two different religions could marry through conversion, the very sticky question of “who is a Jew”. This was followed by a time when Ashkenazi tried to integrate with various European societies.
Before the Napoleonic wars, large populations of people weren’t allowed to move in Europe or Asia. Governments didn’t like the idea, they saw it as destabilizing, and it usually was. Even urbanization into major cities like Paris was scary and was therefore managed.
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Haskalah
None of this was happening outside of Europe, there weren’t secular governments in the middle east at the time (for the most part there isn’t today), there wasn’t even nationalism yet (and again lots of the middle east doesn’t have that today, either). Cultural and ethnic identity was chiefly done through religion, which meant Jews were on their own, socially. Rights granted to Jews were on the whim of a state’s leaders.
Before Haskalah and reform movements, Jews would also suppress mixing, creating second class citizens based on “one drop” rules that instantly disqualified someone of being a full Jew.
All of this…just to debate how to pronounce Ra’s… Almost makes you miss shipping.
I’m in the “who gives a fuck” way? What matters isn’t how you say his name. It’s the fact that when it’s spoken at all, someone’s getting fucked up.
What the hell is the right way?
There is no right way. It’s entirely up for debate. DC refuses to take a side, there is no canon.
The original creator of the character said the Jewish pronunciation, but that’s just because that was the only pronunciation of the name that he was aware of, and that doesn’t fit an Arabic character.
“Raysh”.
Pretty sure the Arkham series uses “Raysh”, as did Young Justice.
This is what happens when English actors try to pronounce foreign names.
Sorry Rock, I have to side with creator’s fiat here.
No, I was just running through the list of things about Roy that they could bring into the CWverse.
We’ve already done the drugs with Mirakuru; we’ve seen Ollie keep him on, instead of kicking him out; he’s probably too young for them to do Cheshire + Lian; we don’t have Titans or Outsiders, so…there’s not much else.
It has nothing to do with the actors. These pronounciations are deliberately chosen by the writers.
It’s not a z sound. It’s Ra, a distinct end of the a, and then s. “Ras” is not the correct pronunciation, you explictly have to stop saying Ra, head into the s, without producing a new syllable. Hence the ’ denoting the break.
Ra’s.
EDIT: or at least that’s the most common Arabic pronunciation. In North Africa is “Rohs”. Yes, with an o.
Just call him Al Ghul. At least that’s pronounced with consistency.
And now Rock’s going to show up saying that we aren’t breathing the a’s.
Well if anyone was worried about Laurel becoming a badass too soon, your fears have gone away. She fucking sucks as she should for being so raw. Roy has it hard enough going solo without having to drag around 100 pounds of dead weight.
One of the many reasons why Emily Bett Rickards is hott.
Huh…Maseo ended up using the DCAU pronunciation of Ra’s there. Which means the debate starts again…hurray…