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[Jeoshua]

The Dwarven language is actually quite nice, I think.  As is the Elven one.  They're fantasy races with fantasy languages.  Elven could stand to be a bit more euphonic, but it's nice.

But the Human language? Ugh gag me.

Also...

We farm and kill mermaid children. Its too late to worry about political correctness.

No, YOU farm and kill mermaid children.  Most everyone else realizes it's not worth the money anymore.

[Interus]

Humans can speak Latin and elves can have Celtic.  Or switch that around so I don't have to like elves even more than humans.

As for the Arabic language, I'd say go with whatever is most phonetically correct rather than what looks best, though they're both rather subjective.  People are going to mispronounce it either way.  Besides, to somebody who doesn't speak the language at all, it's hard to tell if one word looks weirder than another.  At least that's my opinion.  Of course, I might change my mind if I saw a side-by-side comparison of two spellings.

[Wavecutter]

How about we let the guy do what HE likes?

[Jeoshua]

It's called a suggestion.

And I think a good one.  What is really the difference other than the name?  To see a race called "Sand Devil" that supposedly speaks an Arabic language, yet not be called "Djinn" which is the Arabic word for basically that very concept, would be rather jarring to me and I assume others.

It's not a cry for political correctness either.  Djinn are not to be trusted.  They are evil creatures spoken of in stories and even in the Quran as beings of "smokless fire" that are "tricksters" and "devils".  It's a suggestion for linguistic correctness, only.

[Befenismor]

How about french for elves? then we can hate them even more!

[Patchouli]

Bad idea in an international forum.

[Jeremy]

Before jumping on RayesKotrora, let's actually read their post.

I am not very good at determining what looks best to someone who doesn't speak Arabic themselves (as I am biased towards the better phonetic spelling).

and

if there are any non-Arabic speakers that would like to help me

It is quite obvious from the post that RayesKotrora is a native speaker of Arabic. In other words, RayesKotrora most likely belongs to the group of people you are accusing them of defaming.

Which is not to say that members of an oppressed/hated are infallible when it comes to these things but 1) given what we currently know, we should extend the benefit of the doubt, and 2) it is not really the place of those outside of an oppressed group to criticize members of that oppressed group in cases like this.

[Patchouli]

I was talking about the french joke.

It's not really terrible, but tact really doesn't hurt. I might be making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Jeoshua]

... I still think Djinn would be the perfect name for this race.

[Sutremaine]

The thing is, writing a perfectly accurate phonetic translation of Arabic script to Roman looks kind of strange in English, and I am not very good at determining what looks best to someone who doesn't speak Arabic themselves.

Can you post a small sample of the phonetic spellings that you prefer? They might work out for non-native speakers without any further work.

[Reelyanoob]

Let me know if my recent work with languages can be of any help.

[RayesKotrora]

In response to the name of Sand-Devil, I direct you to this page.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Sand_Devil_%283.5e_Creature%29

I was considering making a djinn, but I really wanted a group of demon/djinn (not quite demons, thus devil) composed of sand (somewhat glitched in the current system, so merely making them the consistency of sand with sand blood) so I am basing them off of D&D. I am not making them the pure murderous evil being like in D&D, but more organised with their own language (thus Arabic, which makes sense and I speak). I could possibly make Djinn a neutral/neutral-good antagonist to the neutral-evil Sand Devils (Jinn are not always evil in folklore as some believe).

The problem with posting a perfect phonetic spelling of Arabic is that a lot of the words look strange to English speakers and do not flow well together if mashed together (like in DF).

I am not exactly which people said they would like to help me, so if so send me a PM and we can get in contact.

An example of word conflicts I have are:

First of all, I removed the word "Ace"

The next challenge is this letter, "ع" (increased size for readability), which there is no real way to pronounce in English, so it is usually spelled just as "a". Based on the context I have been giving it either "au", (rarely) "ai", and sometimes even "æ". (P.S. It can also be a glottal stop, represented by simply an apostrophe).

The second letter which poses a problem is "غ", which also has no real equivalent way to say it in English. It is spelled "gh" but it is pronounced kind of like "ghr", but like you can imagine that looks somewhat strange.

Another horizontal problem I am facing is how the letters flow. I have been adding "a"s at the end of most of the words so that they can flow better if mashed. This works because most words in Arabic, even if officially they end at a stop, sometimes in pronunciation have a sort of "ة" (another conflict letter. This connotates feminine most of the time, and is pronounced more like "eh", but is not usually written in the phonetics) or simply just some sort of vowel at the end.

[Jeoshua]

Most Semetic and Arabic languages have that problem with the glottal stop.  I think it's best rendered as an apostrophe, if it is pronounced, and simply ignored if it comes at the beginning of a word, like "apple".  It would be impossible to pronounce a starting vowel without that stop, and in western languages we merely take it for granted until it appears in the middle of a word.

As to the Uurthugon, I see now why you mentioned Sand Devils.  They are Devils... made of sand.  Good show, ol chap.

[Poltifar]

The next challenge is this letter, "ع" (increased size for readability), which there is no real way to pronounce in English, so it is usually spelled just as "a". Based on the context I have been giving it either "au", (rarely) "ai", and sometimes even "æ". (P.S. It can also be a glottal stop, represented by simply an apostrophe).

Wouldn't spelling it as "aa" be more appropriate? Like in "Baalbek"?

[RayesKotrora]

The next challenge is this letter, "ع" (increased size for readability), which there is no real way to pronounce in English, so it is usually spelled just as "a". Based on the context I have been giving it either "au", (rarely) "ai", and sometimes even "æ". (P.S. It can also be a glottal stop, represented by simply an apostrophe).

Wouldn't spelling it as "aa" be more appropriate? Like in "Baalbek"?

I usually reserve "aa" for when there is an alif in the middle of the word (such as shaari', "شارع", or muHaasiba, "محاسبة"). If it's in the middle it is usually an apostrophe (glottal stop) or a pronunciation like I have been trying to figure out how to spell (like "Baalbek", but that is a very westernised phonetic translation of it. It may be very subtle but it does not look right to me; but that is what we are doing this for, and you guys are giving good suggestions haha ).