Elden Ring’s Scadu Altus Pronunciation Shocks Fans

One of the main locations of the new Elden Ring Downloadable content Shadow of the Erdtree is Scadu Altus. However, it’s a safe bet that most people don’t pronounce the name of this place correctly. Here’s how it’s actually pronounced.

How is Scadu Altus pronounced?

If you see the word Scadu for the first time, there’s a good chance you’ll pronounce the word as “ska-doo.” To be fair, that’s a fair guess considering the spelling and the fantasy setting of Ancient Ringwhich features characters with names like Messmer, Miquella, and Thollier. However, that would be a bad way to pronounce it, as the word “scadu” is actually quite common, albeit from an ancient language.

The word “scadu” used in Ancient Ring has its roots in the Old English pronunciation of the word “shadow”. In Old English, what we now call “shadow” was written “sceadwe.” “Sceadwe” evolved into “shadwe” in the Middle Ages through associations with the word “shade”, eventually leading to the modern spelling of “shadow”. Certainly, there are different regional dialects on how “shadow” was originally spelled, with the Dutch writing it as “schaduw” and the Saxons writing it as “skado”, but the meaning and pronunciation are different. have not changed.

To say “scadu,” a person would simply say it the way we normally say shadow. In “scadu,” the “sc” creates a “sh” sound, similar to how “precious” or “vicious” have a “sh” sound, while the “du” sounds a lot like what we would say in the word “duty.” When you combine them, we get “Sh-A-Dowe,” aka how most English speakers would say “shadow.”

With that in mind, the correct way to pronounce “Scadu Altus” is “Shadow Altus.” The Old English origins make sense given the emphasis on medieval imagery and iconography that Ring of Elden fits its context. Just be glad it’s not entirely Old English with all its words, otherwise we’d be referring to yellow as “geoluhread”.

And this is how you correctly pronounce Scadu Altus in Ring of Elden.

Elden Ring and its DLC Shadow of the Erdtree are now available on PC, PlayStation and Xbox platforms.