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Pronunciation

mulierrex

Scribe
As I continue to create names for my world, I'm beginning to wonder if my names are really as pronounceable as they seem to me... So essentially this thread is to ask people if they would know how to pronounce the following long list of words:

-Syoma
-Vetja
-Tølv
-Ardite
-Kova
-Lymera
-Pynera
-Tymes
-Ostus
-Aphine
-Astaria(n)
-Astan
-Solertia
-Tesria
-Hovæ
-Crasæ
-Vær
-Bræn
-Eswala
-Sendallyn

There'll be tons more later on, but those are some I've been wondering about... Also, it's given if one knows how to pronounce the special letters.
 

ascanius

Inkling
They are perfectly pronounceable, though don't know what the o with the line through it is. I'm curious, did you start with a conlang or just make up words?
 

mulierrex

Scribe
I must admit I just made them all up (all of them are names though). I was having difficulty coming up with an actual language so I decided to just make the words sound similar enough (i.e. same sounds and references to a real life language, in this case Norwegian) to seem like I did. Also, the ø is like "uh".
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Here is my attempt at telling you how I would pronounce some of the slightly tricky names


-Syoma See-yo-ma
-Tølv Tulf
-Ardite Ard-ait
-Lymera Lee-Mey-Ra
-Pynera Pee-Ney-Ra
-Tymes Times
-Aphine Ah-feen
-Astan Ast-en
-Hovæ Hove-Aye
-Crasæ Cras-Aye
-Vær V-Air
-Bræn Brain
 

mulierrex

Scribe
The æ is actually an "ehh" sound.

But for the others it's:

Ty-mees
Pie-nee-rah
Lie-meer-ah
Ar-dyt
Tulv
Sy-oh-mah

(Y being a hard I) Close enough though; thanks! I guess also they would be pronounced differently even in my story, depending on accents or whatnot.
 

Queshire

Auror
They're readable and simple enough to recognize on sight which is the important thing, however for someone only familiar with English trying to pronounce the names would trip them up.
 
As I continue to create names for my world, I'm beginning to wonder if my names are really as pronounceable as they seem to me... So essentially this thread is to ask people if they would know how to pronounce the following long list of words:

-Syoma
-Vetja
-Tølv
-Ardite
-Kova
-Lymera
-Pynera
-Tymes
-Ostus
-Aphine
-Astaria(n)
-Astan
-Solertia
-Tesria
-Hovæ
-Crasæ
-Vær
-Bræn
-Eswala
-Sendallyn

There'll be tons more later on, but those are some I've been wondering about... Also, it's given if one knows how to pronounce the special letters.

It's a little daunting, honestly...yours would probably end up being one of the books where i make a sound like "ufljksgjj" in my head for all the things I don't know how to pronounce. (We all know what i mean, right?) The special letters/characters are the main thing. I don't know how to pronounce them myself; i don't know if many of your readers will. Almost all of these could be pronounced more than one way, but you can't control how your readers think your names are pronounced. Anyways, the short answer to your question is "no, not really."

Like: Syoma's not bad, but how is that J pronounced in Vetja? I want to say it like in Spanish, Vet-ha. No idea what the o-with-a-line-through-it is. Ardite--Ard-ite? Like calcite or tanzanite or any mineral? Kova- not really a way you can get it wrong. Lymera--Would probably go with LIM-er-a, but i can see Ly-MAIR-a, Ly-MIR-a just as easily. Pynera--Py-NAIR-a, but i would expect Lymera and Pynera to be pronounced the same, so one might change how i see the other. Tymes--Could be 'times', "TY-mees", or "TY-mes." Ostus--AHS-tus. Like that. Aphine-- Want to go with A-feen, but i probably have it completely wrong. Astarian--As-TAR-ian but any of the vowels could go any way. Astan sounds like 'ass tan' to me. Maybe rethink? Solertia--so-LER-shi-a. Tesria- TES-ree-a. Not really sure about any of the 'ae' ones. Eswala--es-WALL-a. Sendallyn--basically the same as Gwendolyn but with sen rather than gwen.

So, yeah, some of them are a little tough.
 

mulierrex

Scribe
Yeah, I know what you mean... But I really like the names. This is a hard topic for me, to be honest. I know that I can pronounce them, and so can the people I've been talking to about this for months, but I really can't deny that most people wouldn't be able to... Then again, I'm reading Throne of Glass currently, and the names are, uh, out there. I just made them up in my head before I found a pronunciation guide in the back. But I still like the book.

So... pronunciation guides aren't taboo, are they? I mean, there's a ton of real words I had no idea how to pronounce. Anyway though, I'll look them over and see if I can't make them a bit simpler before I automatically decide that I'm going to need a pronunciation guide.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Don't worry about it. No matter what you think, your readers are going to pronounce them six ways to Sunday. Anyone who has watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure can tell you that. So can any history teacher. As long as your names are not infested with non-alphabetic characters, or strings of consonants, it simply isn't going to matter.

With one exception. If you go to audio book, please provide your reader with sound files so s/he gets the names right.
 

Russ

Istar
Those names all look easy enough to pronounce to me.

I would think long and hard before I put a pronunciation guide, especially in a debut novel. I want a book to be entertaining and fun, a pronunciation guide sounds like work or homework to me.
 
Sometimes I've enjoyed pronunciation guides when they signal a cultural element. But even with those guides, I've found I usually pronounce the names however I want to pronounce them throughout a book. I've even felt irritated later when I've heard the author pronounce a favorite character's name differently than I imagined it.

As long as readers can find a quick and simple pronunciation of their own, there should be no problem. Skip gives a good piece of advice I'd not considered, involving having an audio book. I suppose that also if you are going to include poetry in your book and plan to rhyme some name, having a clear pronunciation guide earlier would be a good idea—surely an oddball case.

Sometimes I find authors giving an early clue. I'm reading a novel right now that has a character named "Daorah," and there's a meeting between her and another in which the other says, "Day—" before being cut off, so I know it's not pronounced "dowruh" or whatever. That helps, occasionally. As long as these occur fairly early, I won't find myself stumbling later. (But again, if I've already read half a book with my own pronunciation for a character's name, I might stumble later to learn it's different but will continue reading the rest of the book with my original pronunciation.)
 
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Geo

Troubadour
I suppose that part of the pronunciation difficulty would depend in which of the many sounds you have chosen for your Scandinavian vowels... what I mean is, are you going to pronounce ø as in Danish, as in Faroese, as in Swedish?

It may sound silly but there is a huge difference in how ø, æ, and many other letters sound depending of which language you are taking as base for your names... Furthermore, something as easy as " D " is quite different in Danish (where it is pronounced as a soft " L " ), which only gets more complicated when you look at diphthongs and other letter combinations... so I would not feel confident even attempting to pronunciate some of those names without knowing your influences (which I supposed must get clear out as reading the story).

And I agree a pronunciation guide would be useful
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Geo is dead right.

I once had a pronunciation guide posted as part of my history courses (I teach history online). I had what I thought was a simple enough question: how to pronounce Peter Breughel. On the medievalist discussion list to which I belong, there is a Dutch member who write a lengthy (and kind) reply. He even send me sound files.

Turns out there's a baker's dozen ways to pronounce that name, and multiple ways to spell it. That leaves aside accents, such as how a Spaniard or a Pakistani might pronounce the name. Moreover, there have been phonetic shifts in the intervening centuries, so even if you went to Breughel's home town you might not be hearing it the "right" way.

At that point, I gave up on the pronunciation guide.
 

SeverinR

Vala
I had a person that offered to read my work.
She said she had a hard time pronouncing my character names.
I thought maybe a one time pronunciation guide right after, such as:

"Sindari (Sin-dah-ree) said..."
But in later works, I just let the reader just figure it out.
Don't know which is better.
I wouldn't do it every time the name came up though.
 

mulierrex

Scribe
I think just letting the readers pronounce it however they see fit is a fine idea. After all, even if I made it obvious how it was supposed to be pronounced, someone would butcher it anyway. I think I'll leave them how they are and just continue to do what I'm doing, at least until someone goes, "hey, we're not publishing you with words like this!".

But yeah jokes aside I'm not gonna make any decisions yet, especially in regards to any sort of pronunciation guide, which I now don't like the sound of.
 
I think just letting the readers pronounce it however they see fit is a fine idea. After all, even if I made it obvious how it was supposed to be pronounced, someone would butcher it anyway. I think I'll leave them how they are and just continue to do what I'm doing, at least until someone goes, "hey, we're not publishing you with words like this!".

But yeah jokes aside I'm not gonna make any decisions yet, especially in regards to any sort of pronunciation guide, which I now don't like the sound of.

If it comforts you, books with far more unpronounceable names get published on a daily basis.

Words with only one potential pronunciation are kind of rare, now that I think about it, so I would say don't worry. My main concern is the weird letters. I don't recognize them or know how they are pronounced, and I don't know if your average reader would.
 

SeverinR

Vala
As far as names go, when I read, if the name is to long or hard to pronounce they are from there on known as the character by the first letter.
"Findazzlefritter stepped up to the bar.
F orders a beer and a round for the house."
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Then again, Rumpelstilskin. :)

Then another 'gain, a word like Wirtschaftsgeschichte is perfectly ordinary and easy to pronounce ... if you're German. So there's not even a good guide to distinguishing between easy-to-pronounce and anything in French. ;-)
 
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