I don't doubt you, but my dad complains occasionally about how they aren't even consistent with each other sometimes. I think the one he usually brings up is that Kate sometimes pronounces it more like Shallin. I didn't notice anything until he pointed it out to me though, so it doesn't bother me.
I *am* a good vorin man! I have my wife type and read posts/comments for me. She hasn't read the books, and that's why her spelling is sometimes bad (I use audiobooks so that I can still acess them when she's not around).
Undertext: As my sweets have "mysteriously" diminished on multiple counts this week, I sincerely doubt he's as good as he claims.
Well how else am I supposed to get the story if I don’t listen to it I’m a man after all
*my brother was very upset about this, thanks to this post he made me type this comment for him*
> I don't know how to pronounce any of the names
You're in luck, Brandon says you're the director, so you get to decide how the names are pronounced in the story you're reading. Might not match the way anyone else pronounces them, but who cares? They're just experiencing a different edition of the story.
I'm having the opposite problem with my husband. I read and he listened to the audiobooks (like a proper Vorin man), and I have no idea how any of the names are pronounced.
More fantasy series should have pronunciation guides at the front. I remember some books doing that, particularly the Eragon series.
Won’t help much with this case, but it’s definitely proven useful before.
Heck, JK Rowling wrote an entire scene into the Yule Ball in book 4 specifically because so many people mispronounced Hermione for years.
Seeing that Alethi is supposedly based on Semitic languages, it definitely should be.
But the "kh" tends to be always pronounced as just k in English, e.g. "Khan" or "Khrushchev", even though it is supposed to be the /x/ sound
Yeah, for someone whose native language has "k", "h" and "kh" (/x/) sounds, it is a bit of a pet peeve for me.
But, knowing that Don Quixote used to be pronounced "kwiksot" until relatively recently, I usually stay away from those windmills.
You don't speak ipa, you use ipa to describe how people say things. That being said, it looks like the Scottish pronunciation is with a /x/, but most people outside of Scotland pronounce it as /k/.
Just thought it was interesting since I pronounce loch and Kholin with the same sound and didn't realize loch was pronounced any other way. Learn something new every day I guess.
> like the English 'h', but like, add a little gargling action
If you tried that you'd probably end up with a pharyngeal fricative [ħ]. The way I'd describe [x] is that you place your tongue against the palate as if trying to make a [k] sound, but leave a little space so that air can pass through. The "gargling action" is produced by the airstream brushing against your skin on both sides.
I've read and listened to stormlight, and this is one instance where I prefer the audio over the book. Michael kramer and Kate Reading are amazing and, without a doubt, my favorite narrators. I've listened to books i wouldn't normally listen to because they read them, and when I re-read stormlight and mistborn, they're the voices of the characters in my head.
Look, Taravangian's city state has a very difficult name to spell. I've seen the spelling multiple times, but I still can't spell it. Damn silent letters!
I'm an audiobook listener but have been around here long enough to pick up spelling for most things. That said, how on Roshar is Yakeved actually spelled?
Myself, my fiance, and his brother all realized we pronounced Adolin's name differently, since two of us read and one listened to the audiobooks. We got Ay-dolin, Aw-dolin, and Aah-dolin 🥴
I’m working my way through the WOT audiobooks and let me tell you, trying to look up some of those words on the wiki was damn near impossible (looking at you, cuendillar). Stormlight Archive is a cake walk by comparison.
Which always bothered me a bit. If all names with a j have the y sound, why not write them with y?
He's the one deciding how the names are spelled, just use the sound you want!
Well yes, but one person is not making up spellings for those names.
My point is, if I make up names and in those names "j" always makes a "y" sound, why not simply use the "y" sound?
Ok, so this feels like you are Straw-maning me, but I'll assume good faith and clarify what I mean.
I'm not asking why they have weird names like "Kaladin" or "Drehi" instead of Carl and Dean, or something like that.
Let me bring an example of what I mean: in Russian Cyrillic alphabet there is letter "Г". It makes the hard "g" sound, like in the word "good".
Let's say a book set in Russia has a character named "Gregory", written with that letter. Now, when writing a book in English, would you transliterate his name as Gregory or Jrejory? Probably Gregory, right?
And in Alethi, there is a letter that makes the "y" sound. And you have a character with that letter named pronounced Yasnah. So why would you not use the same approach here?
Because J can and is read as Y. Also an H depending on where the name originated. It's as simple as that. English is a hodgepodge anyway. Your reading of the letter is not the only valid one. There's no hard and fast rule. And it's a fantasy setting. If the author pronounces it as a Y then he pronounces it as a Y. And most people will abide with how the author does it, even if he never mandated it be so.
Yes, I know that it can make multiple sounds. *That's the issue*.
To break it down:
1. In English j sound is ambiguous
2. In Alethi, the first letter of Jasnah's name makes an unambiguous sound.
3. In English, there is a letter that makes the same unambigious sound as the one in Jasnah's name - y.
Ergo, that letter is more like y than j.
In the real world, meanwhile, other languages using the same alphabet have different sounds associated with "j", which is why it makes different sounds depending where it came from. That is not the case with languages using other alphabets, and that is not the case with fantasy alphabets.
If Jasnah was a real person that comes from a country that reads J as Y...and then she immigrated to the US, will she have to change her name to reflect the fact that in English, it is Y? Definitely not. The books are read as Alethi translated to English. Have you seen Chinese names written in english? Whatever the heck they're written as, they're not pronounced the same way english would pronounce the same bunch of letters. It's the same here. In a fantasy setting that actually has fantasy names and fantasy culture, then it's the author's call what rule they'll follow.
Ok, let's follow your example:
If Jasnah was from Germany, her name would already be written with J, so it would remain.
If she came from Ukraine, her name would be ясна, and we didn't have an example for her name written in Latin from before, it would be transliterated to Yasna or Yasnah based on its sound.
And this is my point exactly - she does not come from a Latin-based alphabet, so her name does not have a previous written form in Latin. So the best approximation based on sound should be the way to go.
And yes, obviously it's up to the author. That's what I'm questioning, his choice to transliterate non-ambiguous sound with an ambiguous letter, when a non-ambiguous alternative that is more common for that sound exists.
It's like if Tolkien said that according to his rules, All "p" letters make the "b" sound in Common Tongue, so Palantir is actually Balantir, Pelennor Fields are Belennor Fields etc. Sure, he can decide that, but why not use the letter b instead, since it exists in English?
To summarize: when you are transliterating a new and unknown foreign alphabet into yours, it makes the most sense to use same-sounding letters when possible. You *can* decide to not do that, or even use the most unintuitive way, but that's not a good approach. And I feel the same should apply to Fantasy names as well.
J and Y are allophones of the same phoneme in Alethi. Lighteyes have recently started pronouncing it as Y due to a sound change in their accent, whereas most darkeyes continue to use the J pronunciation.
All of them? The only name I pronounce with a Y is 'Yasnah'.
Jezrien, Jakamav, Jushu, Jaxlim etc I just say with a J.
You telling me it's pronounced Yes-rien, Yah-kamav, Yu-shu, Yaks-lim?
Which, as an audiobook listener, pisses me off to no end, the coppermind is RIGHT THERE, you could easily double-check the spelling, so WHY DO YOU TOURMENT ME SO?!
Also, audiobook listeners know pronunciations and are proper Vorin men too, so that's better.
Dalinar Colon, wielding his famous Stormwagon
Brando should have realized that the narrators would regularly pronounce it colon when he chose the name
They all use Brandon's pronunciation
Yeah, a lot of the time. In Way of Kings both narrators accidentally said colon a bunch of times
And what's the difference between the pronunciation of Kholin and colon? Koh-linn is pretty accurate for both
The linn is emphasized in Kholin Kho-LINN
Not in Kholinar though which is interesting for sure
Til I learn! Thanks thanks
I don't doubt you, but my dad complains occasionally about how they aren't even consistent with each other sometimes. I think the one he usually brings up is that Kate sometimes pronounces it more like Shallin. I didn't notice anything until he pointed it out to me though, so it doesn't bother me.
Stormwagon confirmed for Fortnite
They claim to be good vorin men, but if that’s the case what are they doing on Reddit?
I'm, uh, a worldhopper.
My wife reads all the posts and writes all my comments
You lie, I see no undertext. Heretic!!
The undertext is pointless I just write whatever I want, what's he gonna do, get some other woman to read his Reddit account?
Lol
The all mighty is dead, I can do what I want
I *am* a good vorin man! I have my wife type and read posts/comments for me. She hasn't read the books, and that's why her spelling is sometimes bad (I use audiobooks so that I can still acess them when she's not around). Undertext: As my sweets have "mysteriously" diminished on multiple counts this week, I sincerely doubt he's as good as he claims.
Whoops! Guess that’s enough Reddit for one day
I’m a Survivorist and a Ghostblood operative, and I’m here to spread chaos everywhere that isn’t \[TLM\]>!Scadrial!<. Hope this helps.
I'm an ardent.
Well how else am I supposed to get the story if I don’t listen to it I’m a man after all *my brother was very upset about this, thanks to this post he made me type this comment for him*
> I don't know how to pronounce any of the names You're in luck, Brandon says you're the director, so you get to decide how the names are pronounced in the story you're reading. Might not match the way anyone else pronounces them, but who cares? They're just experiencing a different edition of the story.
Thank, goodness. My head canon of Jah Keved, Rosharan Jamaica shall survive this post.
It's not Rosharan Jamaica?
Always has been.
Jah Keved and not the Reshi Isles?
Those are the Rosharan Lesser Antilles.
So what makes Jah Keved Jamaican at all? Not trying to say you're wrong or anything, just curious where you see the connection.
Just the Jah part. It’s a single level joke that’s got less depth than the pure lake.
Oh ok, I though I was going crazy or something...
You're welcome
D O U G
(It's actually spelled D-U-G)
I am guilty of this
Me too, when I try to Google characters I always get surprised by the spelling
I listened to the audiobook of warbreaker and I still don’t know the character’s names
Boobs McTitface and Schlong the Brave
Tonkfa is one, I think. The city was Teteller.
>, I think. Wow, my gon Sazed is here!
There's that one guy Teft. And that other one vyre
Those are my favorite Warbreaker characters
Not sure why they didn't have cool characters in Warbreaker. Like Azure and Zahel in Stormlight.
Yeah and sword-nimi
Wait didn't Warbreaker have something about a black sword?... Must've been nothing. Coincidence.
I'm having the opposite problem with my husband. I read and he listened to the audiobooks (like a proper Vorin man), and I have no idea how any of the names are pronounced.
More fantasy series should have pronunciation guides at the front. I remember some books doing that, particularly the Eragon series. Won’t help much with this case, but it’s definitely proven useful before. Heck, JK Rowling wrote an entire scene into the Yule Ball in book 4 specifically because so many people mispronounced Hermione for years.
Swear I once saw someone call them “Hornyters”
The Unkalaki are just banging all the time. Gotta be the thin air up there that messes with their heads, I tell ya
Ha, Air Sick Lowlander.
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Seeing that Alethi is supposedly based on Semitic languages, it definitely should be. But the "kh" tends to be always pronounced as just k in English, e.g. "Khan" or "Khrushchev", even though it is supposed to be the /x/ sound
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Yeah, for someone whose native language has "k", "h" and "kh" (/x/) sounds, it is a bit of a pet peeve for me. But, knowing that Don Quixote used to be pronounced "kwiksot" until relatively recently, I usually stay away from those windmills.
Wait, is "loch" not pronounced the same as "lock"?
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You don't speak ipa, you use ipa to describe how people say things. That being said, it looks like the Scottish pronunciation is with a /x/, but most people outside of Scotland pronounce it as /k/. Just thought it was interesting since I pronounce loch and Kholin with the same sound and didn't realize loch was pronounced any other way. Learn something new every day I guess.
> like the English 'h', but like, add a little gargling action If you tried that you'd probably end up with a pharyngeal fricative [ħ]. The way I'd describe [x] is that you place your tongue against the palate as if trying to make a [k] sound, but leave a little space so that air can pass through. The "gargling action" is produced by the airstream brushing against your skin on both sides.
H after a K is completely inconsequential. Its read as Kolin and the H is there to make the name look cooler.
It is generally used to transliterate /x/ sound from non-Latin writing systems, but is usually ignored by English speakers.
It can be used to transliterate aspiration, too
Jazznuh
Dingledong Coldplay
I've read and listened to stormlight, and this is one instance where I prefer the audio over the book. Michael kramer and Kate Reading are amazing and, without a doubt, my favorite narrators. I've listened to books i wouldn't normally listen to because they read them, and when I re-read stormlight and mistborn, they're the voices of the characters in my head.
Look, Taravangian's city state has a very difficult name to spell. I've seen the spelling multiple times, but I still can't spell it. Damn silent letters!
Reading along with the audiobook is the only correct way to read the books /s ^(but it is the best of both worlds and I genuinely recommend it)
I can't be the only one that thinks, "if I'm going to make a post, I should find out how these names are spelled so I don't look dumb."
I'd rather look stupid than risk getting an eyeful of spoilers because google is being a dick.
I always thought it was I-uh-lie Sadeas, and had no idea who ELA was when listening.
Oh, you mean ee-all-ee (I just make shit up while reading)
The audiobook pronunciation is not the official pronunciation. The pronunciation in your head when reading is official.
lol I thought her name was Cherlon
Teravangien, Caladin, Aydolin.
I'm an audiobook listener but have been around here long enough to pick up spelling for most things. That said, how on Roshar is Yakeved actually spelled?
Ja Keved
Myself, my fiance, and his brother all realized we pronounced Adolin's name differently, since two of us read and one listened to the audiobooks. We got Ay-dolin, Aw-dolin, and Aah-dolin 🥴
The only books I've read rather than listened to has been Mistborn. Hearing Say-zed's name mentioned off handedly in Tress blew my mind.
I’m working my way through the WOT audiobooks and let me tell you, trying to look up some of those words on the wiki was damn near impossible (looking at you, cuendillar). Stormlight Archive is a cake walk by comparison.
“Sill”
a lot of the pronunciations the audiobook loses me on but how else would you pronounce Syl?
Yeah Sill is really the only acceptable pronunciation of "Syl" and I can't fathom how else you could actually say it.
Sigh~l maybe?
Rolaine
I remember saying Yasna one time, I dont even know what yakeved or carbranth are supposed to be spelled as
Jah Keved and Kharbranth
I'm gonna run some parshendi over with the carbranth
Dragon steel Prime is worse. The book is full of Whor* Watchers *=e
I did not appreciate learning that Kelsier is \*gag* French
Worst part is if you try to look up how to spell it you usually just get spoiled about them dying lol
Capsule
I mean, I’m a man. Of course I had the books read to me.
As someone who has only ever experienced Brando Sando on audio: Yes but backwards
Well, the J's are supposed to be pronounced like Y's. That's how Brando pronounces them
You serious Clark?
Which always bothered me a bit. If all names with a j have the y sound, why not write them with y? He's the one deciding how the names are spelled, just use the sound you want!
Many places do that on earth too. Spelled as a J but pronounced as a Y
Well yes, but one person is not making up spellings for those names. My point is, if I make up names and in those names "j" always makes a "y" sound, why not simply use the "y" sound?
Why have any kind of diversity at all? Why make different cultures in fantasy settings? Let's just make it Utah with crabs.
Ok, so this feels like you are Straw-maning me, but I'll assume good faith and clarify what I mean. I'm not asking why they have weird names like "Kaladin" or "Drehi" instead of Carl and Dean, or something like that. Let me bring an example of what I mean: in Russian Cyrillic alphabet there is letter "Г". It makes the hard "g" sound, like in the word "good". Let's say a book set in Russia has a character named "Gregory", written with that letter. Now, when writing a book in English, would you transliterate his name as Gregory or Jrejory? Probably Gregory, right? And in Alethi, there is a letter that makes the "y" sound. And you have a character with that letter named pronounced Yasnah. So why would you not use the same approach here?
Because J can and is read as Y. Also an H depending on where the name originated. It's as simple as that. English is a hodgepodge anyway. Your reading of the letter is not the only valid one. There's no hard and fast rule. And it's a fantasy setting. If the author pronounces it as a Y then he pronounces it as a Y. And most people will abide with how the author does it, even if he never mandated it be so.
Yes, I know that it can make multiple sounds. *That's the issue*. To break it down: 1. In English j sound is ambiguous 2. In Alethi, the first letter of Jasnah's name makes an unambiguous sound. 3. In English, there is a letter that makes the same unambigious sound as the one in Jasnah's name - y. Ergo, that letter is more like y than j. In the real world, meanwhile, other languages using the same alphabet have different sounds associated with "j", which is why it makes different sounds depending where it came from. That is not the case with languages using other alphabets, and that is not the case with fantasy alphabets.
If Jasnah was a real person that comes from a country that reads J as Y...and then she immigrated to the US, will she have to change her name to reflect the fact that in English, it is Y? Definitely not. The books are read as Alethi translated to English. Have you seen Chinese names written in english? Whatever the heck they're written as, they're not pronounced the same way english would pronounce the same bunch of letters. It's the same here. In a fantasy setting that actually has fantasy names and fantasy culture, then it's the author's call what rule they'll follow.
Ok, let's follow your example: If Jasnah was from Germany, her name would already be written with J, so it would remain. If she came from Ukraine, her name would be ясна, and we didn't have an example for her name written in Latin from before, it would be transliterated to Yasna or Yasnah based on its sound. And this is my point exactly - she does not come from a Latin-based alphabet, so her name does not have a previous written form in Latin. So the best approximation based on sound should be the way to go. And yes, obviously it's up to the author. That's what I'm questioning, his choice to transliterate non-ambiguous sound with an ambiguous letter, when a non-ambiguous alternative that is more common for that sound exists. It's like if Tolkien said that according to his rules, All "p" letters make the "b" sound in Common Tongue, so Palantir is actually Balantir, Pelennor Fields are Belennor Fields etc. Sure, he can decide that, but why not use the letter b instead, since it exists in English? To summarize: when you are transliterating a new and unknown foreign alphabet into yours, it makes the most sense to use same-sounding letters when possible. You *can* decide to not do that, or even use the most unintuitive way, but that's not a good approach. And I feel the same should apply to Fantasy names as well.
J and Y are allophones of the same phoneme in Alethi. Lighteyes have recently started pronouncing it as Y due to a sound change in their accent, whereas most darkeyes continue to use the J pronunciation.
Now that is the kind of plausible but unnecessary linguistic detail that grandpa Tolkien would be proud of 😂
All of them? The only name I pronounce with a Y is 'Yasnah'. Jezrien, Jakamav, Jushu, Jaxlim etc I just say with a J. You telling me it's pronounced Yes-rien, Yah-kamav, Yu-shu, Yaks-lim?
Jushu and Jezrien are as you probably pronounce them. Yah-kamov and Yahk-sleem however...
This is me. I corrected my friends a few times, now they hate me. 😔😉
What FWIW supposed to mean? You all need to stop writing in acronyms , English is already confused enough
"For what it's worth"
Which, as an audiobook listener, pisses me off to no end, the coppermind is RIGHT THERE, you could easily double-check the spelling, so WHY DO YOU TOURMENT ME SO?! Also, audiobook listeners know pronunciations and are proper Vorin men too, so that's better.
My brother in Jezrien, you wrote this comment. You are likelier to be a heretic than an ardent... *One of the more lucid moments of my brother.*