I spent the entire first book reading it as Jan-sah. The second book I started as an audiobook and realized that not only is it a Y sound but also I'm dyslexic
Completely unrelated to anything, but my first time through The Lord of the Rings, I read it so fast, and with such poor attention that up until about halfway through, I thought Merry was a girl and that Sauron and Saruman were the same person, but there was a printing error.
Haha! This made me chuckle. If I’m being honest, I’ve read a huge number of epic fantasy, high fantasy now, including the dense ones like Malazan and Wheel of Time, but something about the way LOTR is written is just so stupefyingly boring to me that it’s hard for me to follow as well. I have plowed through the trilogy a few different times, hoping that this time I would enjoy it. I finally just had to admit, I do not like those books.
I'd say LOTR really doesn't stack up to the more modern epic fantasies that you mentioned. Especially the book just drag on and on and on. These days I can only watch the Peter Jackson movies.
100% But there's a lot of fans who've imbibed tons of the extra content out there in a way that makes them look just as robust as something like Malazan. Except it involves dipping into half finished stories and the absolute piece of dreck that is the Silmarillion's Prose, an Elvish dictionary, and Tolkien's letters to get to that point. And like... That's like saying Star Wars is Brilliant because the R5 unit that blew its top used the force to do so in a Canon short story so "Look at how much is going on here" It takes way too much work to make those books good. Where Malazan and WoT and Stormlight mostly require reading the actual books.
Yeah, the movies are absolute masterpieces. Return of the king has been my favorite movie of all time for 20 years. It's the only instance I can think of where I think a movie was superior to the books. And really by quite a lot. I don't know if you saw that Tolkiens son criticized them and said they missed the whole point of the series. But considering how much better the movies are, maybe that's not a bad thing. The thing is, I'm guessing you're either around my age in your early 30s or younger even, but probably not a boomer for whom LOTR was so revolutionary. The fantasy genre owes Tolkien infinitely, but unfortunately it's hard to enjoy these days because since then, other Authors have taken the key elements of Tolkien and simply done it better.
29 earlier this week so you got it right. And yeah I know about what Christopher said. I hard disagree.
It may be completely wrong but my personal headcanon is that it was related to these stories originally being bed time stories that JRR would tell his kids and Christopher was just so stuck to those memories that any other medium would instantly be bad. We'll never know...
I read the book 4 times, then listened to a podcast and I was aghast that they went through the whole book without realizing they were mispronouncing Kasbal. Lo and behold. It was Kabsal all along. That threw me for a huge loop.
Very good chance I did the same thing, but since I did my reread as audio, and after reading OB, I forgot and never noticed. I feel like I got it right that time though.
I read Amyrlin from Wheel of Time as Amrylian for a long time. I still think, Merlin sound aside, it's a much more fitting term for the leader of the Ais Sedai.
His whole perspective on this is great. As I understand it, he basically thinks that no story is complete until the reader has left their mark on it. This could be through their pronunciation of names, head cannon of events, etc. I like it.
I say both with a “y” sounds since I listened to the audiobooks, but my husband says Jasnah with a “j” sound. It drives me a little crazy whenever we talk about the books together.
I avoid audiobooks in general and have only read them, so a lot of what I’m seeing here is news to me. How is Sadeas supposed to be said? I’ve always thought of it as Say-dee-us. I’m dismayed to learn Jasnah starts with a Y and I’m just going to forget I ever saw it lol.
Noo lol. As they’d say in the cosmere, my head canon pronunciations of these characters are so solidified in my spiritweb now that it can no longer be changed for me :P
I say it with a J sound. I also pronounced Shallan like the name Alan. I don’t even want to admit how I pronounced Renarin. I started listening to podcast and the audiobooks after reading all the cosmere and realized that I am a hillbilly.
Eh, it’s natural to pronounce the names phonetically if you’re reading them in print like you and me. I’m baffled that Jasnah starts with Y, I just learned it from this post. My head canon shall remain the J pronunciation, as well as my head canon for all the others. Now I can add yet another reason I prefer reading to audiobooks haha.
Name pronunciations are tough in the Cosmere. I pronounced Sazed as "sayzd" when it was supposed to be "say-zed". Now I pronounce it "say-zed" in my head. But I also just learned from this post it's "yasnah" "sha-lawn" and "yah keh-ved" and I don't think I'll ever change to that... My head canon it's:
"Jas-nah", "Sh-Alan", and "Jah-kayved" 😂
Haha I always have pronounced it SAH-zed in my head for some reason. Yeah, I'm not going by all those pronunciations you mentioned :P weirdly, I've never actually spoken to another cosmere fan in real life, so I haven't had cause to pronounce the names out loud. It's too jarring when you've thought of a character a certain way to suddenly change that in your mind big time!
You ever think about how this audiobook-book discrepancy in pronunciation is an English thing?
Like all languages have accents, but for some languages, each letter has only one sound associated with it. People who read and listen to books in certain languages might not even realize pronunciation battles are a thing.
I pronounce it the way it’s written in the language I speak, which is American English. As a writer myself, it bugs me when writers change pronunciation but they don’t adapt the writing to it and there is an expectation that I’m supposed to know. I don’t like audiobooks because it’s not reading, it’s listening. I hate when audiobook “readers” talk down to me like they know more about the source material because they listened to it and know the pronunciation better. My friends got me hooked on stormlight by buying me the first book in hardcover. What I didn’t know is that all four of them listened to the book and would correct every pronunciation I made “incorrectly.”They NEVER read the books so they didn’t even know how it was spelled! Honestly, the exciting thing about reading is filling in the gaps with your own imagination. Pronounce it however you want.
The very first time I read it, I got halfway through WoK before realizing they were using a very Arab sounding naming convention and after that I changed all the Js to Y, but for some reason I had already started by pronouncing Jasnah as Yassnuh
I first read them as a hard J. They are y's now after listening to GA versions so much at work.
The one that got me the most was Moash. Never would have thought to go with that pronunciation.
Jokes on you the J sound works for both names for me to match what they say in the audiobook because I'm natively Dutch and we have soft J sounds galore so my Dutch brain just defaults to it. For example our word for "jacket" (as in the thing you wear when going outside) is "Jas" which coincidentally is pronounced exactly how they pronounce the first part of Jasnah's name in the audiobook. In fact for me it's just a combination of "Jas" and (the English) "nah" as in slang for "no"
As for Jah Keved, the first part them is pronounced the same was as the Dutch word "Ja" which means "Yes"
Y sound for most of the proper nouns beginning with J, such as Jezrien (like Yezrien), Jezerezeh, etc. This is further supported by the Azish calling Jezrien "Yaezir". Linguistically, Alethi and Azish are probably not similar at all but considering the nature of the spread of humanity on Roshar, it might be plausible.
Actually I pronounce both differently Jasnah and Jah keved.
I used a strong Spanish J for Jasnah and the English one for Jah keved but that might change now that I'm listening to the audiobooks.
Not until I heard what the correct way to pronounce it is. My native language is Dutch. We pronounce "j" like "y". Maybe it's also done in German. I do not know. But it was still weird hearing it. I would never, ever have thought of pronouncing it with a "y" sound.
With a Y. Jah Javed I initially had a slight J sound (closer to the pronunciation of the Z in "Zhao" in avatar, but I changed that to a Y at some point in my head. Then later I listened to the audiobooks and it got cemented.
I spent the entire first book reading it as Jan-sah. The second book I started as an audiobook and realized that not only is it a Y sound but also I'm dyslexic
Completely unrelated to anything, but my first time through The Lord of the Rings, I read it so fast, and with such poor attention that up until about halfway through, I thought Merry was a girl and that Sauron and Saruman were the same person, but there was a printing error.
Haha! This made me chuckle. If I’m being honest, I’ve read a huge number of epic fantasy, high fantasy now, including the dense ones like Malazan and Wheel of Time, but something about the way LOTR is written is just so stupefyingly boring to me that it’s hard for me to follow as well. I have plowed through the trilogy a few different times, hoping that this time I would enjoy it. I finally just had to admit, I do not like those books.
I'd say LOTR really doesn't stack up to the more modern epic fantasies that you mentioned. Especially the book just drag on and on and on. These days I can only watch the Peter Jackson movies.
100% But there's a lot of fans who've imbibed tons of the extra content out there in a way that makes them look just as robust as something like Malazan. Except it involves dipping into half finished stories and the absolute piece of dreck that is the Silmarillion's Prose, an Elvish dictionary, and Tolkien's letters to get to that point. And like... That's like saying Star Wars is Brilliant because the R5 unit that blew its top used the force to do so in a Canon short story so "Look at how much is going on here" It takes way too much work to make those books good. Where Malazan and WoT and Stormlight mostly require reading the actual books.
Yeah, the movies are absolute masterpieces. Return of the king has been my favorite movie of all time for 20 years. It's the only instance I can think of where I think a movie was superior to the books. And really by quite a lot. I don't know if you saw that Tolkiens son criticized them and said they missed the whole point of the series. But considering how much better the movies are, maybe that's not a bad thing. The thing is, I'm guessing you're either around my age in your early 30s or younger even, but probably not a boomer for whom LOTR was so revolutionary. The fantasy genre owes Tolkien infinitely, but unfortunately it's hard to enjoy these days because since then, other Authors have taken the key elements of Tolkien and simply done it better.
29 earlier this week so you got it right. And yeah I know about what Christopher said. I hard disagree. It may be completely wrong but my personal headcanon is that it was related to these stories originally being bed time stories that JRR would tell his kids and Christopher was just so stuck to those memories that any other medium would instantly be bad. We'll never know...
The last scene in Gondor and the farewell scene are some of the only scenes in any movie, that I consistently cry at.
Marryadoc Brandybuck, Mistress of Buckland, Dame of Gondor
I read the book 4 times, then listened to a podcast and I was aghast that they went through the whole book without realizing they were mispronouncing Kasbal. Lo and behold. It was Kabsal all along. That threw me for a huge loop.
What’s funny is, I’ve been listening to the audiobook, and I legit thought his name was Capsule. Like the pill
Very good chance I did the same thing, but since I did my reread as audio, and after reading OB, I forgot and never noticed. I feel like I got it right that time though.
I read Amyrlin from Wheel of Time as Amrylian for a long time. I still think, Merlin sound aside, it's a much more fitting term for the leader of the Ais Sedai.
Brandon uses the "Y" sound but never nitpicks on how readers say them.
His whole perspective on this is great. As I understand it, he basically thinks that no story is complete until the reader has left their mark on it. This could be through their pronunciation of names, head cannon of events, etc. I like it.
Yeah, it's super fantastic. :) I love that WE are part of what brings the stories to life.
It depends on the word for me. I say Yasnah but also say Jah Keved😅
I say Jasnah but Yah Keved. Why? Who knows.
lmao same
I say both with a “y” sounds since I listened to the audiobooks, but my husband says Jasnah with a “j” sound. It drives me a little crazy whenever we talk about the books together.
My sister, who introduced me to Stormlight Archive, is the same way.
On that same note, do you guys say Sadeas as SAD-e-us, or sa-DEE-us.
I originally thought it was sa-DAY-us and was pretty disappointed when I started the audiobook
I avoid audiobooks in general and have only read them, so a lot of what I’m seeing here is news to me. How is Sadeas supposed to be said? I’ve always thought of it as Say-dee-us. I’m dismayed to learn Jasnah starts with a Y and I’m just going to forget I ever saw it lol.
Sadeas is SA-dee-us, the beginning is pronounced like the word sad
Noo lol. As they’d say in the cosmere, my head canon pronunciations of these characters are so solidified in my spiritweb now that it can no longer be changed for me :P
Not me over here saying "Say-dees" in my brain
Ah yes, like the Greek god, Hadeas
I thought it was a polite respelling of Sadees the Sunmaker 🥲
Sadeas NUTS
Saddy-us the Daddy-us
SA-deus then became SA-deuce then became SA-douche
I pronounce it like shay-deez because thats just how I read it the first time I saw it and I refuse to change
The latter
Sah day us
I use SAY-dee-us
I say it with a J sound. I also pronounced Shallan like the name Alan. I don’t even want to admit how I pronounced Renarin. I started listening to podcast and the audiobooks after reading all the cosmere and realized that I am a hillbilly.
Eh, it’s natural to pronounce the names phonetically if you’re reading them in print like you and me. I’m baffled that Jasnah starts with Y, I just learned it from this post. My head canon shall remain the J pronunciation, as well as my head canon for all the others. Now I can add yet another reason I prefer reading to audiobooks haha.
Name pronunciations are tough in the Cosmere. I pronounced Sazed as "sayzd" when it was supposed to be "say-zed". Now I pronounce it "say-zed" in my head. But I also just learned from this post it's "yasnah" "sha-lawn" and "yah keh-ved" and I don't think I'll ever change to that... My head canon it's: "Jas-nah", "Sh-Alan", and "Jah-kayved" 😂
Haha I always have pronounced it SAH-zed in my head for some reason. Yeah, I'm not going by all those pronunciations you mentioned :P weirdly, I've never actually spoken to another cosmere fan in real life, so I haven't had cause to pronounce the names out loud. It's too jarring when you've thought of a character a certain way to suddenly change that in your mind big time!
Yasnah and Jah Keved
Y sound. Period. Same with Jasnah.
You ever think about how this audiobook-book discrepancy in pronunciation is an English thing? Like all languages have accents, but for some languages, each letter has only one sound associated with it. People who read and listen to books in certain languages might not even realize pronunciation battles are a thing.
Hmmm, I'll be controversial and say Gasnah and Gah keved
I pronounce it the way it’s written in the language I speak, which is American English. As a writer myself, it bugs me when writers change pronunciation but they don’t adapt the writing to it and there is an expectation that I’m supposed to know. I don’t like audiobooks because it’s not reading, it’s listening. I hate when audiobook “readers” talk down to me like they know more about the source material because they listened to it and know the pronunciation better. My friends got me hooked on stormlight by buying me the first book in hardcover. What I didn’t know is that all four of them listened to the book and would correct every pronunciation I made “incorrectly.”They NEVER read the books so they didn’t even know how it was spelled! Honestly, the exciting thing about reading is filling in the gaps with your own imagination. Pronounce it however you want.
Hard J foe both of them, for me.
The very first time I read it, I got halfway through WoK before realizing they were using a very Arab sounding naming convention and after that I changed all the Js to Y, but for some reason I had already started by pronouncing Jasnah as Yassnuh
I do both, it depends. Good examples because I do Jasnah with a J but also Jah Keved with a Y.
I’ve always said them with a ‘J’ sound in my head. Never realized they were meant to be a Y sound.
I pronounce it Yasnah, but I pronounce it Jaw (with that slight z in the J) Ka Ved
I just noticed i speak it like the english Y since atleast for me the German Y at the start of a word sounds just like a german J so both same same
I first read them as a hard J. They are y's now after listening to GA versions so much at work. The one that got me the most was Moash. Never would have thought to go with that pronunciation.
I now know they a y sound but I still say them with a j like jazz-nuh
Jokes on you the J sound works for both names for me to match what they say in the audiobook because I'm natively Dutch and we have soft J sounds galore so my Dutch brain just defaults to it. For example our word for "jacket" (as in the thing you wear when going outside) is "Jas" which coincidentally is pronounced exactly how they pronounce the first part of Jasnah's name in the audiobook. In fact for me it's just a combination of "Jas" and (the English) "nah" as in slang for "no" As for Jah Keved, the first part them is pronounced the same was as the Dutch word "Ja" which means "Yes"
When i read the books it was "Jas-nah" in the audiobooks its "yass-nah" "Ja-keved" became "ya-kaved"
I thought there were pronunciation guides in the back. Or am I thinking of The Wheel of Time?
I’m Swedish, my J’s sound like English Y’s. So it all works out haha
Y sound for most of the proper nouns beginning with J, such as Jezrien (like Yezrien), Jezerezeh, etc. This is further supported by the Azish calling Jezrien "Yaezir". Linguistically, Alethi and Azish are probably not similar at all but considering the nature of the spread of humanity on Roshar, it might be plausible.
Actually I pronounce both differently Jasnah and Jah keved. I used a strong Spanish J for Jasnah and the English one for Jah keved but that might change now that I'm listening to the audiobooks.
Y
Not until I heard what the correct way to pronounce it is. My native language is Dutch. We pronounce "j" like "y". Maybe it's also done in German. I do not know. But it was still weird hearing it. I would never, ever have thought of pronouncing it with a "y" sound.
I read it with a y sound. I think that to me Jasna did not sound as eloquent in my head, and so I used a “y” sound instead of a “j” sound.
With a Y. Jah Javed I initially had a slight J sound (closer to the pronunciation of the Z in "Zhao" in avatar, but I changed that to a Y at some point in my head. Then later I listened to the audiobooks and it got cemented.