killersquirrel59 Posted November 5, 2015 Report Share Posted November 5, 2015 Am I the only one who has noticed a large issue with the Steel Alphabet? Namely that it can't be used to write some of the names appearing in the books due to missing/combined letters? Think about it, here are a few off the top of my head. Kelsier - Steel alphabet combines the vowels i and e into a single letter which makes the dipthong in that name impossible to write. Waxilium - There is no x in the steel alphabet. Luthadel - There is no th sound. For reference, here is the link to the Steel Alphabet page on Coppermind. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elbereth Posted November 5, 2015 Report Share Posted November 5, 2015 Well, I think you're going about this wrong. Rather than trying to transliterate the names we have for the characters into the steel alphabet, realize that they are already transliterated from that same alphabet. Brandon just spelled them in the way that we would pronounce them, more or less. Also, the alphabet has probably changed since the original trilogy, which could very well include adding an x. Alternatively, they might still spell it with a ks (because x is just a shorter way to spell ks, because we use it often enough). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killersquirrel59 Posted November 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 Transliteration would not be enough to cover Kelsier. With only one vowel for the "I" and "e" sounds, the dipthong would be impossible to achieve. This is a matter of the sound in question not being physically possible to make with the alphabet given. I can see the argument for the use of "ks" instead of "x" to make the same sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elbereth Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 Maybe they would write KelsEEr, and just naturally pronounce those two e's separately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle of the Forest Path Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 Maybe they've got accent marks? like ¨ or ` Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tellingdwar Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 According to WoB, in-world Kelsier's name is pronounced in the French style, like "kel-see-eh" I don't know if that helps or makes things worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killersquirrel59 Posted November 7, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 According to WoB, in-world Kelsier's name is pronounced in the French style, like "kel-see-eh" I don't know if that helps or makes things worse. Really? I missed that one. Doesn't help in this case as the Steel alphabet can't replicated a schwa any better than english can. Accent marks are a possibility. I could buy that idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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