[OB] Poll: How do you pronounce Stormlight names Part 2

[Llarimar he/him]

I wanted to see how people pronounce Stormlight names, because I've noticed that I say them differently from some of my friends!  I've put together some of the most controversial names, to see what the consensus is.  Remember, there are no right answers and Brandon himself has said that you can pronounce the names any way you want!  That being said I've made this poll anonymous, just because some people are sensitive about the way that they pronounce the names.  Also, feel free to pick "Neither" and add another suggestion in your post if you say them differently!  

I also posted a Part 1 with other names, so make sure to vote on those as well!

Edited May 25, 2018 by Llarimar

[Solant he/him]

The Kholin question makes me think of Family Guy and cool whip.

[Llarimar he/him]

1 hour ago, Solant said:

The Kholin question makes me think of Family Guy and cool whip.

I had to look this up.  It's kind of similar to the Kholin example, yes.  

I have always read "Kholin" as KHO-lin (with the raspy "kh" sound), because I have read that Alethi is supposed to be based on Semitic languages, and that sound (the raspy "kh") is quite common in those languages.  And usually, when people transcribe Semitic languages (like Arabic), they use the digraph "kh" to represent that sound.  Brandon probably pronounces it with a hard "k" though.  I haven't actually met anyone else who pronounces it with a raspy "kh" (but I just noticed somebody else voted for that option, so clearly I'm not alone!).  

Edited May 25, 2018 by Llarimar

[ljósmóður she/her]

I voted other for Ta-ra-vange-ian! My preference for flat, not long, A again.

But, I also tend to call him Mr T. because I'm old enough to giggle to myself at the unwitting homage I'm paying to the original A-Team (especially when Mr. T's catchphrase was, "I pity the fool" - which is apposite for Stormlight's Mr T on his compassionate days (though I'm significantly less pitying since he became Odium's stooge)).

Otherwise, I'm with the majority consensus on these ones s-zeth and KO-lin, (hard K).

[Necessary Eagle she/her]

I just realized that I see "Kholin" and think "ch", but that I've been mentallin pronouncing it with a hard K anyway.

[IntentAwesome]

I pronounce Taravangian with a silent g for some inexplicable reason. Honestly, it was probably just easier. So, tara-VAWN-ee-un.

 

 

[Llarimar he/him]

2 minutes ago, IntentAwesome said:

I pronounce Taravangian with a silent g for some inexplicable reason. Honestly, it was probably just easier. So, tara-VAWN-ee-un.

That honestly makes sense - a lot of words in English have a silent "g," usually with the "-ing" suffix - "walking," talking," reading."  People don't usually pronounce the g in those words.  

[IntentAwesome]

22 hours ago, Llarimar said:

That honestly makes sense - a lot of words in English have a silent "g," usually with the "-ing" suffix - "walking," talking," reading."  People don't usually pronounce the g in those words.  

I think it'd be a better comparison if you could find an example of a silent "g" that is at the beginning of a syllable, similar to Taravangian. I didn't succeed. The closest I could come up with was "sign," "assign," etc. So I'm back to thinking I really don't have an excuse...

But what I'd like to know is how people pronounce Adolin. My friend and I pronounce it differently. She pronounces it with a short "a" sound and I pronounce it with a long "a" sound.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

11 minutes ago, IntentAwesome said:

I think it'd be a better comparison if you could find an example of a silent "g" that is at the beginning of a syllable, similar to Taravangian. I didn't succeed. The closest I could come up with was "sign," "assign," etc. So I'm back to thinking I really don't have an excuse...

But what I'd like to know is how people pronounce Adolin. My friend and I pronounce it differently. She pronounces it with a short "a" sound and I pronounce it with a long "a" sound.

I do it the long "a" way because that's how Brandon pronounces it. He always says that it doesn't matter how you pronounce it, but I personally have to pronounce it the same way as he does because he is literally the one who created the character, so that is the right way to do it. However, he has said that the in-world correct way to pronounce Sarene is to pronounce each vowel long despite the fact that he pronounces it like the word serene. I don't mind it when people pronounce it other ways, but I view that a bit like someone named Sean telling you their name is pronounced "shawn" and you refuse to pronounce it like that and instead pronounce it like "see-AHN." That's an extreme example, but I hope it gets my point across.

[Llarimar he/him]

38 minutes ago, IntentAwesome said:

But what I'd like to know is how people pronounce Adolin. My friend and I pronounce it differently. She pronounces it with a short "a" sound and I pronounce it with a long "a" sound.

I didn't include Adolin on the poll because I thought his name would be relatively uncontroversial - I say it with long "a," AA-doe-linn (like the "a" in "cat").  Because there are so many different "a" sounds in English it's hard to know what someone means when they say "short a" or "long a" (because there are more than two "a" sounds), but I can definitely imagine different ways that Adolin could be pronounced - AH-doe-linn (like the "a" in "car"), AYE-doe-linn (like the "a" in "plane").  But I think at least the second two syllables of his name ("doe-lin") will be pronounced the same by most people. 

22 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I do it the long "a" way because that's how Brandon pronounces it. He always says that it doesn't matter how you pronounce it, but I personally have to pronounce it the same way as he does because he is literally the one who created the character, so that is the right way to do it. However, he has said that the in-world correct way to pronounce Sarene is to pronounce each vowel long despite the fact that he pronounces it like the word serene. I don't mind it when people pronounce it other ways, but I view that a bit like someone named Sean telling you their name is pronounced "shawn" and you refuse to pronounce it like that and instead pronounce it like "see-AHN." That's an extreme example, but I hope it gets my point across.

I feel the same way for the most part... if Brandon pronounces a name a certain way, that's how I feel like I have to pronounce it.  But I do appreciate that he says you can pronounce the names however you want, because there are a few idiosyncratic pronunciations I have that I just can't let go of.  One for example is "Elantris."  Most people say it ee-LAWN-triss (the middle part sound like "lawn"), but I have always pronounced it ee-LANN-triss (the middle part sound like "land"). This sounds so much better to me because I think it sounds more elegant and centralized in the mouth.  The second two-syllables ("LANN-triss") also remind me of the word "lantern," which reminds me of the glowing seons and the light of Elantris.  I also cannot bring myself to say "YASS-nuh"  when I'm reading (for Jasnah).  If I were talking to Brandon at a signing, I would probably say "YASS-nuh" just because I know that's how he pronounces it, but her name has always been "JASS-nuh" to me.  

Edited May 31, 2018 by Llarimar

[StrikerEZ he/him]

5 minutes ago, Llarimar said:

I didn't include Adolin on the poll because I thought his name would be relatively uncontroversial - I say it with long "a," AA-doe-linn (like the "a" in "cat").  Because there are so many different "a" sounds in English it's hard to know what someone means when they say "short a" or "long a" (because there are more than two "a" sounds), but I can definitely imagine different ways that Adolin could be pronounced - AH-doe-linn (like the "a" in "car"), AYE-doe-linn (like the "a" in "plane").  But I think at least the second two syllables of his name ("doe-lin") will be pronounced the same by most people. 

I feel the same way for the most part... if Brandon pronounces a name a certain way, that's how I feel like I have to pronounce it.  But I do appreciate that he says you can pronounce the names however you want, because there are a few idiosyncratic pronunciations I have that I just can't let go of.  One for example is "Elantris."  Most people say it ee-LAWN-triss (the middle part sound like "lawn"), but I have always pronounced it ee-LANN-triss (the middle part sound like "land"). This sounds so much better to me because I think it sounds more elegant and centralized in the mouth.  The second two-syllables ("LANN-triss") also remind me of the word "lantern," which reminds me of the glowing seons and the light of Elantris.  I also cannot bring myself to say "YASS-nuh"  when I'm reading (for Jasnah).  If I were talking to Brandon at a signing, I would probably say "YASS-nuh" just because I know that's how he pronounces it, but her name has always been "JASS-nuh" to me.  

Yeah, I can understand your pronunciation of Elantris. If you're really following Aonic pronunciations, it should be "ee-LANE-tryss" and that just doesn't roll of the tongue as well. That's simply a product of the fact that a language based on only using the long forms of English vowels is really stupid.

However, I can't agree with you about Jasnah. Her name is literally pronounced "YASS-nuh" or "YAZZ-nuh" because that is how the language works. The 'j' letter in Alethi makes the 'y' sound in English. Pronouncing it "JASS-nuh" is, technically, pronouncing it wrong. Of course, that's just because I get really picky with names. It always bothers me when people mispronounce names, so I hate to do it to fictional characters' names.

[Llarimar he/him]

33 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

However, I can't agree with you about Jasnah. Her name is literally pronounced "YASS-nuh" or "YAZZ-nuh" because that is how the language works. The 'j' letter in Alethi makes the 'y' sound in English. Pronouncing it "JASS-nuh" is, technically, pronouncing it wrong. Of course, that's just because I get really picky with names. It always bothers me when people mispronounce names, so I hate to do it to fictional characters' names.

The thing that annoys me is that the spelling doesn't really make sense - Brandon is just trying to create a certain look when he spells her name, at the expense of logical pronunciation.  The fact that the "j" is pronounced like a "y" in Jasnah makes her name look very Middle-Eastern, very Semitic, which is the intended effect since Alethkar has a vaguely Semitic culture.  However, when you say above that the "j" letter in Alethi makes the "y" sound in English, it's just confusing to me because Alethi doesn't use the same alphabet - "j" and "y" are English letters.  So whatever letters they use to spell Jasnah's name, you would think that Brandon would try to transliterate it into English so that it bears the closest possibly approximation to the Alethi pronunciation.  And in English, the language into which Brandon is translating these names, the "j" sound does not make a "y" sound.  The "y" sound does.  That's just why it annoys me - we have a letter that makes the "y" sound, so why not use it (Yasnah) instead of using "j"?    

I guess it just goes back to the fact that Brandon wants the names to look authentic and Semitic-style, and so he uses the "j" for that reason.  But as far as how letters are pronounced in English, spelling it with a "y" would make much more sense. 

In Elantris, there is a character named Fjon, which I assume is pronounced "Fi-yon" like the word "fjord."  Once again in this example, Brandon is trying to make the name look authentic - Nordic or Scandinavian in this case (which is which the Derethi culture is based on I think), and so he uses the "fj-" combination like in the word "fjord."  This doesn't bother me as much, however, partially because there is some precedent in English (if only because of the word "fjord") to pronounce "j" like a "y" in this circumstance - making a hard "j" sound in "Fjon" (like F-John) would be quite unnatural.  However, the fact that the "j" in Jasnah is at the beginning of her name just draws a lot of attention to the letter, and for me, when I first read the book, emphasized that the pronunciation was a hard "j".  The letter "j" never makes a "y" sound at the beginning of the word in English, so the spelling just doesn't really make sense to me.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Llarimar

[Rand al’Thorres]

Im spanish and in our lenguage Taravangian is pronuncied a little diferent. Will be something like

TAR (A pronuncied as the A on an or as)- A (same the last A)- VAN(same A pronunciation)- GI ( I pronuncied as EE of geek but dont enlarge the EE pronunciation)- AN (as the first A)

Kholin and Szeth like the majory 

[Llarimar he/him]

5 hours ago, Rand al’Thorres said:

Im spanish and in our lenguage Taravangian is pronuncied a little diferent. Will be something like

TAR (A pronuncied as the A on an or as)- A (same the last A)- VAN(same A pronunciation)- GI ( I pronuncied as EE of geek but dont enlarge the EE pronunciation)- AN (as the first A)

Spanish pronunciation is so much easier than English!  I wish our vowels were always the same, then there would never be a debate about how to pronounce these names.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Llarimar

[Rand al’Thorres]

46 minutes ago, Llarimar said:

Spanish pronunciation is so much easier than English!  I wish our vowels were always the same, then there would never be a debate about how to pronounce these names.

Exactly haha english pronunciation is a nightmare for me... But I’m from Catalonia and in catalan pronunciation, the vowels, hava more than one pronunciation, however is linked to rules and is easier than english