Search This Blog

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Pronunciation Guide, Take 1

Most of the feedback that I receive on my books is very positive (phew!), but it is also commonly coupled with questions regarding pronunciations of names and places. I consciously tried to fashion the names in my series in such a manner as to appear pronouncable to most people because few things are more annoying to me than attempting to read names that look like total and complete gibberish! (That also tends to interrupt the flow of the story and add to an inability to suspend disbelief in the case of fantasy). So, most of my names come from other languages, either as exact words or as derivations from real words, because I figured that even if people didn't know exactly how they are "supposed" to be pronounced, at least they will look pronouncable. Despite all my best efforts, however, I think that many of my names are actually very difficult, so I thought that I would take a couple blogs to put together a rudimentary pronunciation guide for some of the names in my books. (Let me also say, however, that I don't really care how my readers choose to pronounce my names, this is just how I pronounce them in my head.)

Alitheia: a-lih-THEE-yah (the first "a" as in "cat" and a soft "th" as in at the end of "math")

Orodreos: o-row-DRAY-yohs (all long "o"s)

Tellius: TEL-lee-yus

Cadmus: KAD-mus ("a" as in "cat")

Torrin: TOHR-rin (long "o")

Yahto Veli: YAH-toh VEH-lee ("veh" as in "vet," not "vay")

Voitto Vesa: voh-EE-toh VAY-sah (hard "v"s [for all my Latin students] and long "o"s)

Tullin: TUH-lin

Tselloch: TSEH-lahk ("ts" as in "lets" and "lahk" as in "Loch Ness")

Tsellochim: tseh-lah-KEEM

Tsellodrin: tseh-luh-DRIHN (singular), tseh-luh-DREEN (plural)

Any questions on this first batch or any that you want to see me write out? These are all from book 1 so far. I'll include some from book 2 next time. Enjoy!

No comments:

Post a Comment