Pronunciation

This post will be largely for those writing fantasy or stories that require you to make up names or your own language.

When I write stories that require me to make up my own names or a semblance of a language, one thing I am reminded of is that I need to be consistent. Languages are tricky, especially when pronunciation can be varied depending on different factors. This is especially true when you are used to saying a certain letter (like e) a certain way but it may be different in another language. I found this to be true when I studied Latin and Spanish in school, and I was also reminded of this recently when working on my latest novel attempt. In my current story, the majority of my characters have names that come directly from the Scottish Gaelic dictionary. However, Scottish Gaelic, you don't pronounce the words as they look; just listen to Gaelic songs by Clannad, Altan, or some other Irish band and look at the Gaelic lyrics, and you'll get what I mean. So, in early drafts of this story, I was mispronouncing the majority of the names.

I wanted to make sure that my characters' and place names were pronounced at least semi-properly (and I don't know Gaelic), so I did a little basic research. Gaelic is a complex language, and it would be nigh impossible for me to pronounce the words correctly. However, because of my story, it is necessary that there be variations between Scottish Gaelic and between the Faerie language of my characters. So, my solution was relatively simple: for letters that have lots of varying pronunciations, pick one and stick with it consistently. So, if the dipthong "dh" has two different pronunciations depending on the surrounding letters, I pick the pronunciation "y" and stick with it consistently throughout the entire story. The difficult thing with this is that this means I have to write down all the names of characters and places and make sure that I know how every single one is correctly pronounced. Then I'll be writing all of them down with the proper pronunciation beside them, so that both myself and any potential readers know how to say the names correctly.

My point in saying all of this is that when you make up names or loosely base your names off of a real, existing language that you need to make sure they are consistent. Both for your sake and for the sake of your readers, so that you can maintain continuity and prevent confusion as to how your names are being pronounced.