: Re: Constructed Language - how to spell words that will be mispronounced in English I wasn't sure how to phrase the title, so it may be a bit confusing. Feel free to edit it if you can phrase

@Karen856

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You could have an appendix (such as appears in the best-selling Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan) that explains pronunciations. However even that is subject to pismronunciation.

Of course there already is a way to write these things. It is called IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet. The problem is that most of us don't learn it at school. However, if you did use it then all your writing problems would go away.

I won't render your names in IPA because I still don't know how you really want to pronounce them despite your explanation.

I am guessing that, given that you are writing from an English speaking perspective, your names sound like unusual English words when spoken. If that is the case you don't need the full gamut of IPA. You could use just the English subset.

International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you were really adventurous and wanted to get distracted from actual writing, you could invent your own script and then explain it with an appendix that references IPA. However that requires a commitment from readers that most authors don't get.

Bear in mind that this will only become an issue when the movie gets released and disappointed readers discover that they have been saying the names wrongly all along.

Alternatively use Tolkien's clever strategy of making names almost like English ones, e.g. Samwise which conveniently contracts to Sam.

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