: 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

@Deb2945533

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First, why do you care? You say that you want the language to have a certain sound. Why? Does it matter to the plot? Or are you getting yourself distracted with creating this language rather than writing an interesting story?

I mean, suppose that when you are writing the story you write the word "Ashe" and in your mind you pronounce it "ahs-hay" but most of your readers pronounce it "ash". So what? Does this matter to the story? Is there any incident in the story that depends on how the word is pronounced?

If you really think it's important ...

There are many foreign words whose pronunciation is difficult to represent with conventional English. Look at how many Americans pronounce Al Qaeda as if the "ae" made a single vowel sound. The hardest part, I think, is making clear when two or more letters combine to make a single sound versus having separate sounds, like your "Ashe" example. (My first thought is that it should be pronounced "ash", just like if the "e" wasn't there.) I don't see how to beat this without using some punctuation to separate syllables, like apostrophes or hyphens. If you want readers to pronounce it Ahs-hay, then write "Ahs-hay".

You could have a pronunciation guide. I suspect readers would have a mixed reaction to this. Probably most will skim it, say "yeah whatever", and make up their own pronunciation as they go along. A few will get fanatical about learning all the details of your language that you care to share. Like the Star Trek folks went to great effort to invent a complete Klingon language. A few extreme fans download Klingon dictionaries and learn the language. But the vast majority couldn't care less, and listen to the Klingon dialogue exactly the same as they would if it was just a bunch of random noises.

You could use accent marks or the International Phonetic Alphabet. 99% of readers will have no idea how to pronounce these. You could explain it, in which case you're back to having a pronunciation guide, albeit one that someone else invented instead of you inventing just for this book. If you don't explain it, very few will research it. They'll just muddle through and be annoyed with you for using these unfamiliar symbols.

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