: Re: Do hard to pronounce names break immersion? I have a character in my book named Jiolluav (with the correct accent, Zholl-you-of or /ʒōl-'yoo-äv/), and I've written my entire "novel" (it's a

@Sent2472441

Vote Up Vote Down

Hard-to-pronounce names suggest a different culture. If War and Peace had its characters named not Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky and Pierre Kirillovich Bezukhov, but Andrew Bolk and Peter Bek; or if the characters of the Kalevala were named not Väinämöinen and Joukahainen, but Van and John, that would ruin my immersion. It would break my immersion because the names would not match the culture presented.

As a reader, if I encounter a name I don't know how to pronounce (e.g. certain Welsh names in the Mabinogion), I pronounce it the best I can, and move on. If I am informed of the "correct" way to pronounce the name, I amend what I thought the name should have been pronounced like, and stick to the correct pronunciation. I see no problem there. (And I've never heard of anyone claiming they can't read the Mabinogion because they don't know how to pronounce the names.)

If you care about the readers pronouncing the names correctly in their heads, you can provide a pronunciation guide. Tolkien did this with The Lord of the Rings, others did it too. A pronunciation guide doesn't assure, however, that readers would actually follow the pronunciation you have in mind. For one thing, it can be somewhat hard to explain in writing what sound you have in mind. For another, if you put the pronunciation guide in the beginning, it's not sufficiently interesting, the readers are not yet sufficiently immersed in the story to care, they might well just skip it. And if you put the pronunciation guide in the end, it's already too late - the readers already have the "wrong" name in their heads, and they've already finished the book anyway.

An alternative is to add some hint within the story. A name can be woven into a bit of verse, so the rhyme helps the reader understand how the name should be pronounced. That, however, requires work, it might not be natural to your story, and even if it is, you wouldn't do that for every single character.

In short, no, hard-to-pronounce names do not break immersion.

However, if the names you plan are particularly long, you might find this discussion of long names helpful.

(0)

Login to post a comment!