Is it a bad idea to use un-linguistic-ly sound names in fantasy.

[Snicklefritz]

The hissing door thing bothers me at well.

Yeah, and you should see the rest of the paragraph. LOL

Too bad we've ousted all the content editors.

 

[Astro Pen]

Hugo or not, if I have to go here for interpretation I am completely out of the story.

What’s in a Teixcalaanli Name? - Tor/Forge Blog

Arkady Martine's brilliant space opera A Memory Called Empire came out today, and we've been waiting to share some of our many feelings. And our Teixcalaanli names.

www.torforgeblog.com

 

[Vertigo]

Hugo or not, if I have to go here for interpretation I am completely out of the story.

What’s in a Teixcalaanli Name? - Tor/Forge Blog

Arkady Martine's brilliant space opera A Memory Called Empire came out today, and we've been waiting to share some of our many feelings. And our Teixcalaanli names.

www.torforgeblog.com

Hugo or not, though I finished A Memory called Empire, I won't be continuing with the series. I felt it was greatly overhyped, which isn't necessarily the end of the world but I also found almost everything about the culture completely unlikely. For example, and forgive me if I've misremembered the exact name, message sticks; why, when you have that sort of technology would you have such a thing? You might as well go back to writing letters. Did they not have any sort of encrypted email system? Oh, of course it was necessary for the story so lets invent a totally unlikely cultural element that gives great story lines. I'm afraid the whole book felt like that to me.

 

[Jerry]

Hello, I'm new to this forum.
And the title says it all.

Thanks in Advance.

Clear communication should be any writer's chief goal––this said, and appreciating the need for exotic/other-worldly vibes in Fantasy/Sci-Fi fiction, even authors in these genres shouldn’t be exceptions.

Also, I think the best way to keep Fantasy/Sci-Fi names (characters, cities, etc.) under some semblance of control is to root them in our world as closely as possible, thus keeping them relatable, pronounceable, and, most importantly, memorable. George R.R.'s 'Jon' for "John' and 'raper’ for ‘rapist’ come immediately to mind.

 

[Swank]

Clear communication should be any writer's chief goal–

Not sure I agree with that at all for fiction. Feersum Endjin and The Peripheral are gloriously unclear in parts to bring mystery to the stories.

 

[Artoriarius]

Hugo or not, though I finished A Memory called Empire, I won't be continuing with the series. I felt it was greatly overhyped, which isn't necessarily the end of the world but I also found almost everything about the culture completely unlikely. For example, and forgive me if I've misremembered the exact name, message sticks; why, when you have that sort of technology would you have such a thing? You might as well go back to writing letters. Did they not have any sort of encrypted email system? Oh, of course it was necessary for the story so lets invent a totally unlikely cultural element that gives great story lines. I'm afraid the whole book felt like that to me.

I finished reading it just the other day, and I feel like I should point out that the reason they use the things they do is fairly well justified; it’s a very old empire, and some of the things they do are very much “because tradition says so”, and for no other good reason. The protagonist points out when she encounters the message sticks that they’re kinda weird, and the “encryption” is more ceremonial than anything else—because it’s an old empire, and set in its ways to the point where coup d’etats have formalities to them. Take a look someday at the way the Byzantine Empire (which I suspect is the empire the Teixcalaanli are based off of) and other empires that lasted past their prime did things; there’s a reason “byzantine” means “overly complex and bureaucratic”. Tradition can, at times, be a PITA, especially when it’s had more than its fair share of time to build.

As to the main topic, I’d argue that non-real-world names should A) be consistent across culture: Bob, Glixorb, and Panenthias the Conqueror may all be in the same story, but I’d raise an eyebrow if I was told that they’re all from the same culture; and B) pay some attention to how they’re pronounced. Glixorb is pronouncable; Gl-xxr’bb is gibberish. (As a general rule of thumb, the more hyphens and apostrophes you have, the less pronouncable the name is. Vowels are also important to include.)

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

Like if a character's name is 'Go' and they are of European descent as opposed to an Asian character by the same name. One means to Proceed forward and the other means the number 5. Knowing this can change the readers understanding of the character.

Yes, that, and also... I find it kind of wholesome when Katie from Shropshire or Steve from Ohio is happily throwing around names like "Ryu Fukujima" or "Kodachi Makimura" like it's no big deal.

 

[Danny McG]

 

[Oligonicella]

Use what works. I have a character named after a friend of mine from the Cameroon - M'Challa M'Rubri.

I also use diacriticals where I want. Even readers that don't understand what to do vocally don't seem put off. Most just read them as standard English vowels. It's only when they hear them in a movie or such that they go "Oh."

It of course gets more difficult with phrases like the (safe) mp3 attached, which is my favorite female character speaking. Difficult because she's speaking one of my languages.

But then, it's supposed to sound like it would if you were dropped into a foreign marketplace and didn't speak the language. You'd understand the sounds but not much else. Obviously it's explained in proximity.

If your names are excessive (like some of my characters due to cultures), do what I do. That mp3 is of Voös, AKA Enveòglersécævoös. She's puki, they don't do names like we do. I think many if not most people don't actually sound out "Richardson" every time they come across it but recognize the word in toto and know it's Richardson. Probably moreso for the Elven names from Tolkien and others. But I still prefer to use anchor nicknames mostly. Except never for the hoary nobles, they're notable tight-asses so it wouldn't work.

 

[Parson]

I think that the audio bit works quite well. But I'm not sure how much that works if there is only print to go by. Still a translation in the proximity would work for me.

 

[Oligonicella]

Thank you. No, it wouldn't be worth a crap w/out translation and context at hand. To affirm that:

goshuelash vochlàèspek
ronuespêätä'ândra
patäkóchaòchláondraìrùàrota
patäkêspearic
patäk'ârîöunast
goshá'atäôshash

She's reciting some very old passages to an important event.

I'm at the end of the series right now and the old tongue passages are petering out but at one time I was actually able to vocalize that stuff. I still had to use my thesarus app to construct it.

 

[sknox]

My eyes glide right over that, and my attention doesn't return until we get back to English. FTR, I did the same with Tolkien's elvish poems. Once I had read the trilogy, maybe even not until the second or third pass, I did take time to try to pronounce my way through them, but only as idle diversion.

If one of those words was someone's name, or other noun, if I encountered the word multiple times, I will usually take a stab at pronouncing it or some shortened version of same. That third line might just become Patak or similar. But present a song or poem or prose extract in a conlang, and it really is just literary ice. I skate over it.

I don't for a moment suggest authors ought not do this. Write what you feel. Just be aware that not all your readers are going to engage with it the same way.

 

[Oligonicella]

Proximity explanations are the subtitles of stories.

Heh, I like that.

 

[Oligonicella]

My eyes glide right over that, and my attention doesn't return until we get back to English. FTR, I did the same with Tolkien's elvish poems. Once I had read the trilogy, maybe even not until the second or third pass, I did take time to try to pronounce my way through them, but only as idle diversion.

Reread your post and nice, glad it worked. This was kinda like seeing the savages dancing around chanting and Indiana says "They're going to sacrifice the kid."

I chuckled that you mention 'name' so I thought I'd provide a bit of idle diversion you may or may not find of vague interest.

The language is a composition of metaphors indicated by god names run through a grammatical compaction program (heh, refer to my slight hypocrisy as this is a primitive AI). The speech uses the god names in this order from start to finish omitting repeats:
... Goshu, Lelash, Vochlar, Bespeck, Ronu, Arota, Kandra, Patak, Garic and Ounast ... half the pantheon.

This occurs way into the series (13) and by this time you know Patak = "he who must not be named because of deeds, only used for generally anonymous references". Translating (roughly) without breaking out my thesaurus:

patäkóchaòchláondraìrùàrota = We [more towards each of us] were taken and imprisoned alone for life.

Easy to see why I wrote the program.