The Sword and Laser discussion

I'm just starting my reread, and I am tripping over a couple of names. I was hoping that an audiobook listener or perhaps someone from somewhere where these names are more common can sort me out. I'm pronouncing the "h " in Johanna although I am not certain that I should. And I have no idea how to pronounce "Sjana". Arne and Jefri seem straightforward enough.

Since Samnorsk is derived from the principle languages of Norway, Sami and Norsk, the pronunciations should follow. J's should be pronounced as y (Yohanna, Yefri), but sj should be sh (Shana).

Heh, thanks. I was pronouncing Johanna too much like my own name. Variations on it are in a lot of languages and there are like a bazillion pronunciations.

Sean wrote: "Since Samnorsk is derived from the principle languages of Norway, Sami and Norsk"

I don't know how much research Vinge put into the Norwegian language, but I would think it's derived from, well, samnorsk.

Samnorsk (perhaps best translated as "unified Norwegian" or "inter-Norwegian") was the proposed standard of written Norwegian that sought to merge our two current written Norwegian standards, bokmål and nynorsk (there doesn't seem to be an English article about samnorsk, but it's mentioned in those two articles).

Bokmål and nynorsk are two different ways to write the Norwegian language, and have nothing to do with the Sami languages, which are linguistically completely unrelated to Norwegian; it's not even in the same language family, and as such don't have the same pronounciations (the pronounciations on the website you linked are Norwegian and not Sami).

Joanna wrote: "I'm just starting my reread, and I am tripping over a couple of names. I was hoping that an audiobook listener or perhaps someone from somewhere where these names are more common can sort me out. I'm pronouncing the "h " in Johanna although I am not certain that I should. And I have no idea how to pronounce "Sjana". Arne and Jefri seem straightforward enough. "

Haven't listened to the audiobook, and who knows how the language has evolved in Vinge's future, but in current Norwegian those would be pronounced like this:

* Yooh-hanna
* Shana (never heard this name though)
* Arneh (not "arnee"/"arny")
* Yefri (although this isn't a Nordic name, I assume it's supposed to be a Norwegianization of Jeffrey)

^As a long term reader of Thor comics but not a student of Nordic languages, I was eventually surprised to find that the pronunciation was not "muh-joll-near" or 'jot-en-hime." Thankfully, I was never called upon to pronounce "Hlidskjalf."

John (Taloni) wrote: "Thankfully, I was never called upon to pronounce "Hlidskjalf." "

As with many such coincidences in linguistics due to the human ability to produce only a certain range of sounds, "Hlidskjalf" sounds exactly like "Steve."

Trike wrote: "John (Taloni) wrote: "Thankfully, I was never called upon to pronounce "Hlidskjalf." "

As with many such coincidences in linguistics due to the human ability to produce only a certain range of sou..."

I always pronounced it as "Luxury Yacht"