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Originally Posted by Bikeridr
Imagine me as a Norwegian native-speaking 10 year-old tried to figure out how to pronounce Mister Mxyztplk. (Still, I continued read "Superman" for another 3-4 years). |
When I was finally old enough to read the words in the Superman comic book, I mentally pronounced Mxyzptlk as "Mixel-pik" for some reason, and that's the "pronunciation" that has stuck in my brain all my life.
If a writer provides a pronunciation guide, I'll read it through out of curiosity. If he/she tells me, though, that a word that I'm already misprounouncing in my mind is pronounced differently - say for example, "kitsune" mentioned in this thread - I'm still likely to keep mispronouncing it as kit-soo-nay, just because I like the sound of it better.
Since none of my RL friends read scifi/fantasy, the correct pronunciations of words/names in those books is never a topic.
I don't mind authors throwing apostrophes into names, if they carry through a consistent naming convention for that particular species or culture. I absolutely hate the lazy authors who take the
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"My name is j'Oh'n. j'Oh'n s'My'th'"
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route of naming their characters, thinking that qualifies the book as a scifi/fantasy story. If I see that, then I know the rest of the book is probably going to be crap and not worth the money I paid for it.