I Need Support for This Whole Bakker Thing

[Ser Paladin]

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of the names. They're certainly distinctive enough that you're not going to be getting characters mixed up. And does it really matter if you say the name "wrong" in your head?

Although I didn't have a problem with the complexity of Bakker's names, he did go to the same phonetic well a few times for players that appear a few paragraphs apart:

Gothyelk and Gotian, Eliazauras and Sarcellus and Skaurus, Conphas and Cnaiur, Chepheramuni and Chypharado-something (one of the Grandees of Kian).

[Ashara]

Whine much?

Same to you.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

«Oh, really? Then Cnaur should be transcribed with Scandinavic Runes and Fanim should have their names spelled in the Arabic script, you know. And if he adds someone coming from quazi-China, should he switch to hieroglyphs? To use whatever is appropriate for the setting? Gratitously adding selected letters from Germano-Romanic alphabets is just snobbish BS imo.»

Well, for me English spelling rules seem rather bizarre and counterintuitive and if they are used to convey names, they absolutely destroy illusion that characters speak any other language than English. It would suck even worse in translation where English spelling would just seem out of place.

[Werthead]

Whine much?

Same to you.

Play nice, please.

I didn't have a problem with the names, but then I've just been playing the Alexander add-on for Rome: Total War, so the Hellenistic-like names weren't a problem at all. I was thus able to know what an 'agora' is without resorting to the dictionary when it cropped up in Bakker (it's a big marketplace, although it can also mean a general city centre administrative/commerical district).

[Larry.]

Not gonna pick a fight -- but I thought the naming of characters was straight-forward. In the end, IMO, this is a taste issue, and not an inherent flaw of the books (and they've got their share).

That's pretty much my take on it as well. I can understand why Ashara is frustrated though, as I'm learning a language that uses two scripts (Latin and a modified Cyrllic) and there is a loss that occurs in the transliteration. њ is spelled nj in English, but is pronounced as one syllable, akin to ñ in Spanish. If nj occurs in Latin script but are parts of different syllables, say нј, there is a difference there that a Cyrllic reader would get that a Latin script reader wouldn't from the context of the words. So I can understand and even agree with her argument to a point.

But transliterations have a spotty record in English, so I just sent an email to the author himself. No idea when a response will arrive, but here is what I sent, so people won't be so nosy:

There's a debate of sorts brewing over at Westeros about your diacretics. I'm just curious about a technical point and perhaps an answer can help quell some of the arguments there.

When you came up with the names/cultures/etc., did you have a rudimentary ordering system for them? For example, when you use û, were you thinking of an open-voweled u that is different from English pronunciations of it? And the ', that's meant to represent a glottal stop, correct? And the umlauts, are they like the German ones to indicate other vowel sounds, or like in the Romance languages to indicate that the vowels side-by-side are not dipthongs but are to be pronounced separately?

There, happy people?

[Xray the Enforcer]

There, happy people?

No.

[MeanMrMustard]

At the bookstore, they had books two and three, but not book one.

And was that Heidegger reference serious? If so, no wonder he was a failure in philosophy.

[HokieStone]

At the bookstore, they had books two and three, but not book one.

Got book one from the bookstore, but had to order two and three from Amazon. A day later I get a note from Amazon that says one of the books I ordered would be delivered a month late - you guessed it, book two. So now book three sits and stares at me while I wait....

[Larry.]

At the bookstore, they had books two and three, but not book one.

And was that Heidegger reference serious? If so, no wonder he was a failure in philosophy.

Here's the reference. It's not as wholesale as that comment in passing would make you think. It does work on the 'essential' level for the Gnostic schools rather than on the 'analogy' level of the Anagogic schools. But that's something that is revealed throughout the series.

[Hark]

Got book one from the bookstore, but had to order two and three from Amazon. A day later I get a note from Amazon that says one of the books I ordered would be delivered a month late - you guessed it, book two. So now book three sits and stares at me while I wait....

FYI, I waited over 3 months for Amazon to send me book 2. They never did. I cancelled my order. Ended up buying it from Amazon marketplace.

[Larry.]

No.

Typical of women - so hard to please!

[Larry.]

And here is Bakker's response to my question about the naming/spelling of characters in PoN:

The original plan was to use the old Biblical diacritical regimen, but my editor thought it would make things too off-putting to readers perusing the book on the store shelves. So I opted for something more simplistic (which is to say, cosmetic) instead, using the circumflex to mark long u's and umlauts to break up the dipthongs. This was the only concession I was willing to make on the 'name issue.' Many have what I call the 'Ellis Island' approach to naming in fantasy, which is to say, they think names should conform to the peculiarites of their own language and knowledge-base because it makes them easier to pronounce and to remember. But 'ease of use' is a commodity virtue, not a literary one. I wanted my world to be realistic, and since proper names provide the lense of that world, I needed them to be realistic as well. So I drew on everything from ancient Greek and Sanskrit to Old Anglo-Saxon, depending on which association set the name belonged to. I made this decision knowing full well that it would have an impact on sales in the short term, but my hope was that it would add to the credibility of the books in the long term (try convincing a publisher of that! I still worry it's the reason I don't have a ppbk deal in the US...). By and large, I think, people don't like unfamiliar names (I would say 'difficult,' but the fact is they don't have any problem with names like 'Eisenhower,' 'Hawaii,' or 'Louisiana').

Interesting to see just how candid he is about the impact the naming convention he chose might have on his short-term sales. And based on reader reactions both for and against it, I would say he was pretty correct in that assumption. Thoughts?

[Ashara]

Interesting to see just how candid he is about the impact the naming convention he chose might have on his short-term sales. And based on reader reactions both for and against it, I would say he was pretty correct in that assumption. Thoughts?

Heh, I appreciate that you actually asked the man

No, for me it is definetly not something that would not affect my "buy" vs "not buy" decision at all. I'd say that Book 2 *was* the descisive factor - I was considering buying after Book 1, but dropped the idea after Book 2-nd, in fact, have not yet mustered myself to read Book 3, after I have seen certain spoilers indicating that Kellhus and Co is going to win. The anticipation of them loosing and all getting killed would have been the only thing that atrtracted me by the end of Book 2.

Bakker is not alone in his attempts to use queer lettering in order to seek authenticity. I believe that variability of languages extends far beyond latin script with a few umlauts and circumflexes, and that one either needs to try to create the whole language a-la Tolkien, or use the basic language the book is written in to transcribe every name.

Otherwise, it reminds me a wonderful movie "Kin-Dza-dza", when a character starts asking an alien he just met if he speaks French or German in those laguages, and the alien replies: "Why does this men speak languages the continuations of which he does not know?"

The result in my view is not authenticity, it is pretenciousness and inconvenience.

Speaking of names... "Prosha" is about the worst choice for a Princely character to a Russian ear... It sounds like a parrots' or an extreme hilly-billy name. I was laughing every time I saw it, especially compared to the 'exotic' Proyas. It is a nickname from a completely rustic Prokhor, which is not usually used to name children nowadays, because it is not considered particulary beautiful.

[Larry.]

First of all, you're welcome It was good to hear from him again, even if the rest of the talk was about my job situation

As to what you said above: I don't think it's pretentiousness. He had a difficult decision to make (one which he believes may have hurt his overall sales) when deciding upon the names. He apparently thought that using Anglicized names (oddly enough, my name is an Anglicized form of an extremely ancient Irish clan, so I'm sensitive on this matter, I suppose ) detracted from the sense of 'otherness' he wanted to create in his world. But yet, as he himself says, there are certain parallels to historic civilizations in his writing - Nansur with the Byzantines, Thousand Temples with the Vatican, the Norsirai with the Celts, etc. He chose to give his characters names that reflected these cultural heritages.

While sometimes the names might invoke unintentional laughter (for a point of comparison, although I believe it's intentional, reference Erikson's Cult of D'rek with the Yiddish ), I think it was a conscious choice after debates on the pros and cons. For some, the names work, for others it didn't. But I wonder what the reaction would have been if Biblical naming conventions had been used instead, like he mentioned above?

But at least we know the Bakker isn't criticizing those who don't take to the names, just acknowleding that he made the choice for his own view of 'authenticity' of names to created cultures. Maybe someone should be brave enough to ask Goodkind where he derives his names?

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

But at least we know the Bakker isn't criticizing those who don't take to the names, just acknowleding that he made the choice for his own view of 'authenticity' of names to created cultures. Maybe someone should be brave enough to ask Goodkind where he derives his names?

Yeah, funny thing is, no one calls Tolkien pretentious for his odd naming system that he developed for his made-up culture, but Bakker is pretentious? Am I sensing a double-standard here? Who knows.

[Larry.]

I wouldn't go that far - Tolkien created the language with the story, a full working language. There aren't example given of long passages in the various languages to which Bakker refers to in his story - which I think is part of the point Ashara is trying to make. I could be wrong, though.

[Mackaxx]

Wow, bloody nerds and their pedantic ways. Arguing over names, and pronunciation?

Seems when an author gets up someones nose, they will jump on any negative bandwagon, no matter how silly.

Bakkers names arn't hard. You arn't reading it aloud anyway, so, who cares.

[Ashara]

Yeah, funny thing is, no one calls Tolkien pretentious for his odd naming system that he developed for his made-up culture, but Bakker is pretentious? Am I sensing a double-standard here? Who knows.

I wouldn't go that far - Tolkien created the language with the story, a full working language. There aren't example given of long passages in the various languages to which Bakker refers to in his story - which I think is part of the point Ashara is trying to make. I could be wrong, though.

It was part of my point, yes. Tolkien did a mind-boggling groundwork in order to have his names mean something in the context of his books. I think that every other author in fantasy who followed, (along with the million and three teenage girls writing their Elven or Last-of-Her-Race Mary Sues) the suit just did the cosmetic usage of “borrowed†symbols. This is what I call pretentious.

Martin was saying that when he needs another word in High Valyrian he’ll invent it. Well, at least the man is honest about it. Earlier in this thread there was a lovely parody of Martin’s passage where some of the names used the “cewl†but unnecessary spelling adornments. Did it look anything but ridiculous? To me it did, and I am glad that Martin walked around the trap of the false exotism.

Another author I’d reference here is Kay who does not use queer lettering, but the names match the settings and cover a wide variety of cultures. Does Kay look any less authentic for skipping the meaningless umlauts and circumflexes?