Elantris Pronunciations.

[KalSeon]

Hi all,

This is my first post, and I made this account to ask this spoiler-free question about Elantris. But first, a little context.

I have been listening to Elantris while at work through spotify. Yesterday, I got an email that I had apparently ran out of hours with my premium subscription. I had no idea that was a thing, as Elantris is the first book I have ever listened to on spotify.  I have listened to almost all of the first half of the book so I'm now invested. The only way to continue was to buy more hours, or buy the audiobook. For me, I'd rather have a physical copy than buy an audiobook but I am enjoying Mr. Garret's narration so I wanted to keep listening to this version of the audiobook. I decided to check out audible and signed up for a free trial of the service. I was able to keep listening to it through audible, but I noticed something odd between the spotify and audible versions of Elantris. Keep in mind that these are the exact same audio book. 

What I noticed, and which makes the basis of this post and my inquiry, is that for some reason the main characters names are pronounced slightly different in the audible edition from the spotify version. Not enough to be drastic but enough for me notice right away and question it. 

Does anyone have any idea why these names would be pronounced differently? Despite being the same narrator, and the same exact audio book, just on different services? 

Thanks for any help you can provide,

-KalSeon

[Treamayne]

On 6/21/2024 at 12:37 PM, KalSeon said:

I have been listening to Elantris while at work through spotify. Yesterday, I got an email that I had apparently ran out of hours with my premium subscription. I had no idea that was a thing, as Elantris is the first book I have ever listened to on spotify.  I have listened to almost all of the first half of the book so I'm now invested. The only way to continue was to buy more hours, or buy the audiobook. For me, I'd rather have a physical copy than buy an audiobook but I am enjoying Mr. Garret's narration so I wanted to keep listening to this version of the audiobook. I decided to check out audible and signed up for a free trial of the service. I was able to keep listening to it through audible, but I noticed something odd between the spotify and audible versions of Elantris. Keep in mind that these are the exact same audio book. 

I can't really speak to Audiobooks, since I do not listen to them. However, I can point out that you can read about the "correct" pronunciations on Sanderson's website:

• Elantris (links to all available resources)
• Glossary
• Pronunciation Guide (Spoiler Free)
• Languages of Elantris (Spoilers)

Excerpt:

Spoiler

List of Aon vowels:
A = a as in ‘bake’
E = e as in ‘eat’ or a as in ‘bake.’ (See below.)
I = i as in ‘bike’ (A double i Aon pronounces both long i sounds. See below.)
O = o as in ‘boat’
U = There are no ‘u’ sounds in Aons.

Every other vowel should be pronounced in short form without a stress.

A note on ‘E’ sounds in Aonic. The only exception to the rule includes words written with ‘e’ in the Aon. In English, ‘e’ can often produce a long ‘a’ sound. So, I wrote many long ‘a’ sounds with ‘e’s. This was a device I used to try and make the names look better and have a chance of being pronounced more accurately. Note the examples in names below.

Common Aonic Names
Raoden = RAY-Oh-den
Sarene = sa-RAY-Nay (or sa-REE-Nee, if you want to get technical.)
Elantris = EE-Layn-tris (Though most people say el-lan-tris, which is fine.)
Kiin = KYE-Eye-n
Teod = TAY-Ohd
Arelon = ah-RAY-Lone
Daorn =DAY-Ohrn
Kaise =KAY-Ice
Ahan = AY-Hayn
Roial = ROH-Eye-al

It's very similar to Tagalog actually, where every vowel is pronounced - almost no dipthongs (if the word is Aonic and using a base Aon for the word). 

I say "Correct" above, because even Brandon says each person's head-canon should take precedence:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Interestingly, I’ve never annotated about Sarene's nickname before. Only her father uses it, and when Moshe read the draft, he had trouble understanding how to get 'Ene from Sarene. That's probably because he, like most people, pronounced her name like the word serene. That's all right–I don't really mind how people pronounce the names in my books. When I read, I see a name, come up with a pronunciation in my head, then go with that from there on. Nothing can convince me that I'm pronouncing it wrong, not even the author him/herself. (Even still, the names of Anne McCaffery's dragons are jumbled, meaningless noises in my mind. That seemed right at the time.)

Anyway, if you're interested, there's a pronunciation guide for Elantris on the site. Sarene's nickname comes from the Aon in her name: Aon Ene. While in our world, we tend to choose nicknames based on the first syllable of a name, nicknames in Arelish come from from the Aon. Since Sarene's Aon comes late in her name, that's where the nickname comes from. "Ene," by the way, is pronounced "Ay-nay."

Elantris Annotations (Dec. 3, 2005)

Hope that helps

[Malim he/him]

I have seen this with a few different audio books on different services myself.  Same narrator, same book, but slight differences.  I don't know for sure, but I suspect that they are different recordings due to "reasons".  I think that the different services or narrators sometimes have to make different recordings of the same book due to contracts or copyright issues.  I have no proof, and the reasons might not be right, but I have seen it often enough to wonder myself.

To the main point, though, Brandon has said that he gives pronunciations permission to be head canon for whoever reads them.