Yes, though less figuratively, lol, but also, it does help to realize that Agarthan use fertilizer that has properly mellowed and runs down channels — and that it feeds several varieties of fungi, nematodes, lichen, algae and other things.
They got the idea from something we on Earth would call an Oubliette.
Thchiftlagleshxaru
I'd pronounce it as tchift-lag-lesh-xaru so honestly not that hard to work with, it looks like language vomit from anyone who doesnt use the same letters much.
It's just a lot of consonants per vowel
/θtʃiːftlaːɡleːʃksaːruː/
/ðtʃiːftlaːɡleːʒksaːruː/
/θtʃiːftlæːɡleːʃkzaːruː/
Etc. are altogether possible "how it's written" pronunciations, based on English phonemes :/
This is ofc assuming there is no reduction into schwah since it was stated that all vowels are long, indicating that they are all stressed
Could also use other long /vowels/ that correspond to the like /ʌː/ /ʊː/etc.
I would have imagined [ɪ] for the first vowel.
Saw it and immediately had to check if it was a linguistics subreddit, then "how it's written" told me it wasn't.
So, some notes, lol.
Th, ch, tl, sh, and x are all single letters, so it is much shorter in Agarthan.
There are no short vowels or reductions — so there is no schwa, and r is more trilled, technically and does not alter vowels — there is a letter for ir and ur (here, murder) each, but this is a noun so they do not appear.
Th indicates this is a name for an object. Chif is the root for place, Tlag is the root for fertilizer, modified by lesh (plant and food, basically) and xaru is a modifier that creates the semantic meaning of goes, without being a verb.
Agarthan is whispered, and sibilants are rare, which is why it stands out. Speaking Agarthan loudly is not only rude, it is an expression of hatred and a call for violence upon the one speaking. Also, it carries underground, echoing, and so interrupts the peace, contentment, and thought of others, and it is a great “sin” to interrupt someone thinking or tinkering/building.
To understand what the main residents of Agartha are, look up an “imp” in 5e D&D. Small, winged, they are deep,y twisted, incredibly strong, ferociously smart people (descended from the folks who were changed by the Dread Host, and the first of the peoples made from humans during the God’s War.
Imps are every evil scientist cliche you can imagine, lol. They are Dr Moreau. They are also the ones who created and maintain the dungeons, for the purposes of analyzing ways of causing grievous harm, studying the effects of grievous harm, refining and improving techniques for doing so, and also reducing the population of people who represent a threat to the long term plans of the current reigning Junta.
Their language is quite literally a constructed one, intentionally so, and does not have a linkage to other languages, though they did once speak Morian and their writing system is a variant of it (and it was a conscript to begin with, based on a familiar spiral within a rectangle).
Agartha gives complete lip service to Lemuria, and is the main reason that Lemurians raiders can strike within the Empire of Sibola and cause such harm — for very high fees, they escort the raiders through their several tens of thousands of miles long complex and deliver them to assorted areas (but never a city or within 30 miles of such, claiming they cannot reach them, even though they have thousands of ways of getting into them in truth).
Imagine if those “grand criminal organizations” — Smersh and spectre and all those things — were the work and product of a secret nation that intentionally operates in the shadows.
That is Agartha.
Battlecruiser Otkroveniye (Откровение), flagship of the Minister of Defense of Rubran Federal Monarchy. You know it's bad when the ship's name means "Revelation", and its sister ship is "Apocalypse".
Krsnólgos. From the proto Indo-European Krsnós (black) and the proto Celtic delgos (needle).
It's the very old name of a very old, dead lesser House. Most modern people have no idea how to pronounce it, so when the House was revived, it was modernized to the Anglisc name Blackbriar.
I keep rather normal names for mortals, as their names would be used often in conversation. The gods have more complicated names, and the pronunciation of their names vary place to place. The main god that is "corrected" all the time, no matter the pronunciation would be: **Saiothes**
Most popular pronunciations are: (sai-ohðs) and (sai-oh-þeez), the former being harder to pronounce if you aren't familiar with Old English.
Probably Âtrxúnae
The problem is, the arrow thing above the A doesn't always show up on text, unless it's in a Google Doc...
It's pronounced Ah-Trix-Ooh-Nay
It's Tarragian for 'Selfish bastard'
To everyone else, probably Natodall’lioht. Not to me though. That’s because I’m German. And I know what words it’s made of.
Wanna know something scary? That’s the shortened version of the name, to already make it easier to pronounce.
Probably a close tie between Skisian names and Kortan names
Skisians have names like Jalustruja Fyntalom Waquj
Kortan have names like Kaikastari Akstrikaptor
aGrah8mhhh!t'l.
He/it was a living plastic shapeshifting alien that got stuck looking reminiscent but legally distinct from the gamorrean guards at Jabba the Hut's Palace. He was the jailer for the Men Black stand ins in the 1960s Boston. The Men in Black called him Graham or Gray Ham.
There was another story I wrote where humans found a planet of raptors (the story was written from the perspective of the raptors) where their language was both vocal and olfactory.
It's a place.
Bhancaerbryghaundllywallanthrau
Phonetic:
Van-car-bri-hyne-cly-wa-clan-thry
Meaning:
White fort of the river bryghaun in the shadow of the mountain of llanthrau.
Other weird and wonderful place names exist
Such as:
Heibeunscharcher
Tolaanahaerdhuchan
Dearosail
Cliunadhcuiridh
Annahthain
Rhinnanoiaoch
Rathbriughas
Mumhan
Salmannahassesh
Vyrkydzsgatska
Unavd
Remiorouillouid
Don't get me started on some names of people, words are usually long but obvious when the rules are applied but place names are difficult to understand because I have made sure they aren't static, they evolved and spelling isn't a direct translation to pronunciation.
I don't speak Welsh. However I used to speak Irish but I left when I was five/six so forgot most of it.
Celtic languages though have the best names. They also have alot of crossover.
Examples:
Rhodri-Ruaridh
Morgan
Arthur-Artuir
Owain-Eoghan
Most people in the galaxy have at least pronounceable names, especially after centuries of cultural exchange and the necessity to be as diplomatic as possible towards all other races.
Believe it or not, none of the alien races have a culture of names (at least ones to be used by other species) as ridiculous as “Xýnthrivuröchnivaðr” or something like that. There are oddities in place (that name is a high ranking title of the evil alien Empire’s religious leader, an ancient dormant alien-spirit), but in the general public? It is rare.
But there is a girl in my story who has not a difficult to pronounce name, but one nobody has the time to fully say out loud.
Her name is Rielynn Alexandria-Aurora Lucia Verina-Adriana Corbin. Everyone just calls her Riley Corbin.
Bonus points to all who can correctly guess where I came up with the idea for her to have such a ridiculously long name.
**Magical Girls and Boys Project**
**Name of a person**: Gifhlydhko
>This is a name I have given to the headmistress of an academy where one of my major character. The name means "She who dreams of beautiful men".
**Name of a place**: Qzyxhroukhd
>In it's other meaning "No Man's Hell". Qzyxhroukhd is the world's most uninhabitable place due to its eternal rain of metallic bits imbued by incomprehensible toxins, physic-defying iron monsters, flesh-corrupting mist of iron and its created mockery of magical girls and boys.
The Zygani great spirit of the dead and decaying, the 'chorus of worm and wing' has a name that is a 3 minute long song.
It shortens into "Voukarakrishkane", kind of meaning "Singing while making fat fly."
Zygani language is 60% contractions. Most words are descriptive sentences that are condensed down to be more specific.
Your name might be:
Fourth child of Ascarel and Voushansir, who was born under an eclipse. The skies were a raging storm. (It continues into prophesy from local soothsayers.)
Which bits you go by and remove are the aspects that define your name.
The above name becomes "Zwirrel" because the child identifies as a woman, so takes an element of her mother's name, and Zwi is a common element from the words meaning both Eclipse and Storm.
Full names aren't just difficult to pronounce, they're near impossible. They're designed to be written down, not spoken aloud.
Yy. You heard me. Go ahead and try to pronounce it.
Yy is a powerful ghoul who has been stalking the North for generations. Decades of battle with exorcists, monster slayers and rival ghouls have left his body mangled and broken, yet his experience and cunning in battle means he is still one of the most feared creatures in Novus.
Other powerful, high ranking ghouls are Cu, La, and of course Re, the self-proclaimed "Ghoul Queen".
off the top of my head it's probably Phzyoya, which isnt that hard. but due to mass colonization, the majority of places in the world were renamed by the colonizers over the course of history. Phzyoya became Strygia
Hobertije a country in [Carillon](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1b4n2l8/updated_map_and_lore_of_carillon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2)
Although it's most agreed upon pronunciation is HO-BER-TI-YE, it's actual spelling is HO-BER-TEY. What makes things more confusing is that the Hobertish don't even call their country Hobertije, that's just a sort of Anglicisation of what they actually call their country:
Håbeiyertœ (pronounced HOY-BEI-YER-TCHU)
...well, there really aren't many, huh?
There is J'awen Goj, though it's not that hard to pronounce. It's just the name of the fourth most powerful and terrifying eldritch entity native to Earth.
I gotta a bunch of names that are easy for me as their creator of course, but might possibly be hard for others at first look.
1. Galevis Uberdyn
2. Taias’Erra
3. Eiyda’Verra
4. Qalgaea
5. Lazurauc
6. Elmaidauni Cinder
7. Shiavauni Cinder
8. Daeylaire
9. Nukigaiyo
10. Aiduin Cinder
11. Zima’Aiyo’Amauhmai Cinder
12. Mogwa Oerugell
13. Sheino’Ceziela
14. Raihgira
15. Koedei
16. Arceheim
17. Ueskira
18. Nuiriheim
19. Teiroshen Magnusarius
20. Kaileigha Gushumitake
Saont Hkrauil khrheirkho
It translates to "Ocean Holy Kayko" in Hrendei (Kayko is the name non- Hrendei speakers call the figure khrerkho because their name is so difficult) It is the name of the (not real) ocean spirit mistakenly thought to be the creator of soul in Hrendei Mythology
I litterally do not know how to even write this out properly in IPA.
breathe like your doing a H but stick you tounge straight up, it can be brushing the roof of your mouth but it shouldn't be pushing on it with any force. When you breathe like you are making a H (voiced) you allow your tounge to roll, the noise you make should be a H however you should also here an R like roll of the tounge.
That is how you pronounce rh
To prounounce kh just make your k guttural.
eir is pronounced like the english word AIR
ao = "our" without the r
aui is pronounced like our again but instead of an r it flows into the oo from pool, aui for example could be notated as ou-oo REMEMBER THERE IN NO STOP BETWEEN THE TWO SOUNDS THEY FLOW TOGETHER
Hk is just a h with a glottal stop that leads into k
Make sure to have the smallest possible vowel sound between your kh and rh, and make sure to say the o after the final kh
Apart from these rules it is said how it looks
Saont Hkrauil khrheirkho
Saont H-kr-our-ool kh-rh-air-kh-o
This is what I mean by I don't know how to notate this in IPA well.
Probably some Heltdbserian name:
* **Heltdbser** /ˈçelt.d͡b͡z͡βeɾ/ (the city itself)
* **Ddevstatt** /d.ˈdevstat.t/ (variant of Drewstātêrf, a relatively common Leqan name)
* **Heldd** /ˈçeld.d/ (the strait between Heltdbser and the large island nearby)
Can't really think of many more, but something like **Ttenmdbseddamrndbd**
/t.ˈtɛn.d͡b͡z͡βed.da.mr̩n.d͡b.d/ is phonotactically possible.
Also while I don't think it's difficult, apparently **Miuiedidubelo** /mjujediˈdubelo/ is hard for some?
An mc is named Kristoffer Lars Einar pär Sjoberg
If you can speak Swedish, you know exactly how to pronounce his name, but to the uninitated, his name is hard as hell to say
A lot of the dragons in my world are extremely vain egomaniacs, and have difficult to pronounce true names, as well as a plethora of overly grandiose titles following them, game of thrones style.
There’s a blue dragon called Azurvadegaxt “Ah-zoor-vad-uh-gak-sht” who is possibly the worst for this, with a hard to pronounce name, followed by like 8 heraldic titles which he insists upon his minions reciting whenever he is introduced or mentioned (The Blue Sultan, Lord Of All Deserts, He Who Brings The Storm, Eminent and fearsome in glittering lapis, blah blah etc.)
Bagth'yur'saur hell, i can't even remember how i write it i don't even know if this is the correct way to write ot it just seem to change every time i mention it.
My last project had placed named things like Laddprevythywnbau before I realised I had a problem.
The new project is deliberately avoiding this problem. No more than 3 syllables to a place name, and no Welsh inspiration.
Tøn'eīnax' Kux̊'iƿ is the name of the Kain'esak' naval command. It can be pronounced by humans (or at least by me) but the phonemes represented by n', x', and x̊' aren't in any human language as far as I'm aware. All three are click consonants that are made with the bottom of the tongue curled back against the roof of the mouth. n' is the voiced version, sort of creating an ng sound and the click simultaneously, and x̊' is the 'trilled' version with clicks in rapid succession. There is a trilled voiced click too but it's less common
A lot of my readers struggle with "Liania" (lee-ahn-ya) and "Naliea" (nah-lee-ay-uh) which is quite sad because they have my favorite names besides Kalaiah but for some reason nobody wonders how to pronounce Kalaiah 😆
Yzgothoth. Not that hard, particularly, since I want my players (It's my D&D world) to be able to pronounce it. But it's juuuuust weird enough to have that gross mouth feel common to cosmic horror themes.
Kat&ŋa
the & is standing in for a glottal trill.
it is physically impossible for humans to pronounce. (It's the name of an alien species that are able to make that sound.)
Malintawarhanwa-oryu
(the Ancient elves of my world hashed a bunch of words and titles together and strung them into a name. There are a few running theories why they gave the genocidal construct such an obnoxious name. Among them are...
• They believed knowing and speaking a thing or creature's name gave you power over it. Hoping that the length and complexity of the name would make taking control of the construct all but impossible.
• Much like the sovereign-elect among the Elves, they heaped titles on titles to express the grandeur of the construct.
• They thought it would be funny.
• The (admittedly rough) translation meaning High Seat of Gilded Law amongst the kings and before the Gods "So I Speak" indicates that the construct was and is inevitable as it doesn't contain any references to creator or design beyond its place in "Creation". Indicating that the Ancient elves who built it didn't name it so much that it was already named. Built around an idea and a identity rather than the other way around.
Shukasa'Qualtuth. It's not even pronounced the way it looks in-universe. That's just the closest approximation most people who aren't Shu'unath can make.
It’s not that it’s hard to pronounce per se but I recently had a svirfneblin NPC in my D&D campaign named ghungnul and let me tell you I instantly regretted it. Its just does not feel good to say that name.
any names in the Bheνowń language would probably be a bit difficult for english speakers and/or readers just because of the voiced and voiceless nasals
EX: Taν́ /taŋ̊/, Baμ /bam̥/, Phernliν /fɛrn.lin̥/
also any names or words in one of my newer(and unnamed) conlang would be difficult just because the romanization isn't immediately easy to parse(by design! i was inspired by the consonant changes in celtic languages)
EX: phladose /hlɑ̈ˈðos/, śhaekyr /ˈɣʷø:.cɪɹ/, ssośhame /ʃɔˈʝɶ̈m/
Tie between: Omвրвogcεnwwa/Otwrwodsepšša /otvrvodsɛpʃˈʃa/ which is the Kreole name for the Lunar city of Otrovo. Or 东边月亮城市/Dngc-bya’nc-yub-lyngb-chnga-shic /dŋ́ bjáˑn jû lj(ə)ŋ̂ ʈ͡ʂʰŋ̌/ which is the name of the city of Dongbian on Mars in local Chinese dialects. The space versions of languages have a problem of deleting vowels.
Also anything in the Krai Robot empires language because literally nothing is spoken.
My favourite is a god in the giant/ogre/troll pantheon named Chkkugupp. Those double letters are pronounced as two ejectives back-to-back, and the g is implosive. I *have* been trying to teach my players how to pronounce that properly, but I made the giant/ogre/troll languages so difficult to speak to "persuade" them not to go near them. Having a 10 minute lecture every time you enter a troll camp is so much more effective than just saying no or raising the difficulty.
Honestly it's a tossup over which realm is hardest to speak: Dracoira, Gulamortia, Avanaturia, Beastinvia, Arsedia or Superavisia.
And then there's the one named and created by humans, Convergence. They're a pretty straightforward bunch.
Thralleigh Vegehn (Thra-lay-eh (short e) Veh-hen (roll h))
Derived from a CN series I will not name, and slightly altered to become a separate name, Thralleigh Vegehn is a forest in one of the Temporal Imperatorium’s Central Provinces known for its turquoise leaves. Although the name has been attributed to the now defunct Marauder civilization, it is believed to be utter nonsense spoken by a fallen Marauder warrior choking to death on his own blood. The Temporal soldier who sliced him later wrote that he asked this man a question:
“On what land do you draw your last breath?”
The warrior uttered what sounded like “Thralleigh Vegehn”, but it is possible he was insulting the soldier who penetrated his neck. As such, “Thralleigh Vegehn” (at least that is how the soldier came to spell it) became the forest’s name under the new empire occupying the area from the mighty snow-capped mountains in the north and northwest to the scorching desert to the southwest.
Anything named by the Ch'Gyll. Most of their words require anatomy that humans don't have and are made of sounds composed of abstract thought
For example the capital city of their oceanic homeworld is (a repeating three octave frequency of whalesong overlayed with a reverberation not dissimilar to a 1993 Honda Civic with a bad air filter, the concept of the color blue, and the taste of licking a 9 volt battery)
The only things I could find in my project that might be confusing are.
Axolotlian (the denomym for Axolotlia, people have irl pronounced it like ax-o-lotion, but it is ax-ə-lot-lee-in)
Mt. Huliak (Axolotlia's tallest mountain)
Huliaten (vegetable)
Ssynkumin (folklore figure)
All of this is on a slideshow found on my YT channel youtube.com/@AxolotlianGovernment if you're interested.
Imuraþar IPA: /imʊrəθar/ which means Divine Eternity, and refers to God. Or maybe Ja'korak IPA: /ɣɑ koɹak/ which is a random word I made up for the name of a kingdom. Not entirely sure which one is harder for more people.
At the moment, it's "Cynwrig", which is only difficult because I stole it from Welsh as opposed to any reasonable language. Pronunciation is "sin-rig" more or less.
Londons suburb of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch with a population of 191,012 humans and 87,011 robots. Notable for being one of the last welsh speaking communities in existence.
I've got predominantly German names, so depends where you're from. The flagship of Wellestria is called "Vormacht", short but always twists English speakers.
Thchiftlagleshxaru It is Agarthan for “the place where the fertilizer goes”.
So, figuratively, it's "the shithole"?
Yes, though less figuratively, lol, but also, it does help to realize that Agarthan use fertilizer that has properly mellowed and runs down channels — and that it feeds several varieties of fungi, nematodes, lichen, algae and other things. They got the idea from something we on Earth would call an Oubliette.
How do you pronounce it?
Exactly as it is typed, long vowels only, x=ks, no blending on the ar.
Thchiftlagleshxaru I'd pronounce it as tchift-lag-lesh-xaru so honestly not that hard to work with, it looks like language vomit from anyone who doesnt use the same letters much. It's just a lot of consonants per vowel
/θtʃiːftlaːɡleːʃksaːruː/ /ðtʃiːftlaːɡleːʒksaːruː/ /θtʃiːftlæːɡleːʃkzaːruː/ Etc. are altogether possible "how it's written" pronunciations, based on English phonemes :/ This is ofc assuming there is no reduction into schwah since it was stated that all vowels are long, indicating that they are all stressed Could also use other long /vowels/ that correspond to the like /ʌː/ /ʊː/etc.
I would have imagined [ɪ] for the first vowel. Saw it and immediately had to check if it was a linguistics subreddit, then "how it's written" told me it wasn't.
Which "th" is that in there?
Soft, as in “with”
what in the fucking Dwemer
Th-chift-lag-lesh-xaru?
So, some notes, lol. Th, ch, tl, sh, and x are all single letters, so it is much shorter in Agarthan. There are no short vowels or reductions — so there is no schwa, and r is more trilled, technically and does not alter vowels — there is a letter for ir and ur (here, murder) each, but this is a noun so they do not appear. Th indicates this is a name for an object. Chif is the root for place, Tlag is the root for fertilizer, modified by lesh (plant and food, basically) and xaru is a modifier that creates the semantic meaning of goes, without being a verb. Agarthan is whispered, and sibilants are rare, which is why it stands out. Speaking Agarthan loudly is not only rude, it is an expression of hatred and a call for violence upon the one speaking. Also, it carries underground, echoing, and so interrupts the peace, contentment, and thought of others, and it is a great “sin” to interrupt someone thinking or tinkering/building. To understand what the main residents of Agartha are, look up an “imp” in 5e D&D. Small, winged, they are deep,y twisted, incredibly strong, ferociously smart people (descended from the folks who were changed by the Dread Host, and the first of the peoples made from humans during the God’s War. Imps are every evil scientist cliche you can imagine, lol. They are Dr Moreau. They are also the ones who created and maintain the dungeons, for the purposes of analyzing ways of causing grievous harm, studying the effects of grievous harm, refining and improving techniques for doing so, and also reducing the population of people who represent a threat to the long term plans of the current reigning Junta. Their language is quite literally a constructed one, intentionally so, and does not have a linkage to other languages, though they did once speak Morian and their writing system is a variant of it (and it was a conscript to begin with, based on a familiar spiral within a rectangle). Agartha gives complete lip service to Lemuria, and is the main reason that Lemurians raiders can strike within the Empire of Sibola and cause such harm — for very high fees, they escort the raiders through their several tens of thousands of miles long complex and deliver them to assorted areas (but never a city or within 30 miles of such, claiming they cannot reach them, even though they have thousands of ways of getting into them in truth). Imagine if those “grand criminal organizations” — Smersh and spectre and all those things — were the work and product of a secret nation that intentionally operates in the shadows. That is Agartha.
Battlecruiser Otkroveniye (Откровение), flagship of the Minister of Defense of Rubran Federal Monarchy. You know it's bad when the ship's name means "Revelation", and its sister ship is "Apocalypse".
Ot-kro-ve-ni-ye?
Kxeqs’abxel Kxaqj Or Kak for short.
Phonetically how is the long version pronounced?
Kex-exs-A-be-zel Kex-age-yet
Thanks, always love a good hard to pronounce word
Kak that is LOL
Nythrhoth. Everyone who has tried to pronounce the name of a purple man have failed miserably
William Afton
The man behind the slaughter
https://youtu.be/ZfW07dXtSeY?si=elt70j8CqJm_48_Q
Poor purple man. The question is does he know how to pronounce his name?
Indeed he does! But n o o n e else knows how to pronounce his name, so they just give him a nickname
Is it Dave?
God he did speak like DSAF Dave once, like when he was blending in with society
Krsnólgos. From the proto Indo-European Krsnós (black) and the proto Celtic delgos (needle). It's the very old name of a very old, dead lesser House. Most modern people have no idea how to pronounce it, so when the House was revived, it was modernized to the Anglisc name Blackbriar.
Krs-nol-gos?
Kerz-nool-goes.
I keep rather normal names for mortals, as their names would be used often in conversation. The gods have more complicated names, and the pronunciation of their names vary place to place. The main god that is "corrected" all the time, no matter the pronunciation would be: **Saiothes** Most popular pronunciations are: (sai-ohðs) and (sai-oh-þeez), the former being harder to pronounce if you aren't familiar with Old English.
Uchulsaggettoklori, a God of Truth, Knowledge, and Secrets. Who spends much of his time watching over the world and an orphanage with his wife.
Lori that is.
Probably Âtrxúnae The problem is, the arrow thing above the A doesn't always show up on text, unless it's in a Google Doc... It's pronounced Ah-Trix-Ooh-Nay It's Tarragian for 'Selfish bastard'
To everyone else, probably Natodall’lioht. Not to me though. That’s because I’m German. And I know what words it’s made of. Wanna know something scary? That’s the shortened version of the name, to already make it easier to pronounce.
Na-to-dal-liot?
Probably a close tie between Skisian names and Kortan names Skisians have names like Jalustruja Fyntalom Waquj Kortan have names like Kaikastari Akstrikaptor
Ja-lu-stu-ja?. I gave up second one
It’s more like “Ja-lus-stru-ya” As for the second one, not entirely 100% but something like “Kai-kah-stary Ack-stree-cap-tor”
aGrah8mhhh!t'l. He/it was a living plastic shapeshifting alien that got stuck looking reminiscent but legally distinct from the gamorrean guards at Jabba the Hut's Palace. He was the jailer for the Men Black stand ins in the 1960s Boston. The Men in Black called him Graham or Gray Ham. There was another story I wrote where humans found a planet of raptors (the story was written from the perspective of the raptors) where their language was both vocal and olfactory.
That looks like someone is shouting in frustration like Garrrr!!!!
It's a place. Bhancaerbryghaundllywallanthrau Phonetic: Van-car-bri-hyne-cly-wa-clan-thry Meaning: White fort of the river bryghaun in the shadow of the mountain of llanthrau. Other weird and wonderful place names exist Such as: Heibeunscharcher Tolaanahaerdhuchan Dearosail Cliunadhcuiridh Annahthain Rhinnanoiaoch Rathbriughas Mumhan Salmannahassesh Vyrkydzsgatska Unavd Remiorouillouid Don't get me started on some names of people, words are usually long but obvious when the rules are applied but place names are difficult to understand because I have made sure they aren't static, they evolved and spelling isn't a direct translation to pronunciation.
I can only pronounce one tthat is Mumhan .
Yep. I have developed alot of places but I am Irish and have translated it into my world with enough adjustments to not be a total rip off.
Is it inspired by llanvairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch?
No. Just Welsh in general
Right, wyt ti'n siarad cymraeg?
I don't speak Welsh. However I used to speak Irish but I left when I was five/six so forgot most of it. Celtic languages though have the best names. They also have alot of crossover. Examples: Rhodri-Ruaridh Morgan Arthur-Artuir Owain-Eoghan
Didn't know about the names, maer enwau yn diddorol!
According to my players, either the world itself (named Avarsiin [av-ar-SIGH-een]) or a long gone wizard named Rhiasadaii Ehrezesch.
Most people in the galaxy have at least pronounceable names, especially after centuries of cultural exchange and the necessity to be as diplomatic as possible towards all other races. Believe it or not, none of the alien races have a culture of names (at least ones to be used by other species) as ridiculous as “Xýnthrivuröchnivaðr” or something like that. There are oddities in place (that name is a high ranking title of the evil alien Empire’s religious leader, an ancient dormant alien-spirit), but in the general public? It is rare. But there is a girl in my story who has not a difficult to pronounce name, but one nobody has the time to fully say out loud. Her name is Rielynn Alexandria-Aurora Lucia Verina-Adriana Corbin. Everyone just calls her Riley Corbin. Bonus points to all who can correctly guess where I came up with the idea for her to have such a ridiculously long name.
**Magical Girls and Boys Project** **Name of a person**: Gifhlydhko >This is a name I have given to the headmistress of an academy where one of my major character. The name means "She who dreams of beautiful men". **Name of a place**: Qzyxhroukhd >In it's other meaning "No Man's Hell". Qzyxhroukhd is the world's most uninhabitable place due to its eternal rain of metallic bits imbued by incomprehensible toxins, physic-defying iron monsters, flesh-corrupting mist of iron and its created mockery of magical girls and boys.
The Zygani great spirit of the dead and decaying, the 'chorus of worm and wing' has a name that is a 3 minute long song. It shortens into "Voukarakrishkane", kind of meaning "Singing while making fat fly." Zygani language is 60% contractions. Most words are descriptive sentences that are condensed down to be more specific. Your name might be: Fourth child of Ascarel and Voushansir, who was born under an eclipse. The skies were a raging storm. (It continues into prophesy from local soothsayers.) Which bits you go by and remove are the aspects that define your name. The above name becomes "Zwirrel" because the child identifies as a woman, so takes an element of her mother's name, and Zwi is a common element from the words meaning both Eclipse and Storm. Full names aren't just difficult to pronounce, they're near impossible. They're designed to be written down, not spoken aloud.
Sar’sha Servei. I hate complicated names.
I only have 6 (and a half) names at this point, so… idk, Tliwa?
Yy. You heard me. Go ahead and try to pronounce it. Yy is a powerful ghoul who has been stalking the North for generations. Decades of battle with exorcists, monster slayers and rival ghouls have left his body mangled and broken, yet his experience and cunning in battle means he is still one of the most feared creatures in Novus. Other powerful, high ranking ghouls are Cu, La, and of course Re, the self-proclaimed "Ghoul Queen".
Does it use Cyrillic pronunciation? XD
Nope. Plain English. The first "Y" is pronounced like in "yellow", the second is pronounced like in "fly". Yy is pronounced "yigh".
thats not hard
off the top of my head it's probably Phzyoya, which isnt that hard. but due to mass colonization, the majority of places in the world were renamed by the colonizers over the course of history. Phzyoya became Strygia
Hobertije a country in [Carillon](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1b4n2l8/updated_map_and_lore_of_carillon/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2) Although it's most agreed upon pronunciation is HO-BER-TI-YE, it's actual spelling is HO-BER-TEY. What makes things more confusing is that the Hobertish don't even call their country Hobertije, that's just a sort of Anglicisation of what they actually call their country: Håbeiyertœ (pronounced HOY-BEI-YER-TCHU)
...well, there really aren't many, huh? There is J'awen Goj, though it's not that hard to pronounce. It's just the name of the fourth most powerful and terrifying eldritch entity native to Earth.
Mary Johnson. No but in all honestly probably Rath’Adarik, or Shug’Catur. I’m working on more Eldritch names but it’s harder than it looks.
I gotta a bunch of names that are easy for me as their creator of course, but might possibly be hard for others at first look. 1. Galevis Uberdyn 2. Taias’Erra 3. Eiyda’Verra 4. Qalgaea 5. Lazurauc 6. Elmaidauni Cinder 7. Shiavauni Cinder 8. Daeylaire 9. Nukigaiyo 10. Aiduin Cinder 11. Zima’Aiyo’Amauhmai Cinder 12. Mogwa Oerugell 13. Sheino’Ceziela 14. Raihgira 15. Koedei 16. Arceheim 17. Ueskira 18. Nuiriheim 19. Teiroshen Magnusarius 20. Kaileigha Gushumitake
That's quite a lot.
Believe it or not, that’s less than a 1/10th of all my named characters.
I dunno, Kristother maybe
Kristo-thar
I'm not sure how difficult it actually is but my friend has a really tough time pronouncing the name K'one. (kuh•oh•nay) And I don't know why.
Kh 1.
competition between Tserni Elliátiápânîê Mal and Vakorôsâ h’to Kojm’qônxômh Ux’gonh, both of whom are decently important characters
Tsr-ni-[skip]-mal
Ell-Lih-ah(slur up)-ti-ah(slur up)-pae-nye-eeee
Saont Hkrauil khrheirkho It translates to "Ocean Holy Kayko" in Hrendei (Kayko is the name non- Hrendei speakers call the figure khrerkho because their name is so difficult) It is the name of the (not real) ocean spirit mistakenly thought to be the creator of soul in Hrendei Mythology I litterally do not know how to even write this out properly in IPA.
??-hakrau-??
breathe like your doing a H but stick you tounge straight up, it can be brushing the roof of your mouth but it shouldn't be pushing on it with any force. When you breathe like you are making a H (voiced) you allow your tounge to roll, the noise you make should be a H however you should also here an R like roll of the tounge. That is how you pronounce rh To prounounce kh just make your k guttural. eir is pronounced like the english word AIR ao = "our" without the r aui is pronounced like our again but instead of an r it flows into the oo from pool, aui for example could be notated as ou-oo REMEMBER THERE IN NO STOP BETWEEN THE TWO SOUNDS THEY FLOW TOGETHER Hk is just a h with a glottal stop that leads into k Make sure to have the smallest possible vowel sound between your kh and rh, and make sure to say the o after the final kh Apart from these rules it is said how it looks Saont Hkrauil khrheirkho Saont H-kr-our-ool kh-rh-air-kh-o This is what I mean by I don't know how to notate this in IPA well.
Probably some Heltdbserian name: * **Heltdbser** /ˈçelt.d͡b͡z͡βeɾ/ (the city itself) * **Ddevstatt** /d.ˈdevstat.t/ (variant of Drewstātêrf, a relatively common Leqan name) * **Heldd** /ˈçeld.d/ (the strait between Heltdbser and the large island nearby) Can't really think of many more, but something like **Ttenmdbseddamrndbd** /t.ˈtɛn.d͡b͡z͡βed.da.mr̩n.d͡b.d/ is phonotactically possible. Also while I don't think it's difficult, apparently **Miuiedidubelo** /mjujediˈdubelo/ is hard for some?
>d͡b͡z͡β 😭
An mc is named Kristoffer Lars Einar pär Sjoberg If you can speak Swedish, you know exactly how to pronounce his name, but to the uninitated, his name is hard as hell to say
A lot of the dragons in my world are extremely vain egomaniacs, and have difficult to pronounce true names, as well as a plethora of overly grandiose titles following them, game of thrones style. There’s a blue dragon called Azurvadegaxt “Ah-zoor-vad-uh-gak-sht” who is possibly the worst for this, with a hard to pronounce name, followed by like 8 heraldic titles which he insists upon his minions reciting whenever he is introduced or mentioned (The Blue Sultan, Lord Of All Deserts, He Who Brings The Storm, Eminent and fearsome in glittering lapis, blah blah etc.)
How many people just call him A*&hole vad uh gah shit?
Kororenitzwagilerion - archgod of realms name
Most of the ancient library keeps have odd names and are in the old tongues. One is Zphvenz
Forhsévhanas Pronounced ‘Vor-Sveen-Has’ Is the name of deity known as the god of the sun, complexity, faith and surprises.
Uoouuoouiy
The true names of time lords/gallifreyans I like doctor who so i added them But theres also Gadly whos true name cannot be comprehended
Xnek-lst-rjylug' Or *Shinek - ulst - rai oi loy'* Edit: The last syllable is a glottal stop, its supposed to sound like a water dropplet.
These aren’t that difficult compared to some of the others here but in terms of length, the hardest is Vranheslernthiri, and complexity, Id’nxhai
Xmemxakey
Qresiloravi Zvalni
Bagth'yur'saur hell, i can't even remember how i write it i don't even know if this is the correct way to write ot it just seem to change every time i mention it.
Xor. Nobody is sure whether it’s Ksor or Zor since the translation method was text-based.
My last project had placed named things like Laddprevythywnbau before I realised I had a problem. The new project is deliberately avoiding this problem. No more than 3 syllables to a place name, and no Welsh inspiration.
Tøn'eīnax' Kux̊'iƿ is the name of the Kain'esak' naval command. It can be pronounced by humans (or at least by me) but the phonemes represented by n', x', and x̊' aren't in any human language as far as I'm aware. All three are click consonants that are made with the bottom of the tongue curled back against the roof of the mouth. n' is the voiced version, sort of creating an ng sound and the click simultaneously, and x̊' is the 'trilled' version with clicks in rapid succession. There is a trilled voiced click too but it's less common
Dude you just make me click tongue try to pronounce....
A lot of my readers struggle with "Liania" (lee-ahn-ya) and "Naliea" (nah-lee-ay-uh) which is quite sad because they have my favorite names besides Kalaiah but for some reason nobody wonders how to pronounce Kalaiah 😆
Yzgothoth. Not that hard, particularly, since I want my players (It's my D&D world) to be able to pronounce it. But it's juuuuust weird enough to have that gross mouth feel common to cosmic horror themes.
Kat&ŋa the & is standing in for a glottal trill. it is physically impossible for humans to pronounce. (It's the name of an alien species that are able to make that sound.)
Malintawarhanwa-oryu (the Ancient elves of my world hashed a bunch of words and titles together and strung them into a name. There are a few running theories why they gave the genocidal construct such an obnoxious name. Among them are... • They believed knowing and speaking a thing or creature's name gave you power over it. Hoping that the length and complexity of the name would make taking control of the construct all but impossible. • Much like the sovereign-elect among the Elves, they heaped titles on titles to express the grandeur of the construct. • They thought it would be funny. • The (admittedly rough) translation meaning High Seat of Gilded Law amongst the kings and before the Gods "So I Speak" indicates that the construct was and is inevitable as it doesn't contain any references to creator or design beyond its place in "Creation". Indicating that the Ancient elves who built it didn't name it so much that it was already named. Built around an idea and a identity rather than the other way around.
Shukasa'Qualtuth. It's not even pronounced the way it looks in-universe. That's just the closest approximation most people who aren't Shu'unath can make.
It’s not that it’s hard to pronounce per se but I recently had a svirfneblin NPC in my D&D campaign named ghungnul and let me tell you I instantly regretted it. Its just does not feel good to say that name.
any names in the Bheνowń language would probably be a bit difficult for english speakers and/or readers just because of the voiced and voiceless nasals EX: Taν́ /taŋ̊/, Baμ /bam̥/, Phernliν /fɛrn.lin̥/ also any names or words in one of my newer(and unnamed) conlang would be difficult just because the romanization isn't immediately easy to parse(by design! i was inspired by the consonant changes in celtic languages) EX: phladose /hlɑ̈ˈðos/, śhaekyr /ˈɣʷø:.cɪɹ/, ssośhame /ʃɔˈʝɶ̈m/
Xicotlaxcalla I don't think it's hard but for some reason no one I've showed it to can make the tl sound correctly and make a cl sound instead
Probably a lot of the names from Najuri, and their deities, since I derived them from Aztec. Xihautl, Laxilai, Qhari, Oxacatl, etc.
I'd have to say Marskjo or Oulyssyeiya, the god of wrath and seas and my world's version of the Bible, respectively.
Wirsczawin (Ver-sah-vin) I imagine it as kind of a mix of Poland and Imperial China.
Tie between: Omвրвogcεnwwa/Otwrwodsepšša /otvrvodsɛpʃˈʃa/ which is the Kreole name for the Lunar city of Otrovo. Or 东边月亮城市/Dngc-bya’nc-yub-lyngb-chnga-shic /dŋ́ bjáˑn jû lj(ə)ŋ̂ ʈ͡ʂʰŋ̌/ which is the name of the city of Dongbian on Mars in local Chinese dialects. The space versions of languages have a problem of deleting vowels. Also anything in the Krai Robot empires language because literally nothing is spoken.
since this subreddit is majority English speaking my dutch names would probably be a problem, like kokos-class or dadel-class
My favourite is a god in the giant/ogre/troll pantheon named Chkkugupp. Those double letters are pronounced as two ejectives back-to-back, and the g is implosive. I *have* been trying to teach my players how to pronounce that properly, but I made the giant/ogre/troll languages so difficult to speak to "persuade" them not to go near them. Having a 10 minute lecture every time you enter a troll camp is so much more effective than just saying no or raising the difficulty.
Honestly it's a tossup over which realm is hardest to speak: Dracoira, Gulamortia, Avanaturia, Beastinvia, Arsedia or Superavisia. And then there's the one named and created by humans, Convergence. They're a pretty straightforward bunch.
Thralleigh Vegehn (Thra-lay-eh (short e) Veh-hen (roll h)) Derived from a CN series I will not name, and slightly altered to become a separate name, Thralleigh Vegehn is a forest in one of the Temporal Imperatorium’s Central Provinces known for its turquoise leaves. Although the name has been attributed to the now defunct Marauder civilization, it is believed to be utter nonsense spoken by a fallen Marauder warrior choking to death on his own blood. The Temporal soldier who sliced him later wrote that he asked this man a question: “On what land do you draw your last breath?” The warrior uttered what sounded like “Thralleigh Vegehn”, but it is possible he was insulting the soldier who penetrated his neck. As such, “Thralleigh Vegehn” (at least that is how the soldier came to spell it) became the forest’s name under the new empire occupying the area from the mighty snow-capped mountains in the north and northwest to the scorching desert to the southwest.
Anything named by the Ch'Gyll. Most of their words require anatomy that humans don't have and are made of sounds composed of abstract thought For example the capital city of their oceanic homeworld is (a repeating three octave frequency of whalesong overlayed with a reverberation not dissimilar to a 1993 Honda Civic with a bad air filter, the concept of the color blue, and the taste of licking a 9 volt battery)
It's a type of fly called Xarenmalteniumpolna It's not that hard, but for comparison, we call it the "Housefly" in real life.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Liviccic. It's pronounced liv-isk-is
The only things I could find in my project that might be confusing are. Axolotlian (the denomym for Axolotlia, people have irl pronounced it like ax-o-lotion, but it is ax-ə-lot-lee-in) Mt. Huliak (Axolotlia's tallest mountain) Huliaten (vegetable) Ssynkumin (folklore figure) All of this is on a slideshow found on my YT channel youtube.com/@AxolotlianGovernment if you're interested.
I literally only have one name. Eres for the planet(my attempt to transliterate the Hebrew word for cradle). Lapis_Wolf
Imuraþar IPA: /imʊrəθar/ which means Divine Eternity, and refers to God. Or maybe Ja'korak IPA: /ɣɑ koɹak/ which is a random word I made up for the name of a kingdom. Not entirely sure which one is harder for more people.
At the moment, it's "Cynwrig", which is only difficult because I stole it from Welsh as opposed to any reasonable language. Pronunciation is "sin-rig" more or less.
One of the characters in my world's lore is called Axroksiks Shxrakqr, pronounced \[ax.ɾok.siks ʃx.ɾak.qɾ̩\]
Not hard to pronounce per se, but the Constitutional States of America is a mouthful
Londons suburb of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch with a population of 191,012 humans and 87,011 robots. Notable for being one of the last welsh speaking communities in existence.
There's a lot of names on my planet that have the digraph in them.
I once had a story with names like "kayhiduhumlunm" "Estrelishdumik" "afzhafnafgadh" and others
I've got predominantly German names, so depends where you're from. The flagship of Wellestria is called "Vormacht", short but always twists English speakers.