Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

On Pronunciation:

—Aes Sedai: "I said eye."

—Nynaeve: "Nine eve".

—Faile: "FAI-eel".

—Tear: not "tire".

I personally didn't think (idiot me) to ask any questions regarding specific events. But at the first signing I was in a hurry, and at the second one me and a friend held up the line for a few minutes because RJ talked to us in answer to my friend's question about pronunciation and names and I joined in, and we had a fun chat about how the WoT was meant to be read out loud until RJ realised how long the line was and quickly signed our books and let us go. Giving me no chance to ask extra questions.

And I couldn't even hang around, because I had to go fairly soon anyway.

--

Raf Kaplan

Well, that's it for now. I'm off to bed, ready to see him tomorrow.

I'm going to try and get him to pronounce the names of the Forsaken (I got corrected on my Ishamael pronunciation!) and record them on the tape. Maybe a few other character names or things as well.

All right, good night all. I'll have a full transcript up as soon as I can.

Cheers, Joel.

Audience

Robert Jordan

Audience

Robert Jordan

Audience

Robert Jordan

Audience

Robert Jordan

Questions: He again as in the other signing took around 25 minutes for questions after giving a brief expose on the correct pronunciation of various names and places. A note to female fans: He specifically stopped taking questions for a minute to encourage them to participate in the forum. When asked the age-old question about how long until the next book he quipped that it would be released very shortly after he had finished writing it, and that he could not help it if we were greedy. Another question he was about which character he was most like, and he answered that while his wife thinks he is Loial "in toto" he said that Lan is the character who has the traits he aspires for, and Perrin is the most like him, although he at times acted a lot like Mat as a young man. Other questions were much the same as the other signings and did not shed a great deal of light on anything new.

Hey all,

The signing at Bailey's Crossroads in Northern Virgina was awesome. Well over 200 people came out to meet the man whose series we all very much enjoy debating/arguing/considering/contemplating. Again, RJ did the whole thing about pronunciation and told us all that someone somewhere had puzzled out the Asmodean mystery... but wouldn't tell us the sleuth or the solution.

Most people seemed to be uninterested in asking questions about WoT while he signed... though there were some interesting discussions in line. I did manage to get one question in toward the end.

Question

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

Question

Robert Jordan

Harriet McDougal

Robert Jordan

Question

Harriet McDougal

Question

Harriet McDougal

Question

Robert Jordan

On a lighter note, I understand that some of you are unhappy with the pronunciation of Taim's name.

Sorry, guys, but it is tah-EEM, not tame. Never tame. Not that one. In the same vein, Shaido is shah-EE-doh, not SHY-doh.

For a few others that I understand some folks have trouble with:

Siuan—swan.

Demandred—deh-MAN-drehd.

Seanchan—SHAWN-chan.

Seandar—SHAWN-dahr.

Moiraine—mwah-RAIN.

Mandragoran—man-drah-GORE-ahn.

He showed up about ten minutes late and went through his normal pronunciation spiel looking slightly perturbed. He then reiterated the answers for what have seemed to become the most oft-asked questions this time around: Book twelve will be done when he’s finished with it, it will be last one no matter what, Infinity of Heaven is the next thing he’s doing, the two WoT prequels will be done at some point in the future, and that he’s come up with an idea for a trilogy of “outrigger” novels in the WoT world, but that he has to let it stew for a few years before he decides on doing it.

Then, probably because he arrived late, he skipped the Q&A and went straight to signing. Somewhat disappointing, as the event was billed as a Q&A / Signing, and the Q&A was the main reason I went in the first place. I would have liked to just hear him talk for a little bit.

I believe Moridin was...okay, in The Gathering Storm, he was in his own dream. He at least believes he was in his own dream, and he is usually right on things like that. And in The Eye of the World, he...I believe it was their dreams that he was controlling. But...

Terez

That's difficult to do.

Brandon Sanderson

That's very difficult to do....so I could be wrong on that. It's easier to pull someone into your own dreams, but it's easier to influence multiple dreams from the outside. So...does that make sense?

Terez

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

So, since he's doing it to all three of them, that makes me believe he was actually controlling their dreams. I'm pretty sure on that one, Terez. [Cut discussion of the pronunciation of Terez.] I could be wrong...but my understanding of the mechanics is that since they're all dreaming the same thing, that it's external, much as a lot of the Forsaken have been not warding their dreams through the early parts of the books, and causing people to dream lots of weird things, and share dreams. Ishamael was doing that intentionally...doing something similar. Does that make sense?

Terez

Right, and it also has to do with his ability to find ta'veren.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Footnote—Terez

In my reread I noticed in A Crown of Swords Chapter 10, "Unseen Eyes", that Egwene says it's possible for a Dreamer to pull someone out of their dreams into a dream of her own making in Tel'aran'rhiod; this is something the Wise Ones won't do, but Ishamael wouldn't have a problem with it; I had forgotten that detail for some reason, and the Moridin dream confused the issue. It can be assumed that Lanfear did the same thing; Moghedien has shown no sign of having the ability (or perhaps the desire) to reach others' dreams, but she can trap Dreamwalkers in their own dreams in Tel'aran'rhiod. Aran'gar can do it weakly, and then only if she is sleeping right next to the person. Brandon has a point about the fact that all three of them dreamed the same dream apparently at once, but in once instance, after Perrin found the wolves, it seemed to Rand and Mat that they fell asleep, had the dream, and immediately woke up, when Moiraine says they were asleep for four hours.

Mi'chelle

Brandon Sanderson

Josh

Brandon Sanderson

Josh

Brandon Sanderson

The characters in Mistborn all have very French names. My girlfriend insists Vin's name is pronounced almost "Veh", as it would be in France, and I'm almost convinced. How do you pronounce it?

You've also mentioned that in Elantris, there was more to Seons than what came out in the book (as far as a magic system, I believe). When you have to omit something like this, do you still consider it canon to the story? For example, if you were to write a sequel, would you feel obligated to stick with the original magic system you put into place (but never published), or would you be fine with drawing up a whole new one?

The Central Dominance is intentionally French sounding. I say Vin's name like an American would, but everyone in world would say it with a French accent. Same goes for Kelsier, (which they would say Kel-syay.) Again, I say it as an American would, but then I'm not from the Central Dominance.

Yes, I consider the ideas around Seons to be canon, though I don't always canonize something that is not in the books. If it isn't on paper, I'm usually willing to change it as it needs to in order to fit. One issue, however, is that things like the Seons are part of the greater magic system of the Cosmere (which connects many of my works.) I can't change things too much, or I'll start contradicting myself. (Which I don't want to do.)

LOVEGGS

One further question on pronunciation- Sazed. Is it sayzd, sayzed, or sah-zahd? I always pictured the Terris people as somewhat Arabic so Sah-zahd came more naturally to me, but I'm curious as to what the intended pronunciation is.

BRANDON SANDERSON

I say Sayzed, as does Kelsier. The Terris a is not as harsh as that, but it's not quite a soft "a" either.

Which brings me actually to...well, that was one of the questions I was going to ask later on; I thought I'd pick a different tangent rather than ter'angreal and the Horn of uh…call it vuh-LEAR.

VIRGINIA

Please correct our pronunciations, too, you guys, whenever you run across them; that's one of the big things we want to pin down is, how we should pronounce some of these things so if you hear us say something and you don't think it's what RJ would have wanted, then please just break in and say 'no'.

[in her sweet little girl voice] Okay.

MARIA SIMONS

Valere (rhyming with vuh-LEAR) was the way he pronounced it.

MARK

Yay, I got it right!

VIRGINIA

Who's keeping score?

MARK

Well, I'm almost never right, so it's good to be able to say I was right for once.

MARIA SIMONS

I used to be wrong about a lot of pronunciations when I first started working for him, because that was about the time of A Crown of Swords, and I would say something, and say it wrong, and he would give me this look, like 'What are you saying?' and correct me, so I got most of them down over time.

VIRGINIA

I can see that look perfectly, because I actually have a very short video clip from one of the book signings where somebody tried to pronounce 'the Shaido', and he just gave them 'the look', and said, 'It's not Shy-doh. It's not Shadow. It's Shah-EE-doh. Everybody kind of went, [in a small, apologetic voice] 'O-kie.' [laughter] He could quell an entire room with one look. It was amazing.

JENNIFER LIANG

The first time I met Jordan at a signing, the first thing he said to me was correcting my pronunciation of something. I was like, 'Awww, I ruined it! He'll never talk to me again now!'

MARIA SIMONS

He wouldn't hold it against you. I—

JENNIFER LIANG

Oh, yeah. Well clearly he didn't because he did eventually come to DragonCon, so...

Mkay.

MARK

Will we ever find out whose voice it was at the end of The Eye of the World?

MARIA SIMONS

[pause] [in a sing-song voice] RAFO! (ray-foe)

JENNIFER LIANG

Yeah, that's a RAFO. (raffo)

MARIA SIMONS

Score!

MARK

I figured, but I had to ask.

MARIA SIMONS

I wondered how long it would take.

ALAN ROMANCZUK

Maria and I have spent some time trying to figure out different ways to say 'read and find out', so we're going to be trying out some of them today, and we'll see how it goes.

VIRGINIA

Oh, great.

SPENCER POWELL

Oh, this will be fun. Let me see if I can get you another trial run here. Um...Asmodean? [laughter]

ALAN ROMANCZUK

Who's he?

MARIA SIMONS

Yeah. Who's that guy?

VIRGINIA

He's toast, that's who he is.

SPENCER POWELL

No, Sammael's toast.

ANDREW GELOS

Yeah, I was going to say.

VIRGINIA

Well, I think he is too.

MARIA SIMONS

Um, if anybody sees the back of my car, they will see that I killed Asmodean. That's all I'm gonna say. [laughter]

MARK

I thought it was Bela!

JENNIFER LIANG

I do like the 'Bela killed him' theory. That one is just insane enough to be true.

MARIA SIMONS

I like that Bela is the Neigh'blis. [laughter]

VIRGINIA

Yeah.

JENNIFER LIANG

Terrible puns are always a good thing.

VIRGINIA

I love it.

MARIA SIMONS

And the master of the terrible pun is on this call.

VIRGINIA

Ahh.

MARIA SIMONS

In Jim's office.

JENNIFER LIANG

Ahhhh.

VIRGINIA

Well feel free. [laugher]

ALAN ROMANCZUK

I am, I am.

VIRGINIA

Pun away. Well, we've got two...you pronounce it 'raffo', right? Not 'rayfo'?

MARIA SIMONS

I say 'rayfo'. I don't know that there's a real pronunciation for that one.

ALAN ROMANCZUK

She says 'raffo', I say 'rayfo', so let's call the whole thing off.

VIRGINIA

Yeah, well we got two right off the bat. I don't know what else we're going to....well, probably everything.

I had one last pronunciation—and unfortunately I had my thing muted at the moment—but is it ah-SHAHN-dah-RYE? (ashandarei)

ah-SHAHN-dah-RYE.

VIRGINIA

Oh! I didn't think of that one. [crosstalk]

How do you pronounce the Mistborn Planet? [Scadrial]

Sca (as in Scab) dri (as in drink) al (sounds like ul).

MEMBER OF AUDIENCE

Okay. I always said Sca (as in Skate) dri (as in drink) al (as in Albert)

BRANDON SANDERSON

That’s perfectly fine. This can launch me into my little thing on pronunciation. As readers, you get the say, you’re the director. I wrote the script. The director can always change things. If you want a character to look differently in your head, that’s okay. If you want to pronounce things however you want, that’s okay too. Because a book does not exist until it has a reader. It really doesn’t live. It exists, but it doesn’t live until you read it and give it life. So however you feel like doing it, go ahead. And remember, I’ve said this numerous times before, I don’t pronounce all the names right. I’m American, so I pronounce things with an American accent. The best example I give is Kelsier, because I do say Kel (as in bell) si (as in see) er (as in air), but they say Kel (as in bell) si (as in see) er (as in hey) in-world (it sounds very French). I say E (as in the letter e) lan (as in lawn) tris (as in hiss), they say E (as in the letter e) Lan (as in lane) tris (as in hiss) in-world. So there are linguistic fundamentals of these because I do have some linguistic background, but I don’t always say them right. I like saying Sa (like suh) rene (like Reen), instead of Sa (like suh) rene (like meany), which is how they say it. Which Suh-reany sounds kind of dumb in English. And in their language, it’s a beautiful woman’s name, but here you wouldn’t call someone Suh-reany, you’d call them Suh-rean.

A lot of people asked pronunciation questions.

He remarked that no one ever seemed to read the glossaries. He also remarked that one of the taped versions (I omitted this earlier because I didn't catch the publishers) was just awful about this—they stopped calling for clarifications about halfway through the first book. He thought this meant they had enough to extrapolate correctly for the rest of them. They did not.

He ended by commenting that everyone was going to come up with their own internal pronunciations anyway.

Naming and Usage in ELANTRIS

(Warning, spoilers below! Don't read this section if you haven't read ELANTRIS!)

Aon Ehe is often mispronounced as "E-hay." Though scholars of Aonic insist that the proper pronunciation "E-Hee" is more accurate, the former is slowly being acknowledged as an acceptable pronunciation as well. It is infrequently used in names during modern days, as the meaning of "danger" is seen as unfavorable. However, historically, it was a favorite Aon for poets and artists (who often took new names for themselves when entering into their maturity as an artist, a tradition by which they removed themselves from their old body of work and indicated that they were beginning anew).

Some famous examples of names from Aon Ehe include the poet Ehen, the artist Ehelan, and Mehen the philosopher.

In the history of Elantris, Aon Ehe played an interesting role as it is the first known Aon to have been drawn with the Chasm Line. During the research of King Raoden, he was practicing this Aon (for its complexity) when he realized the problem with AonDor. The story goes that he added the Chasm Line without thinking, making Aon Ehe spurt out a column of fire and destroying an entire bookshelf.

There are a couple of interesting things about this chapter. First off, it didn't originally start with Raoden waking up. When I first wrote the book, I threw Raoden directly into the city, line one. That original line was: "It wasn't until Raoden heard the gate swing closed behind him, booming with a shocking sound of finality, that he realized he had been damned."

While this line worked pretty well, I found I had to do an extended flashback showing him waking up and frightening the maid, etc. In the end, I realized that this was a bulky construction that didn't really speed the novel up—but rather slowed it down. So, I rewrote the first scene to have Raoden waking up, seeing Elantris, and then realizing he'd been taken by the Shaod.

My books tend to have what are called 'steep learning curves.' In other words, they take a little getting used to. Fantasy in general has a steep learning curve, and I don't tend to write very standard fantasies—I like to push the genre a little bit, introducing strange settings and irregular magic systems. Because of this, I have to be very careful at the beginnings of my books not to overwhelm the reader. This book was a good example—taking it a little easier, giving the reader a more cautious ease into Elantris, proved the better route.

Happily, I eventually managed to preserve the original line with its catchy feel. I don't usually do things like this—I don't believe in the standard 'hook' idea. However, when I was thinking about this book, the first lines of the first three chapters were some of the first things that occurred to me. These three lines became the foundation for how I characterized the separate viewpoints, and they were part of what drew me to writing the book in the first place. If you go through and read them, I think they each have a little bit of zip, and hopefully invoke a sense of curiosity. These three lines introduce each character and one of their primary conflicts, and do it in a simple, clear way.

Maintaining this feel with the new first scene was important to me, even though it could be argued that the first line of chapter one is a bit of POV error. I'm revealing information that the viewpoint character doesn't yet know. I avoid these, but in this case, I felt that cohesion was more important than strict POV, right here.

I also did a second massive cut just after Raoden was thrown into the city. If you read the earlier draft, you'll see that he struggles with what has happened to him a bit more. There's even a brief section where he thinks about Ien and some of the Seon's words of wisdom. I cut these sections because they just slowed the book too much. I figured Raoden's shorter soul-searching at the beginning, where he quickly comes to the decision to 'look damnation in the face,' helped the story move along. Again, I worry about my beginnings—perhaps too much—because they have a history of dragging just a bit. By pushing Raoden into walking through the city, I kept the pacing up.

Everything else in this chapter pretty much stayed the same. In the original draft, Galladon was actually named Galerion. I made the change because the name 'Galerion' just didn't fit the eventual linguistic style I devised for Duladel. Again, I didn't do as much planning for this book as I now for books I write now, and I just kind of let the names and cultures develop as I wrote. In the end, Galerion's culture out-developed his name. I figured that the main Dula in the book needed to have a Dula-sounding name. Interestingly, Moshe—my editor—independently decided that he really didn't like Galerion's name. When I made the suggested change, he was very pleased. Originally, he didn't like Raoden's name either—but this came, mostly, because he had trouble pronouncing it. I actually really like the name, but understand that it can be difficult if you don't understand the Aonic language. Remember—two hard vowel sounds formed by the Aon, every other vowel is soft. RAY-OH-den. (Read the pronunciation guide for more.)

Galladon/Galerion originally spoke with a much stronger dialect in this chapter. However, these dribbled off after the first few chapters, and I decided I didn't want him to be quite as difficult to understand. So, I went back and cut them. You'll notice, however, that Galladon still hits the dialect pretty hard in this first chapter.

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.'

Hi all,

I just got back from the signing at the B&N store in Warwick, RI.

My wife and I arrived at about 11:45am, about 45 minutes before the signing, we were the fifth people in line. The booksellers had some minor issues setting up a sound system after about 15 minutes of playing with the feedback machine one made the comment that they hoped he had a "booming" voice.

They announced him and he came in and before sitting down ran through a brief pronunciation guide. He had a wry smile on his face as he went through the litany.

While the booksellers said only hardcovers, the person in front of me had the comic and when Mr. Jordan saw it he turned and said, "I am going to need a sharpie for this." One was produced and after signing the cover he informed the person to let it dry otherwise it would smear. He was also adding small personalization if the person wanted.

On the encyclopaedia-wot, he actually pronounces them and has audio files. (to Maria) Am I correct? (Maria agrees.) And he's dead on. And I actually—it's kind of a fun story here. When I found that out, before I even started writing—because I was embarrassed about my pronunciations, and I still don't get some of them right—I went and I downloaded all of those, because he has just a batch file that you can download, and I put them on my iPod to shuffle between my songs, and so occasionally—even still—when I'm working out, I'll be sitting there, you know, going along on the treadmill, and then the song ends and I hear, "Rhuidean", and then I go back [laughter] Oh, I don't get that one right? No. Wait, are you sure I don't get that one right? Rhuidean. What did you say? (Maria pronounces Rhuidean.) Okay, "Rhuidean". There's a story, though. I once asked how to pronounce Morgase's name, and these two disagreed, and had a nice argument about it over dinner. [laughter]

Maria Simons

Another place for some pronunciations: At Dragonmount they have a 4th Age podcast, and at one point they interviewed me and Alan and had us go down a huge list of things for pronunciation, and it's still on Dragonmount somewhere.

Harriet McDougal

But it's my considered opinion, that however you pronounce any of the names, you are right. [laughter, applause]

As requested, a photo of all the books I ordered from a suggestion thread...

dermballs

Sometimes it's lonely feeling like the only person who has absolutely no interest in fantasy and sci fi here. Enjoy your books.

Question

You're not alone! Holla for literary fiction.

dermballs

Sorry wasn't dissing. Just lamenting. Seriously enjoy them. Read what you love. It's a cool collection it just makes me sad when I see that many books in one place and then realise I probably wouldn't want to read any of them.

Question

Its cool, I knew you weren't, and didn't mean for my statement to invoke sarcasm. I'm trying to get through The Way of Kings currently. Not sure why I'm reading my second biggest book so early, but ah well. Its decent.

Second longest? I demand to know which author wrote one longer. It's that Williams guy, isn't it. I need to have him eliminated.

(Joking. Otherland is awesome.)

—Brandon S.

Question

Oh my. You need to tell me the correct pronunciation of Szeth, sir. And aye, the last book in the Otherland has around 150 extra pages.

P.S. Read up all the "lore" I could find on Adonalsium this morning. Psyched.

Brandon Sanderson

Closest to "Zeth" but really a split between "Seth" and "Zeth." Basically, how it is written with a very soft s at the front.

ISw3arItWasntM3

Out of curiosity, how many pages would tWoK come out to in mass mark paper back form?

Brandon Sanderson

It's hard to say, since publishers play with these things all the time. Notice Wise Man's Fear, which is shorter than The Way of Kings by a bit, but ended up 100 pages longer in hardcover as DAW decided to go with a larger font. I won't be surprised if Otherland ends up longer in the end, though. Tad likes his long books.

umbra00

William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series heralded the true beginning of my fantasy reading career. I was in Eighth grade, and I remember watching my bother read it, wondering with amazement at how he had the resolve to finish not just one large book, but four. I endeavored to be like him, so I started the first book shortly after he had finished it. I remember the first 200 pages were gruelingly slow, taking me nearly a month alone. Before this the largest books I've read were Harry Potter, so the transition from the fast-paced young adult lit. to adult lit. was devastating on my young mind. Only after I had gotten those 200 pages read, I started to get the feel of the story and where it was taking me. I began to feel comfortable with the length, and the next month I pushed out the last 3000 some pages. After finally finishing it I was devastated to leave the characters I was just beginning to know behind, but thus was my love for lengthy fantasy stories born.

I have not yet had to opportunity to read The Way of Kings, but if it in any way resembles what you achieved in Mistborn or Warbreaker, I feel I will enjoy it immensely. Keep doing what you do, love the work you've put out so far.

Brandon Sanderson

I have very fond memories of M, S, and T myself. I can actually place where I first saw the Dragonbone Chair on the shelf—funny, how I can do that with so many books that became important to me—at a bookstore. The paperback had that striking Whelan cover, with the open window on the front looking into colored end pages.

Unlike you young whippersnappers today, I had to wait out that trilogy. (Still have the third in hardcover.) Wonderful storytelling. It was one of the great building blocks in Epic Fantasy's earlier years. Before Martin, before Jordan, we had Williams. (And we still do, of course. I've enjoyed his newer writing too, but this trilogy is what I regard most fondly.)

It's kind of surprising to me, but to some people, appendices like this can be very divisive topics. There are people who will pick up a book and check to see if it has a map and appendix—and if it has both, they're more likely to read it. (I was actually one of these when I was younger.) I guess the philosophy here, if I analyze my teenage self, was that if an author put so much work into a book—and if the book was so complex—that there had to be an appendix, then that was a book I wanted to read.

Others have the opposite reaction, I've come to learn. I've met people who think that this sort of thing in the back of a book indicates that the author is sloppy, and can't tell a tight story. Or, that the story is going to be too complicated to enjoy.

In Elantris, my first book, I fought for a pronunciation guide and a cast of characters in the back. I like appendixes, though now it's mostly because my untrustworthy brain often forgets who characters are. With the Mistborn trilogy being as complex as (hopefully) I want it to be, I figured I'd need cast lists in order to help you remember book one when reading book two.

So, book two has a bigger appendix. However, I wanted to do something in this one as well. One thing I knew people were going to ask about was a way to keep the metals straight. That's why I developed the quick reference chart, and my friend Isaac did that beautiful metal table for a visual reference—I absolutely love how it looks.

The name "Ars Arcanum" deserves a note as well. I've always liked how Ann McCaffery named her appendix the 'Dragondex' in the back of her Pern books. One of the biggest draws of my books are the magic systems, and since I intend to do a new one for every series I write (and many, like the Mistborn trilogy, will have multiple magic systems per series) I wanted some sort of 'catch all' title I could name the appendixes in each of my books.

I fiddled around for a while. Ars Magica was my first choice, since it's kind of a cool Latinate take on 'Magical Arts' or 'Magical Skills.' However, there's an RPG out with that name, and I figured I wanted to stay away from their title. Ars Arcanum, then, was my next choice. I ended up liking it better, if only because it has a little more true Latinate feel to it.

My magic systems are generally like a new science for the world in which they are practiced, so I like the feel this gives. Hopefully, you found this appendix useful. If not, I suspect you'll really appreciate the one in book two, as the cast of characters there will provide a lot of helpful reminders.

I did. So here's an interesting thing the-- [trolling] no I'm not going to tell you that. *lots of laughter* I think it would be a spoiler for Book 3. Bridge Four in Alethi, you guys ready? Vev Gesheh. Vev is the number four, Gesheh is bridge. When I design the glyphs, I always make sure I know how to say it in Alethi before I design the glyph.

Ben

Is there a reason for that?

Isaac

There is a reason for that.

Ben

Are you going to tell us what that reason is?

Isaac

Nope. The glyph writing system is just a-- You are supposed to be able to look at it and say "Hey that's-- That means bridge" but it could be elongated, it could be changed, it could be-- but the same shapes are in there and that means "bridge" or whatever else that is. The glyphs don't really relate to pronunciation. You learn them from seeing the glyph and knowing what the word is for that. But the people, the people who create the glyphs have a different process from those who read them. It can be somewhat difficult to draw the glyphs, we generally go through several iterations of different looks of things before we come up with something that we like.

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