Something that's been bothering me about names...

When coming up with characters, many Star Wars authors use apostrophes (sp?) or ' in the middle of names. What does this signify? I've heard mainly that they stand for a pause.

Any help would be appreciated, it's just getting on my nerves.

 

Well, sometimes that's the way an alien species spells their name (like "ethnic" names in real-life, such as Polish/Russian names ending in "ski"/"sky"). Bothans usually have an apostrophe in there (Kre'fey, Fey'lya). Some Devaronians do (Kardue'Sai'Malloc), as do some Twi'leks.

 

I usually pernounce it as a pause. Now if the is a '!' in a name, it signifies a toung click. Not used in SW, but it is an interesting fact. Anthropologists use this denotion for languages that involve toungclicks, its really something to hear. And there are subtle nuonces in the clicks that mean different things. ITs really cool.


The problem i find my self having is that i go over harder names quickly and recognize them by their letter, and hence i don't pronouce them. Its as horrible habit which i am breaking, and it takes away form me rememebering the names.

 

Hey, I do the same thing all the time!

Did you read about the tongue click thing in the Mysteries of Science magazine that was put out by US News (I think)? Because I just read about the ! thing, even though I knew about the clicking language for a long time before that.

 

There actually aren't many apostrophied names in the EU. Bothans, Devaronians, Twi'leks and Chiss all have them as a part of their culture, as do a few humans.

But percentage-wise, apostrophied names are few and far between.

 

Hmm.. which humans? I vaguely remember that there ARE some, but my memory is failing me at present.

 

It depends on the context. With Bothan names, I often just read through as if it's not there. For me, Fey'lya = faylee-uh, and Kre'fey = kruh-fay. However, with Twi'lek names, I'll sometimes introduce a pause: Nawar'aven = Nah-wahr [pause] ahven.

 

Jorj Car'das, Shada D'ukal and Joruus C'baoth come to mind.

 

I usually treat 'em like syllable pauses. I never really considered introducing anything beyond the appropriate "break" we do when we speak a multi-syllable word.

 

Oh, duh, Mistryl. I'm dumb.

 

Jorj Car'das, Shada D'ukal and Joruus C'baoth come to mind.

Another thing we can blame Zahn for

 

It also denotes clan & family names.

Fey'lya = 'Fey' Family, 'lya' Clan/Honorific (Something along that line)

A'kla = 'A' Paternal Surname, 'kla' Maternal Surname. In I, Jedi Elegos says that Ylenic It'kla was his mother's brother. Therefore 'kla' means maternal family line for his family while 'It' or 'A' would be paternal family lines.

With Twi'leks, it the apostrophe usually denotes a meaning from a name. I don't have a copy of Wedge's Gamble or Krytos Trap at the moment so I can't give any examples.

With the Mistryl & Devaronians, I have no idea.

 

In Twi'lek culture, a split name means that the certain individual is no longer recognized as part of society. In The Bacta War(?), when the Rogues go to Ryloth, the whole thing is explained. Although, I do believe that some Twi'leks split their names purposely in order to fit in better with human culture (Nawara Ven).

 

Actually, that The Krytos Trap that they explain the Twi'lek thing in. And Nawara said something like his name means silver tounged when properly pronounced in Twi'lekki, but when split it becomes tarnished silver in the Twi'lekki tounge.

 

Nawar'aven is called Nawara Ven, because bureaucrats were too stupid for writing his proper name in his ID-card. They took the name and made it Basic
very much like something may get lost, when you write japanese or kyrillic names/ words in our ... letters (what letters do we use? Latin letters?)

Bib Fortuna on the other hand is outlawed and lost every claim of respect in Twi'lek society, hence his split name.
No regular Twi'lek has a 'normal' name wothout apostrophs, according to those KrytosTrap-people.

 

I've always wondered if the dash in Obi-wan and Qui-gonn's names were a result of being born on a certain planet and named there or being brought up as Jedi.

On a sidenote It annoys me when Authors create impossible tongue breaking names in SciFi and Fantasy books. I know they do it to convey a sense of foreigness and ethnicity to the characters, but that doesn't help me pronounce the darn thing.

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate the patience and help.

 

I found another apostrophied human name that wasn't invented by Zahn:

Kid DX'oln

 

Ash-

no, i rad about the toung click thing in my anthropology book. at least i know i'm not the only onw who skips names.....hehe

 

Ah, anthropolgy. If only my school had such classes. Instead, we have classes like Beef Science. My friends and I had a running joke about one of my other friends, who likes (read: loves) to eat. We all pictured him walking into the classroom on the first day of school and saying "Where's the beef?"

I guess you had to be there.

 

uuuhhhh... ditto to everybody else.