Character of Color with hard to pronounce name: How might they handle this? (”Melokuhle” as example)

I cannot verify if this is a proper name for her, but:

1. Folks can learn how to say it.
2. She shouldn’t be forced to offer a nickname / short version for the comfort of others. 

While yes, it does happen (people sometimes get tired of having a whole ordeal around pronouncing their name) it should not be the standard. 

Personal example:

My last name is Nigerian, and people rarely go in knowing how to pronounce it. I offer a careful, phonetic breakdown when:

1. It’s mispronounced 
2. Someone kindly goes out their way to ask how to properly pronounce it. 

They might not get it on the first couple tries, but that’s okay! I don’t mind repeating and trying to help them get it right. 

If it’s a very short encounter: I may not bother. But then again, this is my last name I’m talking about. As my first name, I would care that much more.  

For regular encounters: I would like folks to make the effort. 

I’ll let the other mods go into detail below!

~Mod Colette

Hold yer horses, OP. A couple things to clear up first. 

The Xhosa name Melokuhle

The name is not “South African.” It is Xhosa, which is one of Many languages spoken in South Africa. It concerns me that your level of research is so elementary that you didn’t know this, and that you’re using colonial national borders to assume some sort of standard. May I ask where you got the name to begin with? For future reference, baby name websites that clearly look like they were published from the US are not good sources to find non-English names or their meanings/origins. 

Many names out there, in their original forms, may be genuinely hard to pronounce for monolingual English speakers at first because their sounds or other suprasegmental elements (like tone) don’t exist in English. But generally there’s a range of forgiveness for sounds that simply don’t exist in the English inventory. Many people provide and are happy with “just good enough” alternatives that aren’t natively perfect, as long as the attempt is made seriously, it’s consistent, the name-haver’s wishes for pronunciation are respected, and it’s as close as possible to the original. And even then, if you have no disabilities around speech—with just a bit of practice, it’s really not that hard if you care to learn. 

Your character’s name Melokuhle, for example, is /melok’uɬe/ in broad IPA. I’ll discuss how easy all of the other sounds are in a different example below, but there are two sounds of note here. 

• /k’/ is an ejective k, which means that pressurized air is coming out at the same time as the /k/ sound. In simple terms, think of it as constricting your throat as your tongue gets in the appropriate position, and then releasing as you actually make the sound, and it should create a kind of popping sound that sounds like a /k/ but more intense. You’ll notice a delay going into the next vowel, and that’s natural; while you make an ejective sound, your vocal cords (which are what really get shut in the “constriction”) can’t vibrate to make a voiced sound like a vowel. 
• /ɬ/ is an alveolar lateral fricative, where the tongue configuration is the same as regular /l/ except turbulent air goes through in the same way that sounds like /s/, /z/, and /ʃ/ (“sh”) do. To English ears, it should in fact sound kind of similar to a “shh,” as the airstream mechanism is the same. 

Both non-English sounds described above can be achieved with a bit of coaching/study on where all the articulators in your mouth need to go. 

If the name in question is simply long, has atypical spelling conventions, or has unusual but pronounceable segmental combinations, the other person has no excuse. 

• Eg. The Zulu name Sithembile in broad IPA is /sitʰembile/. The only thing to really keep in mind here is the spelling. The vowels are all tense vowels (think “ee” for /i/, “ayy” for /e/), and “th” refers to an aspirated /t/ sound, which is—surprise—exactly the same t sound as English.

In either situation, if abled people regularly mispronounce the name, give up, or ask for a shortening, it’s because they don’t care enough to give it some practice. 

~ Mod Rina

People should make the effort to learn

I have a name that is 4 letters, two syllables. It is spelled phonetically (as it sounds), and yet many white English speakers find it incredibly difficult to pronounce both correctly and consistently not because of the name itself, but because, as Rina and Colette say, people neither make the effort to learn nor practice. 

In the circles where I work, it is thankfully standard for an authority figure to ask for names and preferred pronunciations/ nicknames during introductions. There are some people who have difficulty with certain sounds (native English speakers and Japanese speakers seem to particularly struggle with names from other languages), but the SOP is to promise to learn the name and apologize when one makes a mistake. 

This is common courtesy in most global professional settings. Proper pronunciation of names is rather like misgendering for pronouns. Those who consider this to be indicative of civility will make an effort. Those who don’t won’t. So, the issue of the pronunciation rarely rests with an individual’s name, but rather the level of respect other people accord that individual.

- Marika.

Other characters asking for a nickname is a microaggression. 

The way people handle common mispronunciations of their name varies greatly. It also varies on the name. As much as I would love for everyone to be able to pronounce names, some sounds are hard for non native speakers of other languages. That’s where we get foreign accents.

All the sounds in my name exist in English, even if the combination of sounds are a little different than English, so I make people use my whole name if they are someone I will interact with regularly (coworkers, friends, etc.). I only use a shortened version of my name when ordering food. Meanwhile, many of my Chinese friends have English names or nicknames because the sounds in their names are difficult for English speakers and they get tired of hearing people butcher their names or walking people through the pronunciation.

Some people insist that people learn their names. Some have a nickname for daily use but teach friends and acquaintances their name. Some have nicknames or an English name. There is nothing wrong with any of these choices. The main issue is when people refuse to respect what someone wants to be called.

- SK

We would like to open this to any Xhosa followers.

Using/Depicting Slurs Against East Asians in Writing 

TW: Uncensored slur in third paragraph

Slurs should not be used for the sake of using them, or shock value. I’d strongly suggest censoring it, especially if you aren’t a member of that group. Readers will know what the word is. Content warnings should also be present.

However, censorship is not a substitute for critical analysis on why you want to include a slur and if it’s truly necessary. 

Additionally, depending on the time period, terms we would consider “slurs” - or offensive - were commonly used or colloquial terms at the time. For example, during the 1900’s in the PNW and California, the colloquial term for Sikhs was “raghead” - something I now reclaim. There’s a news article from the 1920’s where the author interviews a Sikh family and that’s what she calls them in the title. Today, most people consider it a slur, or at the very least offensive and bigoted. In a historical context, I personally would not care if it was uncensored. If you’re attempting to demonstrate racism in a modern context, I think censorship is, at the very least, worth considering.

Regardless, power dynamics, privilege, and even personal experiences will affect the reactions. I tend to shy away from uncensored slurs, and if I do include them there’s a specific purpose, because my first experiences with racism involved hearing them used towards me. Others will see it differently and I think all perspectives are important to consider when writing.

- SK

Agreed. Huge emphasis on the appropriate content warnings.

With period typical racism, I do understand how going for historically accurate language will include slurs. However, I wouldn’t use slurs that are directed to groups that I’m not a part of, at all, coming from my own background as an East Asian. Nor would I feel comfortable about non-Asian authors using anti-East Asian slurs.

~ Mod Em

My opinions below are for the consideration of East Asian writers and how I view the issue as a person of E. Asian descent. I think non-East Asian writers may benefit from the information below, but I think this topic is still an intra-community issue and thus don’t yet have a personal stance for our user-base as a whole.

This is an interesting question and I think it depends on how one feels about safety and media. While I understand the utility of trigger warnings and censorship for some, I was not raised in an environment that prioritized either concept. I was also exposed to a lot of upsetting media on bigotry, injustice and genocide from a very young age. I don’t think I would understand everything that I do about racism, sexism, colonization, imperialism, oppression etc. or how to empathize with people from a wide variety of backgrounds if it weren’t for these experiences. It is hard to learn much about the things that repulse us, including slurs/ hate speech, from a distance. Which slur, and how a slur is used towards someone (and being Ambiguous Ethnic, I have had many slurs directed towards me) tell me a lot about the person using the slur, and that can be important information for a writer. 

I am not in favor of gratuitous usage of slurs for shock value. This is lazy writing and only jarrs the reader from their immersion within the story. However, consider a story set in 1946 America with an East Asian protagonist. It would be odd if no slurs are employed against this character. With that in mind, here are 4 points to consider on using slurs when writing: 

1. To Censor or Not to Censor

For modern sensibilities, perhaps we might opt to censor, but as SK says, censorship doesn’t make the audience less aware that a terrible thing was said. Personally, I think censorship also further sensationalizes words with powerful holds over us. I think the duration of these holds is overlong. I’d rather not live in fear of slurs, and I don’t want to encourage my readers to do so, either. So, I likely wouldn’t censor, but I would include trigger warnings at the start of the story (“This work contains period accurate usage of uncensored slurs”) . 

2. Slur Usage in Context 

Who and under what circumstance a slur is made, in my view, is a more important point of consideration than the slur itself; they reflect the user’s intrinsic bias or how the user wants the recipient to feel. Because it’s not just the slur: it’s what the slur represents. Lynchings, internments, racism, police brutality, exclusion, hate crimes, xenophobia, shame, all of it. Thus, I think the author should consider how to use slurs sparingly in ways that effectively communicate their point. Consider the following scenarios; which of them are better usages of slurs in the story?

1. Our protagonist is attacked by a hostile individual who uses a slur as a form of aggression
2. Our protagonist is yelled at by a normally quiet coworker/ classmate in a moment of anger
3. Our protagonist hears a friend or loved one use the slur in casual conversation when describing other individuals of the protagonists’ racial/ ethnic background. 

This is a trick question. All are effective usage of slurs, but likely less so if they all happen within quick succession in the same story. However, each of them, on their own, tell us something about the characters around our protagonist, and the world they live in, and can be particularly enlightening to non-East Asian readers who trivialize slurs against East Asians. Consider a reader who reads scenario 1 and thinks “What an asshole!” Will this reader adequately recognize the harm in scenarios 2 or 3? 

3. How does your character react? 

Your ability as an author to show how the slur makes the protagonist feel will play a large role in how your reader will feel about the biases and prejudices communicated by that slur’s usage. It makes sense for our protagonist to be shocked/ scared in scenario 1. This helps the audience understand “That was not ok.” However, to make individuals who haven’t experienced a particular kind of prejudice (like slurs) understand why prejudice is insidious, your character’s reaction to scenarios like 2 and 3 must signal that they, too, are not ok. Doing so will bring even more obtuse readers to the “what an asshole!” reaction in scenarios 2 and 3. The slur users just happen to be assholes in different ways.

4. How do you show your protagonist coping?

This is key, and where I think authors who haven’t experienced hate speech on a regular basis often fail. Being on the receiving end of slurs necessitates the formation of coping skills, preferably healthy ones. Otherwise, readers from the background you are portraying are just going to feel stressed and drained, no matter how poignant your portrayal of dealing with discrimination is.

Personal anecdote: 

I remember my sibling once came home from nursery school crying. My mother asked them what was wrong, and they said someone called them a pig. 

My mother asked, “Are you a pig?” They stopped crying abruptly and forcefully replied, “No!” 

“Then you aren’t a pig”, my mother remarked, and went on preparing dinner. 

My sibling credits that interaction with helping them deal with slurs and insults even into adulthood. By understanding that slurs are symbols meant to convey the idea of being “less”, they were able to cope by reminding themselves that they were not “less”. 

Giving your character helpful, empowering coping skills helps strike the balance between the injustice of disrimination and hope. 

In Summary

I think the issue of when and how to use slurs runs deeper than content warnings and use/ don’t use. Showing how slurs affect characters in the moment can quickly communicate the fact that slurs are bad and should not be used in everyday life. At the same time, depicting coping skills can remind readers affected by slurs that their day doesn’t have to be ruined by assholes. I have neglected talking about slurs and intersectionality, because I think the feel of a slur changes immensely depending on whether the user is white versus non-white as well as the level of privilege they enjoy due to gender, class, etc. but that might be a discussion for another time.

• Marika

Ask published Oct 2021