Pronunciation is a difficult topic for any reader of The Wheel of Time who is not trained as a linguist or is an expert in philology. I am neither of these, but I will attempt to use reason to piece together a few of the varied uses of common digraphs in the series. These digraphs are some of the most common letter combinations in Jordan’s books and I hope that this extrapolation will help to make pronunciation a bit clearer. More specifically, I have taken issue with the words “saidin” and “saidar,” “Gaidin,” and “Lan” as pronounced by some popular Internet fan sites and I’d like to restore these pronunciations to Jordan’s original.
      I’ll start here by going over the pronunciation for the two halves of the One Power. Based on the glossary in the back of book two, The Great Hunt, the pronunciation for “saidin” is sah-ih-DEEN. Note the three distinct syllables with emphasis on the third. sah = the “s-o” sound in “sock.” ih = the “i” sound in “it.” Basically, the trick here is to make sure you pronounce the “i.” Here’s the proof of this interpretation of the pronunciation. If it was pronounced “say-deen” like many people are reciting on the Dragonmount.com podcasts (which are excellent podcasts in their own right, by the way) then they would be ignoring the different pronunciation shown in the glossary for the word “Shai’tan” which has the same “a-i” digraph; “Shai’tan” is pronounced SHAY-ih-TAN. Again, one should recognize it has three syllables, the first and third being emphasized. Similarly then, “saidar” is pronounced sah-ih-DAR.
      This “a-i” digraph is not, then, pronounced in one way. In fact, the two words I’ve used as examples, “saidin” and “Shai’tan,” show two of the three possible pronunciations. According to the pronunciation guide in the glossary at the end of The Great Hunt, the “a-i” digraph can either be pronounced with a long “i” sound, a long “a” sound, or it is broken into two distinct syllables, giving the first letter “a” a short ah sound, such as in “saidin.” I will demonstrate these three pronunciations in that order: long “i,” long “a,” and short “a.”
      Firstly, the formal name for a Warder is “Gaidin.” Here, the glossary tells us to pronounce it GYE-deen. The “ye” part of the first syllable is to be pronounced like a long “i,” spelt most often in the pronunciation guides as “eye.” However, in the case of “Gaidin,” the long ‘i” sound is blended with the hard “g.” So, the pronunciation guide has dropped the first “e” in “eye” and combined the result with the hard “g”—GYE. It’s the equivalent of the American pronunciation of the word “guy.” This sound is notably depicted in this manner with words like “Cairhien” (KEYE-ree-EHN), “Dai Shan” (DYE SHAN), “Aiel” (eye-EEL), and “Anaiya” (ah-NYE-yah). This system is not perfect, however, as a couple of words problematize the long “i” pronunciation. Words such as “Alar” (AYE-lahr), and “a’dam” (AYE-dam) seemingly confound the long “i” sound by placing the letter “a” at the front. However, this combination is truly the long “i” sound discussed above, and the pronunciation guide had to show that the “a” in the word was not a distinct syllable separate from the long “i,” as it would be read if the pronunciation was written (AEYE-dam). Furthermore, words like “Alar” and “a’dam” do not have the “a-i” digraph and therefore lack the visual indication that we’re to pronounce the “a” like a long “i.” In short, the phonetic reading of “AYE” must be the long “i” as well.
      Conversely, the long “a” sound as in the word “hay” is noted in the pronunciation guide as an “a-y” combination: Laman (LAY-mahn), Logain (loh-GAYN), Morgase (moor-GAYZ), and Saldaea (sahl-DAY-ee-ah). Note the four syllables in “Saldaea” with the long “e” sound for the third (as in “eat”).
      Also of note is the pronunciation of the short “a” sound. This is the same sound that a doctor asks you to make when she opens your mouth to inspect your tonsils. “Open and say ‘ah!’” Here, I must take issue with another very reputable web site, Encyclopaedia WoT (http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/). Encyclopaedia WoT mispronounces al’Lan Mandragoran’s name by writing the pronunciation as AHL'LAHN man-dra-GOR-an. The pronunciation is written in the glossary of The Great Hunt as AHL-LAN man-DRAG-or-an. Note that according to the glossary of The Great Hunt the drawn-out “ah” sound is actually spoken in the honorific and is denoted by the “AH” digraph in the pronunciation. Lan’s first name is notably without the “ah” denotation. Therefore, his name is pronounced as the “a” in “land” or “stand.” Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary shows a pronunciation spelling exactly as Jordan wrote. The dictionary’s pronunciation for “land” is written “/’land/” just as Jordan’s pronunciation is written “LAN.” Note the exact reproduction of both spellings between the literal spelling and the pronunciation spelling. In addition, Encyclopedia WoT has broken the syllables down incorrectly and has written an incorrect syllabic emphasis.       On a different note, RJ thankfully follows his own convention regarding the frequently-used syllable “din” and does not change the pronunciation. It’s clearly pronounced the same as for “saidin” with a long “e” sound—DEEN.
      Therefore, having reviewed the three possible pronunciations for the “a-i” digraph, “Gaidin” is [u]not[/u] pronounced with a long “a” sound, but rather with a long “i” sound: GYE-deen. “Lan” does not have the drawn-out vowel as Encyclopaedia WoT would have us believe, and there are three distinct syllables in both “saidin” and “saidar.” It is more than likely that Robert Jordan included a glossary to prevent words from slowing one’s reading, and, I’m sure, so that fans would not continually ask him questions regarding pronunciation. It is my hope that readers respect his dedicated efforts to ensure proper pronunciation and utilize the wealth of information he included in his glossaries.

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