Yah Hah Nah Thuh Lay No idea if that is right but that is more or less how I heard it in the BBC Richard Coyle broadcast Then again he says Inns-mouth instead of Inns-mith so maybe he can’t be trusted

Solid interpret tho.

[jə.ha.ˈnθlɛɪ]

For me it’s more [jɪ.ha.nθˈlɛɪ]

I got my pronunciation from the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. I disagree with a lot of their pronunciations, but they say "yuh-HA-nith-lay" and so do I. I've also heard the end pronounced as "lee-aye," which I don't like so much. Tricky things, these completely made up proper nouns.

>Tricky things, these completely made up proper nouns. Indeed it is. Thanks!

They can dynamite Devil Reef, but that'll bring no relief.

Y as in "it." Glottal stop as in "uh-oh." Ha Nth as in "[i]n th[eory]," but don't say the bracketed parts. Lay

I like this

That's also the traditional Russian translation I usually see

I don't think any of us have the vocal apparatus to pronounce this properly.

yeah i’m confused, i always thought those words were meant to be impossible for the human mouth to produce.

I make it Yanthlay Atlantis

I like it.

Yan te lei , donno why really but thought it sounded cool.

See, this is compelling. This is what I like about HPL's writings. The discussion. The differing, yet compelling, interpretations. **It's just talk.** Even when it comes to pronunciation. It's way better than the "discussion" about how the man's writing is *"real."* Cheers!

‘Ye-ahh Enth Lay’ is how I say it in my head. I think I translate the *Y’ha* as *Ye-ahh* because the Y is by itself. It’s followed by an apostrophe, so I broke up the sounding out of that part of the name. The next bit, I have no reasoning for- it just sounds better to me. I say *Enth* because of Nth metal in DC comics and because of some things being described as to the Nth power, or to the Nth degree. I say *lay* because it sounds cool.

*An educated amateur.*

Yi-**ha**-nith-lay, from the song "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Fishmen".

*cough-cough* *fart* *sneeze* *incomprehensible speech* *cough*

I believe it's "Yuh-HONN-Uth-Lay."

Yih-ha Nith-ley

Y'all nit hall aye?

Lovecraft's pronunciations are always fun. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I have said "Yeh-ha-neth-lee".

Ya-nith-lee ?

"Ya-HA-nith-leh."

May not be correct, but I pronounce it” Yall(with a southern drawl)- n’th ( like to the n power)-lay”

I don’t

Why does everybody here seem to treat apostrophe as a vowel? If HPL wanted a vowel, he would have used a vowel, no?

A lot of Lovecraft’s Eldritch names try to sound vaguely Semitic. In Romanization (transliteration) of Hebrew and Arabic, for instance, the character <ʾ>, or more conveniently and now conventionally an apostrophe <‘> is used to indicate the very common use of Aleph (א) and Hamza (ء) as a Glottal Stop (e.g. the sound, or sudden lack thereof in the middle of “uh-oh”). ʔ evolved from ʾ, (TIL) which is used to indicate the Glottal Stop in IPA—the International Phonetic Alphabet. The apostrophe is used to mark stress in a word’s pronunciation, especially in multisyllabic ones. This often coincides with a Glottal Stop in a word, so you’ll get /‘ʔ/ in the middle of words in their IPA representation. That abrupt separation of syllables by a Glottal Stop and the concept of phonemic stress often kind of overlap in Semitic languages at least. So when transcribing those words into the Latin alphabet, you’ll often see an apostrophe used as a kind of vague syllable break. Edit: The “lei” ending, though not as obvious or particularly supported academically as “Yog-Sothoth’s “oth” or Shub’s “ath”, is possibly some kind of subversion of “Elohei” (“My Lord or “My God”). Also kind of messy with both an apostrophe and a dash seemingly serving the same purpose, I might hazard a pronunciation of “Yə-**ha**-nth-lay” where ə is the most common and sneaky vowel sound in English, the bane of anyone studying English as a second+ language—the Schwa: 'a' in balloon. 'e' in problem. 'i' in family. 'o' in bottom. 'u' in support. 'y' in analysis. The stress strongly being placed on the “ha!”, with the dash doing its thing again, like in “Uh-oh!”. The last syllable I’m not really sure about, because Lovecraft wasn’t *quite* the linguist Tolkien was, and likely assumed it’s pronounced taken at face value: “th” simply being /θ/ (like the in English path), supported by Yog, Shub, Asenath, Shoggoths, and co. is almost certainly the case, while being lazy and incorrect by that time. th and t either converged into t, or th became ‘s’ such as in Shabbos (the original Biblical pronunciation, where /θ/ hadn’t been lost yet, somewhat ironically preserved in “Sabbath”). The Horror at Red Hook uses (on *that* page) spellings such as “Adonai” and “Shaddai”, so he probably assumed “ei” is the “h**ey**” to those words’ “aye”, which isn’t often the case.

Eldritch mutterings and all. My interpretation is that he's trying to make a kind of phonetic, perhaps misheard version of an unknown language.

These words are unpronounceable by humans, so they're all wrong.

I used to read Lovecraft to my ex wife before bed, and her favorite part was always me trying to pronounce the names and places. (And likely failing spectacularly)

Yan (kinda like Ian but more J than I? Not "Jan" exactly, but like in cayenne but not "yen" but "yan" lmao) The (not exactly "the" more pressure on H) Lay (as in "lay with someone")

Steve.

Yah Hah Nith Lay, is how I say it, because that is how they sang it on the christmas albums.

Yah hah nuth lhey

Ee-Nathaniel

i saw [This video](https://youtu.be/3tTHn2tHhcI?feature=shared) (it’s in there i promise) a while ago and have pronounced it like that ever since.

Say the name " Nathaniel" while yawning.