A place called Kritia

In a story you read you come upon the name of a place. It is called Kritia. How would you pronounce that? Krisha or Kritya...

 

I'd pronounce it Krisha if I saw the word randomly.

 

I have to say that I read it as Kritya on first glance.

 

I would say Krit-ee-ah because that's how we pronounce "i" in Norway. Don't understand why anyone would pronounce it with an "sh" sound.

 

Krit-tee-ah
What's the right way of pronouncing it?

 

I live in the northwestern United States, by the way. That might be the source of my apparently abnormal pronounciation.

 

Krit-ee-uh for me too

 

So maybe there they'll get it right

Surprisingly the right way to pronounce it is "Krisha".
So how should I spell it (Krisha??)? Or how can I let the reader know that it's pronounced Krisha and not Kri-tee-uh?

 

Because many words and place names ending -tia have that sound in English, i.e. Croatia or Nova Scotia come to mind.

 

Does the pronunciation of a place or character name have any real impact on the story? As a reader, I'm more interested in the story than proper pronunciation of names. If the name is long or has an odd spelling (for me), then I usually use the first two or three letters to identify the character or place and skip the rest of the word without trying to pronounce it. Spell it the way you want to, and allow your readers to pronounce it whatever way they want to.

 

Kri-tee-ah on first read, Krit-ee-ah on the second.

I'd automatically think the T as the beginning of a new syllable the first time I read it. Then I'd try attaching the T to the "Kri" sound, not the "ia". "Krisha" didn't even cross my mind.

 

I guess you got a point there and I must say I also rely on the first few letters when a name is long. But my story or rather novel is high fantasy and I've created quite a world where quite a few different stories take place. You are right that the pronunciation has no impact on the story, but it's like painting your house in red and visitors calling it orange..

 

Didn't know you were supposed to pronounce those with an "sh" sound... strange that I never heard something like that while I lived in the states. Guess places that ends with tia never came up in conversation.

 

Why don't you just spell it Krisha? Then there is no doubt.

 

That's an extreme example. Pronunciation of a name can also change depending on the speaker's accent or dialect.

For example, look at the phrase, 'Itsy bitsy spider.' I've known asian people that, because of their accent (english was not their first language), it came out sounding more like 'itchy bitchy spider.'

Another example would be the pronunciation of 'tomato.' Some people say 'toe-mae-toe.' Others say, 'toe-mah-toe.'

 

This! It's the simplest solution.