Thankfully, very few Star Trek authors are "unpronounceable alien name sadists." Most of the names present no more difficulty than those ADF uses in his HC and SS franchises, and are far less problematic than those in a lot of other science fiction and fantasy franchises. I have noticed that spellings have, in some cases, changed to reflect how things actually got pronounced on the set. Case in point, "bat'leth" was initially spelled "bat'telh" (which verges on complete unpronounceability) Then again, the same was done with a relative of mine: his name was initially spelled "Conan" (as in barbarian, Doyle, and O'Brien), but pronounced with a short "o"; by the time anybody realized it was being mispronounced (he was still a baby at the time), it was deemed easier to change the spelling to fit the pronunciation, so my aunt and her family doubled the "n" ("Connan") to make the "o" short.
Well, it was supposed to be batlh 'etlh, "honor sword" in Marc Okrand Klingonese, and the show simplified the pronunciation to "bat'leth." I've always assumed that "bat'telh" was a typo in a script pronunciation guide (perhaps the typist transposed the L and T in the post-apostrophe part) that got repeated in multiple sources until someone finally caught on. (Although I don't find "bat'telh" at all unpronounceable. It strikes me as just being "bat-tell" with the L sound aspirated.)
Sorry, I've just already started a ton of threads around here, so I figured I'd revive this one, rather than starting another one.
No need to be sorry. I found it amusing, this thread was created in 2012 after all and didn't really last very long then either.
The Trek Lit forum has traditionally been the exception to this BBS's strange anti-necro policy, since people are always rediscovering old books, and since the traffic is low enough that a lot of older threads are fairly short and it makes more sense to add to them than duplicate them.
I hate to be the one to break it to you @hbquikcomjamesl but you and @Christopher think a lot alike, at least within the realms of Trek Lit. You're going to have to get used to it
How accurate are the pronunciations in the S&S audiobooks? I remember when the Prometheus audiobooks came out a lot of people were complaining because the narrator was misprouncing a lot of common Trek phrases.
They consult the writers on pronunciations, at least in my limited experience. So they should be pretty accurate.
S&S does a much, MUCH better job with their Star Trek audiobooks than Big Finish did with Prometheus. I might occasionally quibble with Petkoff's pronunciation, but not very often. Alec Newman's performance, on the other hand, was an embarrassment to Big Finish. Couldn't BF even be bothered to give him a pronunciation guide? (And I blame the publisher, not the voice talent. They seriously let Newman down.)
Oh yeah, it's not Newman's fault, the people in charge of producing the audiobook should have made sure he knew how to pronounce everything.