Pronouncing Sharleyan?

Personally I've always cut the names down when reading them. Her name when I read it, is just "Charly"

As Appalachiacat mentioned earlier, in OAR after Nimue awakens, she knows that she is going to have to "learn the hard way to speak the considerable altered version of Standard English...". It goes on to say that "it looked as if the written language and grammer had stayed effectively frozen...but...the spoken form's pronunciation had shifted considerably". So I'm wondering then why/how did all the names get changed into the current nearly incomprehensible forms. It seems to me Sharleyan should be still written as Shirleen, or Charleen, or Shirley Ann whatever, while the pronunciation of the name could and would vary.

IAC, I find that I shorten the names to something my mind can grasp quickly, in this case I find I'm calling her Shirleen (since I knew a Shirleen in high school).

Tonto Silerheels wrote:
You remind me of a conversation I had with my grandmother. Mom had sent me over to borrow an iron. I said, "Grandma, can Mom borrow your iron?"

"Iron? What's that?" she asked.

"It's a flat thing that you get hot and you use it to get wrinkles out of clothes." I answered.

"Oh! You mean a ahrn."

"Yes," I explained.

~Tonto

It took me ages to persuade my 24-year old son (here in Melbourne, Australia, where "iron" is pronounced pretty much British fashion ['eye-on'] to stop saying 'eye-ron'. I never worked out how he picked that one up!

Now, Sharleyan - that one is easy out here - "Charlene" or "Sharlene" - a not uncommon name in Australian parts to the north of us, where folks have more Convict ancestry. Sadly it tends to be pronounced 'Shaaarleeen' and sounds awful. The Melbourne (and BBC British) pronunciation is not so bad.