I’m inclined to pronounce the J’s in Marjana’s and Jahangir’s names as [j]-glides or Y sounds, like in most Germanic and Slavic languages. So Marjana would be “mar-ya-na” and Jahangir would be “ya-han-gheer”.
I haven’t seen anybody mention Kelile. Her name has always confused me. Kee-lyle? Kay-leel? Kay-lee-lay?
Also @Drumnadrochit - Since you’re knowledgeable about Aife’s pronunciation, how would a Gaelic/Celtic person pronounce Caedmon?
The they could be Twins topic kind of reminded me that I forgot to address these two.
Wu Kong - The pronunciation is more or less the same as it appears. Wu is like “Woo”, but the Kong, is not the same as the Kong in say King Kong or Guardian Kong. Rather, closer to the sound of “Cone.” The origin for the Monkey Lord, is taken from the Sun Wukong (孫悟空), of the Chinese fictional work, Journey to the West. While he was a monkey that was of extraordinary birth (bore from the splitting of a huge rock that has been taken in the essence of the elements for ages), he did not have any extreme difference in physical appearance than any other monkeys dwelling in the mountains nearby.
Throughout his training, he was capable of wielding a wide variety of weapons, he still favored a Bo / Polearm type weapon, which incidentally was shown to be given to the 2* hero Hou, while he himself holds that long blade in his appearance within this game.
Hou - Not pronounced like How or Hue, but is actually “Ho” as the closer pronunciation. Believe the simple way to address that is that the word is actually 猴, or the Chinese word for Monkey. What he wields is actually the type of weapon that Wu Kong favors in all of the literary works that featured the Monkey Lord. Hence, in a way I kind of looked at Hou as the undeveloped Wu Kong, one of his subordinates, or perhaps even the multiple copies of himself which can create using his magic.
I knew someone named Ariel, pronounced Are-E-el, that I called Air-E-el. After a long enough period we were out and someone asked her her name, and she said it the way it’s supposed to be said, but I was already in too deep, so I’ve just resorted to sticking with Air-E-el. That said, this is how I pronounce the names, with a US midwestern flair, and the ones I’m in too deep with, I’m just going to stick with. I hope Aife doesn’t take offense.