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Lesson 0-5: Proper Names

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It’s possible you had some issues with the last lesson – how do you write a name like 'Alex' if Sonora doesn’t have an ‘x’? What about a country like 'Brazil' – Sonora doesn’t have a ‘b’ or ‘z’! Sonoran speakers have to do a lot of approximating to get as close as they can to other languages. There are a couple rules that can make the process easier however.

Firstly, Sonora never allows letters to be repeated, so you are going to have to take out extra letters like the second ‘l’ in ‘William’.

And secondly, Sonora has lots of missing sounds compared to other languages. In these situations, you simply want to get as close as possible:

• Sonoran speakers typically replace a B with a P – making ‘Brad’ into ‘Prad’
• Soft G and J sounds are usually made into 'ds' sounds – ‘Jack’ becomes ‘Dsak’
• ‘Sh’ sounds are simplified down to Ss – ‘Shelly’ becomes ‘Selj’
• ‘Ch’ sounds are typically made into TS sounds – ‘Chad’ becomes ‘Tsad’
• Z sounds are usually made into S sounds – ‘Zach’ becomes ‘Sak’
• And English TH sounds have to be written as þ, typically softening into the soft ‘th’ sound of ‘thought’ – ‘Rutherford’ becomes ‘Rwþerford’.

One more little point to make - Sonora always creates its localization using the name a country calls itself. For example, Sonora does not localize Germany, but Deutschland.

Congratulations on completing Unit 0! You've learn the foundations and deserve a bit of a break. Make sure to come back soon to start on Unit 1 and continue your Sonora journey! rwjgard!

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