Pronunciations
For the benefit of those outside the British Isles, I list below the usual pronunciations of some of the more unusual names in the novel, in standard British English and an approximation in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).
If the following character – ʌ – looks like an upside-down ‘v’, then you have the necessary fonts installed to see the IPA characters. If not, you will need something like Lucida Sans Unicode or Arial Unicode MS (see The International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode).
| Name | Standard English | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| Wuthering | as in "mothering" with a "w" sound. The first IPA is the more common pronunciation but it is spoken in Yorkshire with a longer "u" like "good" (second IPA) | ˈwʌ.ðə.rɪŋ ˈwʊ.ðə.rɪŋ |
| Thrushcross | "thrush" and "cross", stressed on first syllable | ˈθɾʌʃ.kɾɒs |
| Heathcliff | "heath" and "cliff", stressed on first syllable | ˈhi:θ.klɪf |
| Hindley | "hind" as in "pinned", "ley" as in "lee", stressed on first syllable | ˈhɪnd.li |
| Hareton | "hare" and "tun", stressed on first syllable | ˈheəɾ.tən |
| Linton | "lin" as in "pin", "ton" as in "tun", stressed on first syllable | ˈlɪn.tən |
| Zillah | as in "villa" with a "z" sound, stressed on first syllable | ˈzɪl.ə |
| Penistone | "peni" as in "peninsula", "stone" as in "stun", stressed on first syllable | ˈpen.ɪ.stən |
| Gimmerton | "gimmer" as in "simmer" with a hard "g" (like "gimmick"), "ton" as in "tun", stressed on first syllable | ˈgɪm.əɾ.tən |
| Brontë | "bron" as in "bronze", "të" as in "tea", stressed on first syllable (The diaeresis – the two dots – indicates that the letter is pronounced and not silent, it does not change the sound) |
ˈbɾɒn.ti: |
| Ponden | "pon" as in "upon", "den" as in "dunce", stressed on first syllable | ˈpɒn.dən |
| Haworth | "ha" as in "hat", "worth" as in "worth", stressed on first syllable. Can also be pronounced as "how" and "worth". | ˈhæ.wɜ:θ ˈhaʊ.ɜ:θ |