How would you pronounce Ješca?

"In Hebrew it's written Yiskāh, I believe."

I'm not an expert by any means but I believe Hebrew is very much a say it as you see it kind of language. So I'd pronounce it as yiss-cah or perhaps yiss-ker.

If you could show me the Hebrew then I could have a go at it!

I would have gone for Yesh-ka.

My reasoning being: polish friend with a name beginning with J pronounced Y, and then I would have assumed a normal S but it had an accent so I then thought how can you alter an S, and came up with it becoming a Sh.

I am not a linguist, but I have studied 3 languages plus my native English so I guess I'm more familiar with working out pronunciations than some?

I'd go for Jeshka/Jezhka probably, but I can see why others would go for Yeshka. I agree that she will probably be mostly called Jeska in the UK, though!

I would have probably guessed Jezca but a completely random guess based on nothing really.
I think a child will have a tough time continuously explaining the spelling, pronunciation & what heritage they have forever more. I have a traditional name with only a letter different & I’ve probably got more certificates with the wrong spelling than the right where I’ve given up correcting. Emails letters are wrong. I thought it was annoying but an accent thing a random pronunciation & constant questions on top would have been a headache.

I would also have guessed your preferred pn of Yeshka but I have years of sight-reading names from class registers behind me and have developed a pretty solid knowledge of Slavic phonetic conventions.

I wouldn’t personally go out of my way to add a diacritical mark to my child’s name. The háček will frequently be dropped or ignored.

Got to say, op, that I only got it with the accents which are rarely used in English typography. Without them, I would think Jess-ka. If there is a non-English surname that might give me pause for thought. But, for example, a teacher with a class Register might not realise until it is explained to them.

I would have said Jess-kah like that x

Haven't read the thread so I'm just going on first thoughts. I'd say Jess-Kerr

Yeshka. Mainly because the I wouldn't know what else to do with the š and I know J in other countries makes a y sound. I'm very British but it's actually a very similar name to my DD and the DD of an Austrian friend!

She could be called ‘Yesh’ for short and channel Sean Connery. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

It’s a beautiful name and perfectly acceptable spelling. Brexit or not, we live in a multicultural world and people adapt to new names and pronunciations all the time.

Best of luck.

Jess - ca I'd imagine short for Jessica

i would have said Yeshka too. I did study linguistics, but I don't know anything about Yiddish and I think my guess was based mostly on having known about someone - probably a composer or a sports person - whose name had that accent over the S and was pronounced with a sh.

I know a little girl with this name and she's Jess-ca

Yeshka but I have a degree in Slavonic languages! I imagine most people would say Jesca or Jessica, but it's a pretty name and people will learn

I would say Yeshka too but friend's dad is Hungarian and the are many from E Europe at DS school - Def not Yiddish.

DS has an incredibly common English name and teachers (supply mainly) seem to have creative ways to say it so I wouldn't necessarily not choose a name cos people can't pronounce it!

Oh God, i would have gone for Yayka......

Yayka is nice though 😁

I'd have gone for Yeshka. Not Yiddish, nor have I (formally) studied linguistics. However, I am a bit of a language nut and I have friends from all over the place. I find that I'm usually able to hazard a reasonably good guess at names, though I do sometimes get them wrong.

She will have a life of explaining her name over and over again, don't do that to her!

When you put the name in the title you'll get more people getting it right or nearly right because they know already or can work it out from the knowledge they have, whereas most people think "I dunno" and keep scrolling. I would also go for Jess-ca and wait to be corrected.

Also accents can be confusing when filling in online forms etc for anyone who doesn't normally use them. My DSis, DNeice and DNephew have one in their last name and I can never remember the keyboard shortcut so end up having to copy the symbol from Word- and it's just á, which is a common one. No matter what they put on a form, 9 times out of ten I t gets dropped when someone else is typing it out. With no š it looks like an interesting spelling of Jessica.

Well, of course it isn't pronounced in the language where it doesn't exist!!

But where it does, it's 'sh' - across all Eastern European languages which have a š

So if OP wants 'yeshka' with a diacritic, then I'd spell it Ješka

And yes, I wouldn't know what the squiggle does so would ignore it.

Although she is Jessica on her birth certificate