How would you pronounce Ješca?

[ChesterBelloc]

As above!

Am interested to see if anyone comes up with the pronunciation that I'm aiming for...

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

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.

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

Yayka is nice though 😁

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!

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

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.

"But I really like your spelling and pronunciation, massively more than Jessica Please don't dilute it!"

Thanks, MrsTerryP I like it too, hence all the agonising!

I don't dislike Jessica though, and I'm thinking it might make her life easier to have that on official documentation... plus leave me some wriggle room if I ' go off' Ješca in future. Jess is also a sweet diminutive.

Jess - ca I'd imagine short for Jessica

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.

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

Any Hebrew scholars lurking who know how this would be pronounced?

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!

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

I would have said Jess-kah like that x

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 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.

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'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 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?

"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!

PeaBea: יִסְכָּה

I’d have guessed Yesh-ka, as I’m sure I’ve seen Francesca spelled with a circumflex like that. Have a degree in modern languages...

I’d pronounce it “yeshka”. No linguistic background, it just seems the most logical pronunciation from the spelling with the š

If that’s the sound you like (I can’t quite tell if it’s the J or Y sound you’d use), I know a Yeshna.

It’s a colleagues daughters name and she pronounces it more like yezhka than yeshka.
Her husband is Iranian and is always presumed it was a name from his culture - you learn something new every day!

Yesh-ka