GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION
All but a few of the named characters in this novel are Ottoman Turks, or members of the Ottoman Army. Where no conventional English transcriptions of their names, ranks or units exist, the spellings adopted by Ismail Kadare in the original Albanian text of this novel, or else those approved by him for this English edition, have been used. In some cases the spelling is identical between modern Turkish, modern Albanian, and modern English. For other cases, the following table of the main differences between the Albanian and the English alphabet may be helpful:
c ts as in curtsy
? ch as in church
gj gy as in hogyard
j y as in year
q ky as in stockyard or the t in mature
x dz as in adze
xh j as in joke
zh s as in measure