Why is the name “Atrus” sometimes spelled “Aitrus”?
“Atrus” is how Atrus spelled his name when he wrote in English, but he also knew how to pronounce his own name. Aitrus Sr. never wrote his name in English (to the best of our knowledge), so we’ll never know how he would have chosen to transliterate his name. Adding the “i” to Aitrus’ name – apart from making a definite distinction between grandfather and grandson – also was an attempt to literally convert his D’ni name to the English alphabet. The D’ni have a different character set than we do. They have separate characters for the “a” in “hat”, the “ai” in “bait”, and the “a” in “car”. The character at the beginning of both their names in D’ni is a long “ai” like “bait”.
