So I broke out my copy of Return of the King last night in order to look through the appendix that talks about pronunciation in preparation to do my own little summary to go in my section of Elvish tutorials, and I find some parts that… how shall I put this? Are… misleading? I won’t go so far as to say wrong.
I realise that sounds more than a little conceited, but let me hasten to assure you I’m not saying that I know better than Tolkien. What I’m saying is that some of what’s written in the appendices, particularly in regards to Sindarin, he later contradicted himself about, and we generally tend to favour the later interpretations when it comes to correctness.
With regards to the diphthongs of ae, ai, ei and oe (for those who do not know, a diphthong is two or more vowels that together make only one sound – such as the ‘ai’ in the English word ‘fair’ where the ‘ia’ in the middle of the word ‘trial’ has both vowels pronounced separately), there seems to be some blurred lines when it comes to their pronunciations.
Ai is universally accepted as being pronounced like the English word ‘eye,’ with the last syllable of Dúnedain sounding like English dine rather than deign. Ei is described as being pronounced like in ‘rein,’ and he states that basically there’s nothing in English that sounds properly like ae and oe should be pronounced, but that you’ll get away with pronouncing them like ai and oi without being laughed at too much, probably.
Which, firstly – way to vowel-shame English there, guy – and secondly… you’d think he could have tried to explain, at least. And the pronunciation of ae in particular is made exceptionally confusing when you realise that his description of ei was later revised.
Even though chronologically in the Tolkienverse Noldorin came about much earlier than Sindarin, conceptually Noldorin as the bridge between Quenya and Sindarin is the youngest of the Elvish languages, with a lot of Tolkien’s thoughts about it coming after the publication The Lord of the Rings (and thus its appendices).
Ei was primarily a Noldorin diphthong in Tolkien’s later descriptions, being almost entirely replaced in Sindarin by ai, by means of being basically the same sound spelt differently. So why then is it labelled as being pronounced differently while the diphthong ae (which occurs frequently in Sindarin even sometimes alongside ai) is noted as the same as ai, when we know the Sindarin saw ai and ei as interchangeable? Are they all pronounced the same and it’s only his notes on early ei that were later corrected? Or did ae later replace ei in his mind as the diphthong that took the “ay” sound in “May?”
Unfortunately, we’ll basically never know. My curiosity piqued, I dug out my DVD copy of Fellowship of the Ring, and both Galadriel and Arwen used words I knew off the top of my head that contained ae (the first line in the entire movie in Galadriel’s case, i amar prestar aen, and the first part of Arwen’s incantation to the Bruinen river Nin o Hithaeglir) pronounced the same as ai. So there’s where David Salo (who I have mentioned before was the Sindarist for the movies and is a total genius) stands on the matter.
Still sheds no light on the ei/ai conundrum, but thankfully it’s so rare in Sindarin that it almost doesn’t matter. It’s probably best to assume that in later Sindarin Tolkien’s notes about the pronunciation are correct and that it was changed from the ai pronunciation used in Noldorin – Ereinion (Nol. scion of kings, the birth name of Gil-Galad ) would be pronounced with the ei like the English word ‘eye,’ but the Mitheithel river (Sin. grey-well) would have the ei pronounced like “ay.”
So for the first time I really understood the thing that people have said to me (often), that the appendices to Return of the King can be confusing, though for presumably vastly different reasons than most people.
As a sidenote, doing some research into what other people who know about Elvish think about the whole thing, I now feel vastly inferior and unknowledgeable, to the point where… I don’t know. I may just stop writing about Elvish from now on. There are far better sources from much smarter people out there…
(SINDARIN) PRONUNCIATION GUIDE FOLLOWS
a – wherever in the word it appears, pronounced like ‘ah,’ Tolkien’s example is the a in ‘father’
ä – used to indicate when a vowel in close proximity to other vowels is pronounced separately – see Eärendil – basically just indicating that it’s not a diphthong, pronounced the same as a (rarely occurs even in archaic Sindarin anyway)
á, â – an accented a, slightly-lengthened but with the same sound
ae – pronounced like the English word ‘eye’
ai – pronounced like the English word ‘eye’
au – pronounced like the ‘ou’ in ‘loud’
c – pronounced always with a ‘k’ sound, never like an ‘s’
ch – pronounced like the ‘ch’ at the end of the German word ‘Bach,’ not like in English words like ‘chapel’ or ‘change,’ etc.
dh – pronounced like the ‘th’ sounds in ‘these clothes’
e – wherever in the word it appears, pronounced like ‘eh,’ Tolkien’s example is the first e in ‘where’
ë – used to indicate when a vowel in close proximity to other vowels is pronounced separately, or as an emphasis for Westron speakers that ‘e’s that fall at the end of words are pronounced fully, pronounced the same as e
é, ê – an accented e, slightly-lengthened but with the same sound
ei – pronounce like the ‘ey’ in ‘grey’
f – situational; at the end of a word it represents a v sound (like in ‘of’) but anywhere else represents a normal f sound as in English (if not for either Tolkien’s or the fictional ‘writers’ of the tale of The Lord of the Rings in the Red Book of Westmarch’s distaste for ending words in v and using ph in the middle of words, the Ent named Fladrif (Sin. skin-bark) would have his name spelt Phladriv)
g – pronounced always with a sound like in ‘give,’ never like in ‘assuage’ or similar
h – pronounced like in ‘house’
i – at the beginning of a word, if in front of another vowel, is used as a consonant like English y, with the beginning of Ioreth being pronounced like English ‘yore;’ anywhere else in the word it is pronounced like the ‘i’ in ‘machine’
í, î – an accented i, slightly-lengthened but with the same sound
l – pronounced like in ‘let’
lh – represents a ‘voiceless’ l, used in words where the ancient root contained –sl– instead, by the Third Age was pronounced usually the same as normal l
mb – appears occasionally at the beginning of words, pronounced like the ‘mb’ in ‘umber’
ng – when it appears at the beginning or in the middle of words, pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘finger;’ when appearing at the end of a word, pronounced like the ‘ng’ in ‘sing’
o – wherever it appears in the word, pronounced like in the o in ‘for’
ö – used to indicate when a vowel in close proximity to other vowels is pronounced separately, pronounced the same as o
ó, ô – an accented o, slightly-lengthened but with the same sound
oe – pronounced like the ‘oy’ in ‘boy’
oi – I have only ever seen this written once in Elvish, in Legolas’ exclamation “Ai-oi!” but it is pronounced the same as oe
ph – pronounced like the ‘ph’ in ‘phonetic,’ is used mainly to indicate this sound at the end of the word, or when a p-sound is changed
r – wherever it appears in the word, the r is sounded (it doesn’t lose its sound before another consonant like in English ‘part’ or so on)
rh – represents a ‘voiceless’ r, it was written in Quenya as hr and pronounced as much like hr as can be done without ACTUALLY saying the h as possible in Sindarin (yeah, this one is tricky for English speakers)
s – pronounced like in ‘so’
th – pronounced like the ‘th’ sounds in ‘thin cloth’
u – wherever it appears in the word, pronounced like the ‘oo’ in ‘foot’
ú, û – an accented u, slightly-lengthened but with the same sound
ui – pronounced like the ‘ui’ in ‘ruin’ but as close as can be managed to getting this sound into one syllable
v – pronounced like in ‘vet’ but was never used (in spelling) at the end of words
w – pronounced like in ‘wet’
y – in Sindarin this was used solely as a vowel, pronounced like ‘ooh,’ as in the ‘oo’ in ‘good’ or ‘boot’
…if anyone read this I will be surprised. As I said, I should probably stop putting up these things about Sindarin since much better tutorials exist, but I may indulge my love of the language occasionally in the future.
Emiliana's Thoughts 