Prounouncing Names

[erulisse]

Please don't be intimidated. We all have aspects of life not shared by the others that will come into play here on our rocks. My focus is actually fairly narrow and I can't come close to the knowledge of some of the true linguists here. I just know what the languages of Tolkien sound like to me when I hear it in my head. And, as an archaeologist/anthropologist, Nahuatl is just one of those things that I am familiar with. I am quite sure that it is NOT a language of general knowledge - LOL.

One thing that I find cropping up in fanfic is that fact of the language of Manwe and the others being hard on the ears of the Eldar. Sounding like metal filings in some descriptions. Where did that concept come from? When you get into the wordings, they are indeed long with lots of consonents and unusual groupings, but metal filings? Comments?

- Erulisse (one L)

[russandol]

Sept 22, 2010 4:24:13 GMT -6 erulisse said:

One thing that I find cropping up in fanfic is that fact of the language of Manwe and the others being hard on the ears of the Eldar. Sounding like metal filings in some descriptions. Where did that concept come from? When you get into the wordings, they are indeed long with lots of consonents and unusual groupings, but metal filings? Comments?

LOL, I use it in one place in my fic too, aren't I original? Weel with two Maiar in it, it is only to be expected - that is my excuse.

"For the tongues and voices of the Valar are great and stern, and yet also swift and subtle in movement, making sounds that we find hard to counterfeit; and their words are mostly long and rapid, like the glitter of swords, like the rush of leaves in a great wind or the fall of stones in the mountains.' Pengolodh comments: 'Plainly the effect of Valarin upon Elvish ears was not pleasing.' It was, he adds, as may be seen or guessed from what survives, filled with many consonants unfamiliar to the Eldar and alien to the system of their speech."

"Note on the 'Language of the Valar', The War of the Jewels"

[erulisse]

Thanks Russandol. and those who Emailed me privately. Those were the references that I've been looking for :-)

- Erulisse (one L)

[sanna]

Sept 20, 2010 10:13:28 GMT -6 elfscribe said:

I do get a giggle sometimes from all the strongly rolled r's in these pronunciations (which I could not hope to replicate) and wonder what scholarship the pronunciations are based on as some of them are different from the ones in my set of Silmarillion audio-recordings narrated by Martin Shaw.

I wanted to get an audiobook version of the Silmarillion but simply couldn't get past the names. In my head I pronounce them in Finnish with rolling r's because that and more vowels you can shake a stick at is what Finnish is all about but those were just a bit too much.

I refuse to sit in a bus and crack up every five minutes