SERVANTS of the ENEMY ATE MY CODE!!. I will fix it in a day or two. (Or maybe it was Pippin! I'll fix HIM! Fool of a Took!)
The following letters are used on this page: $B!&(B $B!&(B $B!&(B $B!&(B $B!&(B and you should see them as the vowels a, e, i, o, u with an accent on them. If you don't see that, please fix your font coding so that it reads for Western European. You may also see $B!&(B#060;/B> (e with two dots), $B!&(B#060;/B> (a with two dots) and $B!&(B#060;/B> (o with two dots). This is a simple pronunciation guide intended for non-linguists, especially native speakers of English. If you have lingustic training, Quenya is pronounced just the way it is spelled and you shouldn't need any additional explanation from me.
Consonants
t as in tot.
p as in pop.
k as in kick. Some authors spell this sound with a c instead, but it is exactly the same as a k, always "hard" no matter what vowel follows it.
q (written qu) is always a kw sound as in queen and never "kay" as in Spanish "que".
f as in foofoo.
h as in house. When h occurs in the middle of words, it is pronounced a little more strongly, like the ch sound in the German pronunciation of Bach.
hw doesn't occur in modern English except in the old-fashioned pronunciation of a word like when, where you actually pronounce the "h" part.
m as in mom.
n as in nun.
ng is the ng sound in sing (not finger, which is ng plus a g--try saying singer, which doesn't actually rhyme with finger. Singer has the sound you want). Ng was pronounced as just n initially in the Third Age (Tolkien says), but you will still see it occasionally see it written in a word like Ngoldor, the name of the Noldorin elves.
ngw, is the sound of ng (above) plus w. It is found more or less in an English word like unguent. It is very common in the middle of words but does not occur initially by the Third Age, though you may occasionally still see it.
r There are two r sounds in Quenya. One is pronounced very softly but it is still pronounced (British accents, beware!--don't drop your r's) and occurs before other consonants and at the end of words (Quenya examples: parma, nar). The other is pronounced very fully with a bit of a roll (try to get a listen to Tolkien's midlands (British) accent to see how it was done.) This occurs at the beginning of words and between vowels (Quenya examples romen, karin).
v is the sound in vivid.
w is the sound in water, peewee.
l is a nice liquid sound lull, lily. Only the hobbits mispronounced it by saying a w sound when it occurred before another consonant. They would have pronounced "silk" as "siwk".
hl doesn't occur in modern English but can be easily created by pronouncing an h followed by an l, just as it appears. It isn't common at all and only occurs at the beginning of a few words.
hr, just like hl above but h plus r.
s is always pronounced like the sounds in sassy, never like the z sound that you hear in rise.
ss is just like the sound above, but takes longer to say (see double consonants, below).
hy is the sound at the beginning of hew, hugh or Hugh (ich-laut, more or less).
y is the consonantal sound in you, yadda and never a vowel.
ly, ry, ny, ty, are all sounds which would be pronounced together, as if they were at the beginning of a syllable. The sound of ly
is found in stallion and billion, and also the common Russian name Ilya (as we pronounce it). Ry doesn't seem to occur in an English word, but any verb that ends in r plus a following y ("Spare you!") will give you the idea. Ny occurs in English in the expression Nyah nyah nyah! and a few words like banyan and onion or in a phrase like "I'm gonna win ya a balloon ride!" And then finally ty occurs in the English word tune in some pronounciations (the rather pretentious ones). These sounds are very common in the personal pronouns so you can practice, inye, elye, erye. Ty occurs at the beginning of words in Quenya, such as tyelpe.
Double Consonants: Many consonants are written double in Quenya, such as the n in manna or t in quetta. They should be pronounced double long, that is, it takes twice as long to say them as it would to say the single consonant. This is hard for native speakers of English to do, especially for a short sound like t, p or k, but you can just pronounce them twice. Practice (English words): pen-nut, dip-pool, hat-top, etc. Elvish words: manna, quette, esse, lamma, rokko, silmarillion etc.
Vowels:
a as in father
e as in they
i as in machine
o as in both or go.
u as the oo sound in boot (don't add an extra y sound, as in music).
Native English speakers, be careful not to add an extra sound after the vowel. If you say the word "hate" in English, it has an "ee" sound, like this "hay-eete". Leave off that "ee" bit and just say "hay". Also don't add a w or an a after an o (as in bow, boat). Just say boh- and stop. And don't add an i after a u (unless there is one). Just say boo! This will sound sort of "clipped" to you.
Vowel length: Vowels can be long or short and the long ones are marked with an accent. The long ones take twice as long to pronounce as the short ones, but the quality of the sound is the same as I just gave above. So
short a as in father, long $B!&(B#060;/B> as in faaather.
short e as they, long $B!&(B#060;/B> as in they-ey-ey, etc.
Sometimes in e-mail or in a .txt environment, people use the convention of spelling a long vowel as a double vowel, thus s$ByM(Ba can also be spelled siila.
At the end of a word, you will often see e written with two dots over it, $B!&(B#060;/B>. This is only to remind you to pronounce it as a separate sound. Tolkien just wanted to remind people that it's not silent as in many English words like horse, gate. The $B!&(B#060;/B> spelling is optional and doesn't make a difference.
Diphthongs: Quenya has several diphthongs, that is pairs of vowels that are pronounced together and glide from one sound to the other. These are:
ai is the sound that in American English is the vowel in rye, why. In British English, they pronounce the vowel in straight the same way.
au is the sound in loud, how.
eu is pronounced "ay-oo".
iu is pronounced "ee-oo" sort of like in re-ooze, but don't say it like re-use which has an extra y sound in it ("re-yuse.")
oi is the sound in boy
ui is the sound in ruin.
Any pair of vowels that isn't one of these six diphthongs should be pronounced separately, so the -ie at the end of Nam$BaS(Bie is pronounced "ee ay", and the word is four syllables. Sometimes one of the two separate vowels is marked with two dots to show that it is a separate sound and to help you out as in Nam$BaS(Bi$B!&(B#060;/B>, but this isn't always shown and isn't really necessary. You see this most commonly in the names F$B!&(Bnor and E$BgS(Bendil.
The elves spoke with a pitch accent, that is, certain syllables were pronounced with a higher pitch than others. This created the "melodic" quality that Elvish is famous for. If you have the nerve, you can raise the pitch a little on vowels that have an accent. I hope that helps, and if it is confusing or you have any more questions, write to me at LisaStar@earthling.net and I'll try to answer back or at least fix the page.
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