378 – Don’t Panic

Summary

The Prancing Pony Podcast - Episode 378: "Don't Panic"

Release Date: June 29, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 378 of The Prancing Pony Podcast titled "Don't Panic," hosts Alan Sisto and James Tauber delve deep into the intricacies of pronunciation and writing systems within J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. This episode marks another step in their ongoing exploration of Tolkien's extensive appendix materials, specifically focusing on Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings.

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Personal Reflections on Appendix E

James Tauber shares a heartfelt personal journey, revealing how Appendix E significantly influenced his academic path:

[04:01] James Tauber: "I went on many years later to major in linguistics at university. I remember sitting in my early linguistics lectures and realizing that Appendix E had planted the initial seeds for me to become a linguist."

This anecdote underscores the profound impact Tolkien's linguistic creation has had on fans and scholars alike.

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Understanding Tolkien's Language Introduction

Alan Sisto and James Tauber discuss Tolkien's subtle method of introducing multiple languages within the narrative without overwhelming the reader:

[06:30] James Tauber: "One of the things that I've always found fascinating about Tolkien's approach to invented languages is that he's not on the nose about telling us how they work."

They highlight how Tolkien seamlessly integrates languages like Sindarin and Quenya into the story by having characters explain terms in different languages, maintaining an immersive and natural flow without explicit pronunciation guides.

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Deep Dive into Appendix E: Consonants and Their Pronunciations

The hosts meticulously unpack the consonantal pronunciations as outlined in Appendix E, addressing common challenges and misconceptions:

• Pronunciation of 'C':

  [14:27] James Tauber: "'C has always the value of K, even before E and I. Caleb is pronounced as Caleb."

• Digraphs 'CH' and 'DH':

  [15:29] Alan Sisto: "'CH' is used to represent the Germanic 'ch' sound as in 'Bach,' and 'DH' represents the soft voiced 'th' as in 'those.'"

• Voicing and Consonant Shifts:

  [17:39] James Tauber: "Galav corresponds to Alda, showing sound shifts as Sindarin developed from Quenya."

These discussions emphasize the systematic nature of Tolkien's phonetic design, revealing the historical linguistic evolution within Middle-earth languages.

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Vowel Pronunciations and Stress Rules

The episode transitions to vowel sounds and their pronunciations, a topic that presents unique challenges:

• Vowel Consistency:

  [52:54] James Tauber: "The I is always an E sound, the A is always an 'ah' sound, not the short 'a' as in 'apple.'"

• Diphthongs and Stress Placement:

  [71:39] James Tauber: "In two-syllable words, stress falls on the first syllable. In longer words, it usually falls on the penultimate syllable if it contains a long vowel or diphthong."

Alan Sisto adds personal struggles with applying these rules, particularly with names like "Silmarillion" and "Karadras," highlighting the practical application difficulties:

[116:58] Alan Sisto: "Silmarillion — I always say Silmarillion, but it should be Silmarilion."

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Exploration of Writing Systems: Tengwar and Cirth

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to understanding Tolkien's intricate writing systems:

• Tengwar:

  [125:28] James Tauber: "The primary Tengwar are arranged in a grid of four columns and six rows, with each column representing a series and each row a grade. This systematic arrangement reflects phonetic relationships."

• Cirth:

  [86:53] Alan Sisto: "Cirth were devised by the Sindar for inscribing names and memorials on wood or stone, explaining their angular shapes suitable for carving."

The hosts explain how Tengwar and Cirth evolved, their origins among the Elves and Dwarves, and their adaptation across different Middle-earth cultures. They emphasize Tolkien's commitment to phonetic consistency and aesthetic design in these scripts.

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Listener Mailbag: Mispronounced Words in Tolkien

Responding to listener questions, Alan and James address common mispronunciations that enthusiasts often encounter:

• Examples of Mispronounced Words:

  [117:35] James Tauber: "Names like 'Aragorn,' 'Faramir,' and 'Galadriel' often get pronounced incorrectly due to unfamiliar vowel sounds and stress placements."

• Challenges with Stress and Non-English Sounds:

  [119:45] Alan Sisto: "Stress is the hardest part for me, especially with words like 'Taniquetil,' where the audiobook pronounced it with the stress on the penultimate syllable instead of the antepenultimate."

The discussion includes strategies for overcoming these pronunciation hurdles, encouraging listeners to embrace learning and enjoy the linguistic richness of Tolkien's world.

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Conclusion and Next Episode Preview

As the episode wraps up, Alan and James express their enthusiasm for continuing the exploration of Middle-earth's languages. They announce that the next episodes will focus on Appendix F, delving into further linguistic complexities and translation issues.

[124:03] James Tauber: "Join us again in two weeks as we begin our two-part exploration of Appendix F, starting with the section on languages."

They also extend their gratitude to their dedicated listener community and patrons, highlighting the collaborative spirit that fuels the podcast.

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Notable Quotes

• Alan Sisto: "Join us as we unlock the mysteries of pronouncing the name of the holy mountain and a whole lot of other words, names, and places."

• James Tauber: "Tolkien's approach to languages is a puzzle we get to piece together, making the experience both challenging and rewarding."

• Alan Sisto: "Don't be hard on yourself. Don't be hard on others. Have fun with it."

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Final Thoughts

Episode 378 of The Prancing Pony Podcast offers an in-depth and engaging analysis of Tolkien's linguistic creations. Through personal stories, meticulous examination of Appendix E, and interactive listener segments, Alan Sisto and James Tauber provide valuable insights for both seasoned fans and newcomers eager to deepen their understanding of Middle-earth's rich linguistic tapestry.

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Stay tuned for more explorations into Tolkien's legendarium and join the Prancing Pony community across various social media platforms for ongoing discussions and updates.

Transcript

[Alan Sisto]

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[James Tauber]

Save your time.

[Alan Sisto]

Go to Carvana.com and sell your car today. Pickup fees may apply. Good evening, little masters, and welcome to episode 378 of the Prancing Pony podcast, where, well, it turns out we've been pronouncing our own names wrong all our lives.

[James Tauber]

If only our parents had read Appendix E aloud to us as children.

[Alan Sisto]

If only. If only.

[James Tauber]

Folks, pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm James Tauber, the sage of the south, and I'm here with the man of the west who is still traumatized by the other name of Oyalosse, Alan Sisto.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm just gonna call it Aman Uelos. Thank you very much. Holy Mountain. Hey, that's good enough, folks. Join us as we unlock the mysteries of pronouncing the name of the holy mountain and a whole lot of other words and names and places as we make our way very carefully through Appendix E of the Lord of the Rings on writing and spelling.

[James Tauber]

It's going to be a lot of fun, at least for me. I'm kind of into this.

[Alan Sisto]

You and seven or eight other people. No, folks, seriously, this should be a lot of fun. I mean, it's hopefully be enlightening and eye opening, as it were.

[James Tauber]

We'll make it. We'll make it. So I agree, folks, no matter how you arrived, you're all welcome. Here in the common room at the Prancing Pony Podcast, we're reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with plenty of speculation and bad jokes along the way.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, we do love our deep dives into the lore, though today is probably a little less lore and a little more, well, writing and spelling, but we still enjoy our lore. We enjoy discussing our favorite themes and a whole lot more, but we try.

[James Tauber]

To keep it light and fun, like a couple of friends chatting at the pub. We're glad you've joined us.

[Alan Sisto]

Like a couple of friends taking a spelling test at the pub. I'm sure you'll be glad you joined us as well. Well, folks, but James, before we get into Appendix E, we've chatted about this before off air, and I think even a little bit on Rings of Power. Wrap up. This appendix has some special significance to you, doesn't it?

[James Tauber]

It certainly does. So. So let me quickly tell the story for those of you who aren't aware. When I was 11 years old, I was a huge fan of the Hobbit, and for my 12th birthday, my aunt bought me Return of the King.

[Alan Sisto]

I thought you were going to say she bought you a standalone copy of Appendix E. But okay, she bought you.

[James Tauber]

Return of the King don't exist. But they. I should talk to HarperCollins about doing that. But no, I got Return of the King, and of course I knew that it was the third part of Lord of the Rings, so couldn't jump into the story without reading Fellowship in the Two Towers first. But as I flicked through, I noticed the appendices. And of course Appendix A is a bunch more story stuff I couldn't read. I didn't want spoilers there and B as well.

[Alan Sisto]

Kind of tells the whole story in a few pages.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. But then I. Then I got to the other appendices, and the thing that really grabbed me was Appendix E. And that table we get of the Tengua.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

And I was so captivated by the systematicity of the writing system. It's extremely consistent. And I started reading about it and got fascinated by it. So there's a period of time where I was obsessed with the material in Appendix E before I'd read any of the rest of Lord of the Rings.

[Alan Sisto]

That is so. That is such an interesting story. I don't think anybody else has that exact experience.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. The reading in terms of recommended reading order, it's pretty unusual.

[Alan Sisto]

The Hobbits, Appendix E, and then the Lord of the Rings.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Then the Silmarillion, then the Lord of the Rings.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I read the Silmarillion before I read Lord of the Rings because. And even before that, I was obsessed with Bob Foster's Complete Guide to Middle Earth because I became so interested in the background to everything and the kind of encyclopedicism knowledge of it. But it started with Appendix E. And then the interesting thing is I went on many years later to major in linguistics at university. And I remember sitting in my early linguistics lectures and they're talking about phonology and all these terms come up about dentals and labials and velas and stuff like that. I'm like, where have I heard these terms before? And I realized it was Appendix E. So in many ways, I look back and consider Appendix E as planting the initial seeds for me to become a linguist. So, yes, Appendix E is very, very special to me.

[Alan Sisto]

Deeply personal. That's really a neat story. Now, before we get into Appendix E itself, let's talk briefly about how the languages are introduced in the main text.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So one of the things that I've always found fascinating about Tolkien's approach to invented languages is that he's not on the nose about telling us how they work. In the text itself, it stays in world, but in a very clever way where he'll introduce terms in different languages, but there's always somebody there that isn't familiar with the language and maybe needs it to be explained to them. So a place name will be mentioned. We get all these times when, you know, Aragorn will say, well, this is what the elves call it, but this is what you may know it as. Or, you know, Gimli says, the elves call it this, but the Dwarves call it this. And it's this wonderful way of introducing us to terms in particular languages without it seeming artificial. It's all in world.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And it feels. It feels really natural. But of course, there's no indication in that text of how any of these things are to be pronounced.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Short of maybe like a rhyming verse.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. You can.

[Alan Sisto]

Or you can pick up a few hints.

[James Tauber]

Potentially. Potentially. For sure.

[Alan Sisto]

Bilbo's poem in Rivendell.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. But we don't really get a pronunciation guide. No, we get examples of the writing system with the Ring verse and Balin's tomb and obviously the title page of the book, but that's never really explained to anyone. You can imagine what it would have been like if you'd read Fellowship and two towers in 54 and hadn't gotten the appendices right. It's like, what is this writing system? What does that all mean? How do I pronounce these words? And also, in many cases, even though you could work out some of what the words meant and from their components and so on. So, you know, for example, all of this, the usage of the of Mor, like in Moria or Morgoth. Well, you don't get Morgoth, but Mordor, Moria, Morgul and so on. And you can sort of piece together certain things. But a lot of that wasn't really revealed until you could get to Appendix E. And so that's what we're going to sort of unpack in the rest of the episode.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that is going to be exciting. Now, Appendix E, of course, course covers primarily the pronunciation and the writing systems, but in doing so, it does give us some of the vocabulary. So we're actually going to find out some words and their meanings, as well as, interestingly, some of the relationship between Sindarin and Quenya. But let's go ahead and start with the basic pronunciation that Tolkien starts the appendix with. And rather than do what we typically do on an episode where we read a long section and then discuss, we're going to be doing a lot more of this, like, very brief reading and discussing as we go. This is not a narrative very clearly. This is more of an instruction manual, even more so than last week with the calendars. So we're going to do little tiny chunks and then talking about each. The West Run, or Common Speech has been entirely translated into English equivalence. All Hobbit names and special words are intended to be pronounced accordingly. For example, Bulger has G as in bulge, and Mathem rhymes with fathom. In other words, folks, the pronunciation guide doesn't apply to Hobbit names. Right. This is going to be all your Sindarin. Your other language names are going to be explained here. But Hobbit names are just English. Tolkien continues in transcribing the ancient scripts. Can I just do an aside and say, I love how Tolkien just continues this beautiful fiction that he's transcribing ancient scripts instead of making this up.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And the other thing I'll point out is this, like we saw in Appendix D, this is very much written with him as the narrator.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. This isn't like a Pengalaz narrator or a Bilbo narrator. This is Tolkien himself.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

In transcribing the ancient scripts, I have tried to represent the original sounds so far as they can be determined with fair accuracy, and at the same time, to produce words and names that do not look uncouth in modern letters. The High Elven Quenya has been spelt as much like Latin as it sounds aloud. For this reason, C has been preferred to K in both Eldaran languages, which.

[James Tauber]

Is interesting because he went for the longest time actually spelling things with a K. We now know the history of Middle Earth that he went for the longest time. It was only during the writing of Lord of the Rings actually that he made that final decision. I'm going to use the K. Just doesn't look good.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, it really is it, isn't it?

[James Tauber]

Yeah. It's so interesting that he was. He was wanting them to be realistic, but at the same time to produce words and names that do not look uncouth in modern letters. So he. It's not just the esthetics of the sound, even.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[James Tauber]

Visually. Yes, he cared about.

[Alan Sisto]

And that's pretty impressive because we all know he's been very interested in, you know, that phonetic quality. The. The esthetic.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Quality. That's the one I was looking for.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

But to think, you know, I just don't like the way that K looks there. That K really should only be in Dwarven words. Let's use C. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

But it's interesting because he says the High Elven has been. The High Elven Quenya. I just want to also point out something that's interesting. The main text of Lord of the Rings never mentions the word Quenya or Sindarin.

[Alan Sisto]

No, it does not.

[James Tauber]

He introduces those terms here. The High Elven Quenya has been spelt much like Latin as it sounds aloud. So it's important to note something here that's, I think, a little subtle. It's not that Quenya and Sindarin themselves use the letter C. No, no. Because of course, they're not using that. That Alphabet. Right. They're writing in tengua or whatever.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. And we're gonna get to that Alphabet later today.

[James Tauber]

So it's actually Tolkien making the choice.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Even in the conceit. Yes. That it's Tolkien making the choice to use C for the K sound because of Latin.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

He's basically. I'm going to try to follow. And this comes again, I think, back to that whole thing, which I haven't mentioned in this episode, but I've mentioned before, that Tolkien wants us to experience the languages relative to what they would have been like to a hobbit.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

Which is why he uses English names for hobbit names. Right. Because he wants them to sound familiar. That's the perspective and so on. Whereas, you know, once we get out to Rohan and so on, they sound oddly related, oddly similar. Like that whole experience that Mary being.

[Alan Sisto]

Able to pick out a few words and go like, wait a minute, that sounds like it.

[James Tauber]

And so that's why he uses Old English for that. Of course. Right. The Rohanes is not Old English. Tolkien just uses Old English as a. As a representation, but with something like Quenya. Tolkien has often talked about Quenya as being like Latin in the sense that it's a language that has been retained for. We talked about this in the Pengala chapter, that it's been retained for Law.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a language of law, otherwise it's a dead language.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly. And so the equivalent for a lot of people would be Latin. And so it made sense for him to kind of draw some of. Of the way that Latin spells words into his choices, to use it the way that.

[Alan Sisto]

That Latin would be used in that. To analogize, if you will, Kunya Latin, and to make them as equivalent as. And again, it. It makes sense because Thingol basically did his job too well. Konya is no more. And so it is now just a language of lore. Fascinating stuff.

[James Tauber]

So Tolkien then gets into specific details of the pronunciation, starting with. With each consonant. A little dry, but we're going to go through it because I think it's really interesting to think about particular words and how we need to rethink some of our pronunciation of them. In some cases, the following points may be observed by those who are interested in such details.

[Alan Sisto]

James raises his hand.

[James Tauber]

Sign me up.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[James Tauber]

C has always the value of K, even before E and I. And Tolkien gives the example here. Caleb Silver should be pronounced as Caleb.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Obviously, it's a little weird we're reading it here.

[Alan Sisto]

So I know keleb with a C should be pronounced as keleb with a K. Exactly.

[James Tauber]

What I love about this, and we're going to say so much of this throughout Appendix E, is that we're not only told straight out how the letter C is to be pronounced, but we get given an example of a word with a gloss.

[Alan Sisto]

We get a glossary here.

[James Tauber]

So again, it's not that Tolkie never says, oh, here are the top hundred words you should learn about Quenya. Here's your vocab list for the first semester, Quenya 101. Instead, he just throws out these glosses along the way. Here's an example of a word that exhibits what I'm talking about. Oh, and here's what it means. And so if you hadn't already worked it out from the various examples of Caleb throughout the book, Caleb, we're told, means Silva.

[Alan Sisto]

Love that. And what a. What a way to introduce us to the words meanings. Instead of just a rote list, you know, where we might skim over those or we might, you know, oh, I don't know. This is intimidating. I'm moving on. Instead, as we learn how to pronounce things, we're then told what the words are.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Next up, he actually gives us a letter combination. Ch, he says, is only used to represent the sound heard in Bach in German or Welsh, not that in English church, except at the end of words. And before T, this sound was weakened to H in the speech of Gondor. And that change has been recognized in a few names, such as Rohan, Rohirrim, because of course, the real Sindarin for that would be Rohan and Rohirrim. But we are told, don't worry about it. In the speech of Gondor, they drop the ch to just an H. So you can thank me later. He does point out, by the way, that Imrahil is a Numenorean name. So it would never have been Imrahil because it's not Sindarin, it's Numenorean. So here he's not only giving us basic pronunciation, but even dialectal variation in Gondor and pointing out to some etymology in passing about Imrahil's name. I love that. So good.

[James Tauber]

So then we get another letter combination or what's called a digraph when you have two letters representing one sound, and that's dh. And he tells us DH represents the soft voiced the of English. These clothes, it's usually related to D as in Sindarin galadh, glossed tree compared with Quenya Alda, but is sometimes derived from N. R, as in Karadras redhorn from Karan Ras. So we actually get to end up getting a ton of information.

[Alan Sisto]

We do. There's a lot there.

[James Tauber]

It's not just about the fact that DH is a. The. Yeah, Th, of course, is a th. The unvoiced version, as we'll find out a little later on. But DH is always the. But we're also told, first of all, some sound correspondences between Sindarin and Quenya. And this is something that he's going to do a few times, gives us the Sindarin word and the. The Quenya word. So galav and alda. What's interesting about Galav and Alda is he's making the point that the in the galav corresponds to the D in the Alda. These two words are actually related to one another.

[Alan Sisto]

So that's the sound shift that happened when exactly Sindarin developed from Quenya.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, or they both. Or they diverge from a common ancestor. Yeah. But then he makes this really interesting point as well, again talking about some of the sound shifts that happened in the history of. Of the Eldaran languages. And that's the fact that sometimes that the sound written as a DH comes from a combination of an N plus an R. Right. And the example he gives here is Karadras, which is lost red horn, of course. And I think you could probably work that out from. From Gimli's description of it. He says that it's called Karatheras or Redhorn. I just want to point out, before I get to the N R thing, this is one of the things that I think Christopher Lee is the only one in the Peter Jackson films that actually says it. Karatheras.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Yeah. The others just use a hard D, don't they?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. He certainly gets it right. Christopher Lee definitely says Karatheras.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm not shocked by that.

[James Tauber]

But Tolkien says this actually comes from two words, Karan and ras, and the N and the R in the Karan, and the ras is what ends up being a DHR becoming a R. So we get, again, this really interesting sort of additional historical linguistic information that the N R gives us, the dhr, which is interesting. Then we're told that F represents F, except at the end of words. Oops. And this is where.

[Alan Sisto]

I've messed this one up a lot.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, there's a lot to talk about here. So it says where at the end of words where it's used to represent the sound of V, as in English of.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

And the examples he gives here are the Elvish words Nyndalv and Fladriv. And I remember reading this recently again and thinking, have we been pronouncing Gandalf wrong all along? Well, the thing is, at first I thought. But maybe not, because Gandalf, of course, is not an Elvish name. It's correct. Tolkien using an Old Norse name like he did for all of the Poetic Edda. Exactly. From the Volsong saga.

[Alan Sisto]

In fact, it was Thorin's original name, if I remember correctly.

[James Tauber]

Yes, it was.

[Alan Sisto]

Because Gandalf's original name was Blood Orthan.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, but.

[James Tauber]

And I thought, okay, phew, I can continue to say Gandalf. We'll get to the vowels in a moment because it's.

[Alan Sisto]

But would they have pronounced it that way in Old Norse?

[James Tauber]

Well, that's the issue, right? In Old Norse, it actually would have been pronounced. Well, I mean, the Old Norse in the nominative would be Gandalver with. With an R at the end. But yeah, it would have been. It would have been pronounced as a V, at least in that form. So.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, no.

[James Tauber]

Gandalf is fine. I'm sure Tolkien himself said Gandalf.

[Alan Sisto]

I think he did, listening to some of the recordings.

[James Tauber]

The main point in the context of this appendix, though, is that the. The pronunciation of the F as a voiced V at the end of words is talking about the Elvish. It's not necessarily. Necessarily talking about the other stuff. Tolkien then continues, G has only the sound of the G in give and get. So it's never J.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's never the J sound either that you might get in Old English.

[James Tauber]

In Old English. Yeah. And then he gives example here in Elvish, he says gyl as an example. Gloster's star.

[Alan Sisto]

That's helpful.

[James Tauber]

And gives examples of names that include this Gyl. So Gildor, Gilrein, Osgiliath, they all begin as in the English Guild, the guild does. Begins with the English. The G in the English Guild. So we're not only. We're not only told how to pronounce it, but we're told that gil means star and was given specific examples of where that morpheme gill appears. In other words. So we're getting all of this linguistic information in passing when ostensibly we're just learning how to pronounce these letters. It's a lot of fun.

[Alan Sisto]

Talking's good with that.

[James Tauber]

Then he continues, H standing alone with no other consonant. So not as in things like dh.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

H, standing alone, with no other consonant, has the sound of H in house or behold. Then he goes on to elaborate. The quenya combination. HT has the sound, as in German. It's hard to say by itself, without a doubt.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it is. You're right. Without context, it's. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

For example, in the name telumectar.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

So it's not telumetar, it's telemechta, which he glosses Orion. And then there's a footnote, usually in Sindarin, Menelvago or in Quenya, Menel Makar. It's interesting because this is the only place we get the gloss of Orion.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

We're told in the actual text that it's Swordsmen of the sky, which you might speculate is Orion. But it's interesting. We explicitly here get told this is Orion.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And we get three names for it.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Menelvagor, Menelmakar or Menelmakar. Not.

[James Tauber]

No, it'd be Menelmekar. You're right. We'll get. We'll get to the stress later. You're absolutely right. It would be Menelmekar and then Telemekhtar.

[Alan Sisto]

That's fascinating stuff.

[James Tauber]

And Menelvagor as well would actually be.

[Alan Sisto]

And of course, even though he hasn't given us the gloss, I mean, he's given us the gloss of Orion here, but combine it with what we know about Swordsmen of the sky or Swordsman of the Heavens, and you can start to parse the elements in the word. Menel is heavens, as we'll find out.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

All right. So I initially, before another vowel. And why has he included that in consonants, folks? Because it has the consonantal sound of Y in you, your in Sindarin, only as in. And perfectly giving us two examples, Yoreth and Jarwain. K is used in names drawn from other than elvish languages with the same value as C K. H thus represents the same sound as ch in Orcish, Grishnach or Adunaik. Adunahor. And I'm still struggling with that sound, because that's the sound.

[James Tauber]

Thank you.

[Alan Sisto]

Because I struggle with that all the time. And here's the other reason why I struggle with that. Because we're going to find out later that kh is pronounced differently in Dwarvish.

[James Tauber]

Exactly so.

[Alan Sisto]

And that's why sometimes I mess up and say khazadoom. But that isn't it. It is not it. And it's another one that I Mess up a lot. He goes on to say, l represents more or less the sound of English initial L, as in let. Lh represents this sound when voiceless, usually derived from initial sl. In archaic Quenya, this is written hl, but was in the Third Age usually pronounced as l. And I'm so glad for that, because once again, lh, voiceless is a very hard sound for me to make. James, can you help me with that? What does that sound like?

[James Tauber]

The easiest way to think about it is, actually, is an hl. So when you hear me talk about the hlamos, I would generally say it like an hl. That's the easiest way to think about it.

[Alan Sisto]

That makes sense.

[James Tauber]

I mean, the. Strictly an unvoiced l. If you say an l sound, but just don't vibrate your vocal cords, you'll get that sound. But the easiest way to think about it is, is to do as. It was originally written in archaic Quenya as hl.

[Alan Sisto]

And there's the first time we actually see archaic Quenya. So we get a mention of archaic Quenya and a change in pronunciation within Quenya over time. So not just a shift from Quenya pronunciation to Sindarin pronunciation, but a shift within Konya itself from archaic to modern Konya.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. So, to be honest, if you were pronouncing the llamas in the Third Age, lamas would probably be perfectly acceptable.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Especially for Gondorians like us.

[James Tauber]

Then we find out that ng represents the ng in finger, except finally, where it was sounded as in English, sing. So if you. If you think about the word single.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It ends just in a ng sound. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

You don't come off it like there's a vowel, like sing.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting because in some. In some English dialects in the North. North of England, you do actually pronounce the. The g as in finger. So you say sing.

[Alan Sisto]

Interesting.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I did not know.

[James Tauber]

You could probably get Robert Aramayo to say sing. Yeah. What's interesting, though, and trips up a lot of people. I'll quote again, the latter sound, the sound without the g. The sound also occurred initially in Quenya, but has been transcribed just as N as in Noldo, according to the pronunciation of the Third Age. So originally it was Noldo, not Noldo.

[Alan Sisto]

So it was like ng, but like the ng in sing, where it's sort of that exactly. Without the G, without the hard G.

[James Tauber]

Without the extra hard G. Wow.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a hard sound to make.

[James Tauber]

It is hard to say to start.

[Alan Sisto]

As an Initial sound.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. No.

[Alan Sisto]

Is that with the little tilde?

[James Tauber]

Sometimes that's written an end with a tilde. So when you do see in history, Middle Earth and so on, when Tolkien writes an end with a tilde, he does not mean a palatalized N like you get in Spanish.

[Alan Sisto]

Like the ny sound that you get in Spanish.

[James Tauber]

It's not a ny sound. It's actually this ng sound. And I think the reason that he writes it as N tilde rather than ng is to indicate this kind of shift that was taking place where the ng would eventually become an N. Yeah, and thank goodness. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the origin of the N tilde in Spanish is just. It was originally a double N. Oh, okay. And what would happen is that scribes, when they were writing out, when they wanted to indicate that it was a double N, they'd write an N with just a smaller n on top. And that smaller n on top, over time, as they write, it quickly just became this little squiggle, and then it became pronounced.

[Alan Sisto]

That's great. I did not know that. I love that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. There's all these sort of little interesting things that, of course, Tolkien was playing around with as well. Yeah, yeah. So then we get another one of these digraphs to two letters that represent one sound. And Tolkien tells us ph has the same sound as f. And he actually lists. Ends up listing four different ways it's used. It's used A, where the F sound occurs at the end of a word, as in Alfred, which is glossed swan. B, where the F sound is related to or derived from a P, as in I ferianath, the halflings, which comes from Perian. Okay, I'll come back to all these in more detail in a moment in the middle of a few words, where it represents a long double F from double P, as in ephel, out of fence, and D in Adonaic, and westron, as in ar, pharazon, faraz, meaning gold.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow, lots of glosses there.

[James Tauber]

Let me unpack this a bit. Yeah, we do get a bunch of glosses. So we find out that alf means swan, that perian means halfling, that efil means out of fence, that faraz in Adonaic means means gold. But so what he's basically saying is this is sort of, in some sense, goes along with that earlier remark about final F being pronounced as a V. So we had nin dalv. But if you really want an S.

[Alan Sisto]

Sound, it was an F. It would have been alv exact. So they want to make it an F. They Got to do the ph. Gotch.

[James Tauber]

Yes. So alpha is swan. And then we get this interesting thing, which I'm not going to go into a ton of detail because it's not really explained in Appendix E. But Sindarin had this process of changing consonants. This is something that is common in the Celtic languages. And Tolkien's obviously drawing in particular from Welsh in many of the things he does in Sindarin. But the fact that Parian becomes fairy enough when you put the definite article in front of it, so it's perian, but then. So the P becomes a F sound, and that's written as a ph. So that's the second example he gives that where that F. It's not written as an F if it came from a P. Right. And similarly, if it came from a double P, like in efl, it's written as ph rather than.

[Alan Sisto]

Than.

[James Tauber]

Than two F's, even though it's. Even though it's an F sound.

[Alan Sisto]

I wonder if that goes along more with some of his not wanting to look uncouth, because I would. I sort of see like E, F, F, E, L wouldn't look as good as E, H, E, L. Yeah, that's a weird thing.

[James Tauber]

You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's great because we find out, I think this is probably the only way we would know for sure that Ethel means out of fence. I mean, we could probably guess that Perian and Iferiana means halfling and the halflings. That's. That's. We can probably get that from context, but it's great that these. That's A, confirmed. And B, we get these other. Other glosses as well along the way.

[Alan Sisto]

So Tolkien then continues explaining another digraph. Qu has been used for cw, a combination very frequent in Quenya, though it did not occur in Sindarin. Then moves on to R represents a trilled R in all positions. The sound was not lost before consonants, as in English part. The Orcs and some dwarves are said to have used a bach or uvular r, a sound which the Eldar found distasteful and which I will not utter here. Rh represents a voiceless R, usually derived from older initial sr. It was written hr in Quenya, and we've already talked about how difficult that is.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So, I mean, again, if you. If you think of. If you're trying to say something like croon.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Thinking of it as hr rather than rh is probably. It makes it easier to say R.

[Alan Sisto]

Being a Trilldar all the time is hard.

[James Tauber]

Yes. Although rings Of Power has helped. This is one of the great things that Rings of Power has helped with. Thanks to the amazing work of Leith McPherson.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

And she argued very strongly for that. We had some conversations about how much she had to argue for the rolling.

[Alan Sisto]

Of the Rs all the time.

[James Tauber]

Trillars everywhere, all the time.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, I have a question for you. When he says the sound is not lost before consonants as an English part, is that when he says English part, he doesn't mean American English.

[James Tauber]

He means British English or Australian English. Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

For you, I literally don't say. It's more like paht or something. Like you sort of. Or P, A W, T. Exactly.

[James Tauber]

You lose the R. So there's two things there. One is you've got to keep the R. Yeah. Which Americans do. But don't say it the way Americans would say it because it's got to be trilled. So you really. If you were saying that word, you'd say part. You've got a part. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

You've got to. I'm glad that's the word that he used as the example. Yeah. It is tricky to always roll or trill the R's.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

What do you make about this distasteful thing?

[James Tauber]

Oh, I love this. I absolutely love this. Right, so what he's talking about here, that back or uvular R, it's actually probably the R that you get in. And in some contexts, in French and in German, it's kind of a sound rather than.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that is distasteful.

[James Tauber]

So if you're saying, you know, Porsche, I can't do it properly. I'm not a native German speaker, but Porsche.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Right. If you're saying Porsche, it's at the back of the throat. You're not saying Porsche. You know, like an Italian might say. You say Porsche.

[Alan Sisto]

No, an Italian wouldn't say Porsche. He would say Ferrari.

[James Tauber]

Lamborghini. Exactly. But, yeah, so that's what the Eldar apparently found distasteful. So I love the way that Tolkien's bringing in some of the phone aesthetics into the secondary world. Right. The elves have opinions about this thing, too. And again, we talked a lot about this in the Pengalov episode as well, that the Eldar, in crafting, they had, in a sense, were crafting their own languages according to their own liking of the various sounds. And of course, we also get this extra little bit of historical information that the voiceless R came from an older initial sr. So we're not actually given any examples of this, but just these little. I wouldn't even say textual. They're linguistic ruins, I guess, is one way to think about these, is that he's dotting these little bits of historical linguistics throughout the lesson.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, then he goes on to talk about S, which he says is always voiceless, as in English. So geese. The Z sound did not occur in contemporary Konya or Sindarin. So anytime you see S, it is never. It is never that voiced version. Sh, he says, occurring in Westeron. Dwarvish and Orcish represents sounds similar to sh in English. Th represents the voiceless th of English in thin cloth, not the one we talked about earlier. The dharma, these clothes, that's the dh. So if it's th, it's thin cloth. This had become S in spoken Quenia, though still written with a different letter, as in Quenya, Isil, Sindarin, Ithil, moon. Now, again, if we hadn't already worked it out from the main text, in this case, we probably did. We get this Quenya Sindarin correspondence in Isil to Ithil with the gloss that both mean moon.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Again, I love the way that he just subtly gives us this. Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, simply, it looks like it's easy, like, oh, it's just off the top of my head. Here's an example. You know, he's doing that on purpose.

[James Tauber]

And. And it probably answers some questions people reading the text might have, because you would come across isil and you would come across Ethil and wonder, well, why is it Ethel sometimes why, you know.

[Alan Sisto]

Why is it a sildur but mean a Sithil?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we get the answer here that one's one's Konya and one's Cinderin. Were also told that the. The th had become S in spoken Queen. So again, we get this sort of. This change. And this has to do with the shibboleth of Feanor. And so as well, which doesn't get. But yeah. Tolkien then goes on to explain that the digraph ty represents a sound probably similar to the T in tune. It was derived mainly from C or T. Y, the sound of English ch, which was frequent in Westrun, was usually substituted for it by speakers of that language. So in other words, if you think about. This is a great example, because among English speakers, we get three different pronunciations here.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, we do.

[James Tauber]

Whether you're American or English or Australian is a little different as well. So if you think of the word, what Americans would probably say. Tune.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to tune my guitar or I'm going to play a tune.

[James Tauber]

A sort of posher English accent might be tune with literally a T, almost a T, Y, but that then becomes actually a ch sound in many dialects, including my own. So I would say tune. Right. Tuna guitar. Others might say tuna guitar. You might say tuna guitar.

[Alan Sisto]

That is fascinating.

[James Tauber]

So that's what he means when he says that the ty, the tune actually ends up in Westron being pronounced as a church.

[Alan Sisto]

So there's no place for the American pronunciation tune. It's tune or tune.

[James Tauber]

So if you do come across a ty.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Like you do in Tiela. I'm trying to think of it.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, There aren't very many of.

[James Tauber]

That, but you do get like, tiela, Tiela something or other. But the tiela, if you just said cella.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

That would be like, what a Westron person would pronounce it as. That. That sort of makes sense.

[Alan Sisto]

All right, well, let's wrap this up with the last three consonantal sounds. V has the sound of English V, but is not used finally. And that's because, as we talked about earlier, when it's that sound at the end, it's F, the letter F, which makes a V, because if it makes the sound of. Of F, it's a ph. So V is never used to end a word that way. It's clear whether we're looking for a V sound or an F sound. W, Tolkien explains, has the sound of English W. HW is a voiceless W, as in English white in northern pronunciation, which I'm not going to be able to do because I don't have northern pronunciation. Did I just do it?

[James Tauber]

I think you got it. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I wasn't sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because it is just a combination white.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

But it's almost like you lead with the H. Yeah, yeah. It was not an uncommon initial sound in Quenya, though examples seem not to occur in this book. Well, that's because you didn't put any in there.

[James Tauber]

That's what I love about this. He's really sticking. He's really sticking to the conceit here, saying, you know, they're not uncommon. But I love the way he says they seem. Dr. Co, there might have been an.

[Alan Sisto]

Example, but I can't find one. Both V and W are used in the transcription of Quenya in spite of the assimilation of its spelling to Latin, since the two sounds, distinct in origin, both occurred in the language. So now we get another reference to the Quenya Latin analogy. But why? There's a difference here.

[James Tauber]

So in Latin.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. You would never.

[James Tauber]

There was a shift. There was only one letter. There was Not a V and a W, but the sound shifted. So, you know, the W's and the V's, which at one point would have been a W sound, became a verse sound and so on. Right. He's just pointing out that in. In Quenya, there were two separate sounds.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. And therefore we need two separate characters to represent them. And then finally, Y is used in Quenya for the consonant Y is in English u. In Sindarin, Y is a vowel. And he'll tell us about the vowels later.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Hy has the same relation to Y as hw to W and represents a sound like that often heard in English. Huge. So remember you talked earlier about tune.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Sort of adding that extra little Y in there. That's what you do here. If you see the hy combination. So huge, huge H in Quenya, EHT or IHT had the same sound.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I think he's just meaning here. Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

The sound of English sh, which was common in Western, was often substituted by speakers of that language. So that would be if. So if you ever saw the EHT or iht, you might pronounce it esht or isht is what it sounds like. He's trying to explain here. For Westeron speakers, hy was usually derived from sy and interestingly, khy. In both cases, related Sindarin words show initial h as in Quenya, hyarmen, south becomes sindarin harad. Interesting stuff.

[James Tauber]

Now we get some more nuanced details about the pronunciation. As if that weren't enough.

[Alan Sisto]

We're not pedantic enough already. I don't think he means nuanced. He means pedantic, doesn't he?

[James Tauber]

Note that consonants written twice as tt, l, l, s, s, n, n represent long double consonants. And this is actually something that's a little difficult, by the way, for most English speakers to do because we tend not to pronounce those double consonants any differently.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

But here they're literally to be said longer. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I find that easy to do on some, but not others. Like, I'm easy. The double L is easy for me to linger, the double N. But a double S is hard for me to linger, and a double T is hard. I don't know why it is just.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Making the sound longer is difficult because to me, is a momentary sound, a.

[James Tauber]

Resource you can say for longer.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

What was the. I'm trying to think. What was the word? There was a word that in Rings of Power, they really emphasized. Was it one that had a double N?

[Alan Sisto]

I think it Might have been, but I can't remember what it was. It's been too long. It's been almost a year.

[James Tauber]

But I remember at the time it was very noticeable that Leith had gotten.

[Alan Sisto]

It's also easier if it's in the middle of the word.

[James Tauber]

Oh, yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Like the example Tolkien gives here, which you're going to get to in a minute, is Rochan.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a little harder to do at the end of a word. It's easier if you've got a second element after the double consonants.

[James Tauber]

Absolutely. And that's why Tolkien says what he says, which is at the end of words of more than one syllable, these were usually shortened bing, bing, bing, as in Rohan from Rochan, archaic Rochand. So we actually get an interesting thing here that the original name of the place was Rochhand. R, O, C, H, A, N, D. Yep. And then this nd just became a double N, the became a H and the double N became a single N. Because, as you said, it's quite difficult to have that. What's referred to as a geminate consonant, a doubled consonant. It's hard to do that at the end of a word.

[Alan Sisto]

It feels unnatural.

[James Tauber]

I mean, it's unnatural for English speakers anyway, but particularly difficult.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. It's interesting because, of course, the name Rohan or Rohand was originally given to Kalanar than after it was given to the Men of the Mark by Kyrion's son Halas. It wasn't a name that the Men of the Mark gave to it themselves.

[James Tauber]

Yes, no, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

They just called it the Mark.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. It's a Gondorian.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a Gondorian name, but it's a Sindarin language. Right. And Halas is the one who came up with it. So it's sort of interesting that he would have made it the full Rohand, but over time that became Rohan and then Rohan.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

I wonder if there was a stage where it also became Rohan or Rohan, like where you made one and not both change.

[James Tauber]

It's likely that there was an order to that. I don't know if there's any evidence elsewhere for. For what the order was there A little bit more detail about double letters, if you want.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, exactly. Let's go there. So in Sindarin, the combinations ng, nd and mb, which were especially favored in the Elderan languages at an earlier stage, suffered various changes. Mb became M in all cases, but still counted as a long consonant for purposes of stress. And that's going to be important later when we get to the section on stress. And it is thus written mm in cases where otherwise the stress might be in doubt, Ng remained unchanged, except initially. And finally, meaning, except at the beginning of a word or the end of a word, where it became the simple nasal, as in English, sing.

[James Tauber]

That's what we talked about before, with Noldor becoming No, with.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Nd became an N, usually as Enor, Middle Earth, see Enor from Quenya, endore, but remained nd at the end of fully accented monosyllables, such as thond, meaning root. See, for example, mor, thond meaning black root. And also before. Oh, I love that. I love, by the way, how he just gave us the gloss of mortal, in case we didn't figure that out from the book. And also before the letter R as andros long foam. This nd is also seen in some ancient names derived from an older period, such as Nargothrond, Gondolin, Beleriand. And I know you're going to have something to say about Nargothrond later. I'm keeping it that way for now. In the Third Age, final nd in long words had become N from double N, as in Ithilien, Rohan, Anorian. So initially those were Ithilien, Rohan, Anorian.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And it's interesting that we, you know, we have these older names.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Nagothrond, Gondolin, Beleriand, that all have an nd in them. The Gondolin Nd being in the middle.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, right.

[James Tauber]

But some of these newer names don't have that nd, They've just become the N because they might have gone from.

[Alan Sisto]

An nd to a double N, and then the double N gets dropped to a single.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

That is fascinating.

[James Tauber]

And again, I just love the fact that we get glossed here for the first time. So many things endore, the Quenya for Middle Earth and Ennor, the Sindarin equivalent to that.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, and once again, we start to realize, even in our own heads, even without it being glossed, that Dor is land, Middle Earth, Dor. And you're. Oh, Gondor, Arnor, Eriador, Mordor, all the doors, you know, and you start to put it all together.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

It just gives you just enough to start to, you know, piece it together on your own, even if you're not a linguist. Because I. Folks, full disclaimer, in case it's not painfully obvious, am not a linguist.

[James Tauber]

So this is actually the approach. I'm teaching a class at the moment. When this goes to air, I'll be teaching class on Tolkien's invented languages that takes exactly this approach of what can we actually work out from the way that Tolkien uses it? It's, it's really masterful the way that he, he does that. He doesn't, he doesn't just give us a vocab list, he just weaves it into the story and we can work it out as a puzzle.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I love that. Well, we're going to get to the vowels here in just a bit, so join us shortly. Now, lately I've had a chance to tell you all about Mando, the whole body deodorant. I still use it, I still like it, and I especially like that my 13 year old son uses it. Now, Mando is clinically proven to block odors all day long and to control them for up to 72 hours even. And one of the things I really like about Mando's stuff is that it's whole body deodorant. You don't just throw some on your armpits. You really can use it any place on your body that could use a bit of odor control. And yeah, that includes there too. Mando products come in solids, creams and sprays and some really fresh scents too, like Pro Sport, Clover woods and Bourbon Leather. Mando's starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick Deodorant Cream tube Deodorant, two free products of your choice like a mini body wash or deodorant wipes, which are perfect for travel and free shipping. As a special offer for our listeners, new customers get $5 off a starter pack with our exclusive code that equates to over 40% off your starter pack when you use code PONY. @shopmando.com that's s h o p m a n d o dot com please support our show and tell them we sent you Smell fresher, stay drier and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando. Whether it's a movie night or just midday, Skinny Pop is a salty snack that keeps on giving. Made with just three simple ingredients for an irresistibly delicious taste and a large serving size that lasts deliciously popped. Perfectly salted Skinny Pop. Popular for a reason. Shop Skinny Pop now. Soon we'll get to vowel pronunciation and the often confusing question of stress. One that I'm still making mistakes on. But before we do, we want to remind you there's a lot more talk going on at the Prancing Pony podcast than just us.

[James Tauber]

The PPP has an amazing listener community. They're always coming up with great questions and discussions across all our social media spaces. Check out our common room on Facebook, our dedicated subreddit, Twitter and more on Facebook.

[Alan Sisto]

Just look for the Prancing Pony podcast. Follow the page to get the news and episodes, but please join the group to get involved in some great discussions.

[James Tauber]

On Twitter, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitch, TikTok and YouTube. We're AntcingPonyPod or if you prefer Reddit, find us there at R prancingponypod and.

[Alan Sisto]

Listen if you want daily Tolkien content. And come on, who doesn't? Check out today's Tolkien times on the PPP YouTube channel and on all your favorite podcast apps. That's my short format Daily show. And I know short format. It's still eight to 10 minutes, but you know, that short format compared to the PPP. We got everything from Middle Earth Map Mondays to Word Nerd Wednesdays. And there's my twice weekly streaming of all fun things Middle Earth on the PPP plays. Be sure to check both of them out on the YouTube channel for all the PPP productions at YouTube.com prancing pony pod Now, James, we're going to get into the exciting topic of pronouncing vowels.

[James Tauber]

Which is actually going to turn out to be quite interesting. This is a rabbit hole. A rabbit hole that I've gone down for a while. So Tolkien says for vowels, the letters I, E, A, O, U are used, and in Sindarin only. Why? As far as can be determined, I just have to stop there and laugh again at the conceit continu. As far as can be determined, the sounds represented by these letters other than Y were of normal kind, though doubtless many local varieties escaped detection. That is, the sounds were approximately those represented by IEEAOU in English machine were father for brute, irrespective of quantity.

[Alan Sisto]

So does he mean their, like double vowel is still?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I went. So I'll unpack all this. So first of all, he says we're of a normal. We're of normal kind. The interesting thing is that in many European languages, there's a nice clean sound for each of these vowels. English kind of screws things, it really.

[Alan Sisto]

Does, let's be honest. And it's because we're a hodgepodge, right? Because some of our words come from a Germanic background and some of our words coming from a Latin background.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And we had, we had this thing called the Great Vowel Shift, which basically. And that's going to become relevant in a moment with the question you asked. The Great Vowel Shift basically meant that all our long vowels In English, changed quality.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

To no longer be just long versions of the short vowels.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So when we talk about a long a, we mean like an a sound, even though our A is an. But it's not versus r. What he's saying at the end, when he says that they're approximately these values irrespective of quantity, what he means is that qualitatively they stay the same. The way you make long vowels is just to say the short vowel for longer.

[Alan Sisto]

Longer. So a double O would not go from four to fool. It would just be four.

[James Tauber]

Four. Yeah. As opposed to. Right, exactly. I love the fact that he says doubtless many local varieties escape detection.

[Alan Sisto]

Yep.

[James Tauber]

And I think you can use this for a lot of.

[Alan Sisto]

I think you can.

[James Tauber]

If you don't pronounce things exactly right, you can say it's just dialect. It's just dialect. It's my accent. Right.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm pronouncing that in the. The Anfalis dialect.

[James Tauber]

We do get some insight into different pronunciation in Gondor, as opposed to amongst the Elves.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

There's a. There's a footnote that we're not going to get into that talks a little bit about how Frodo was better at his vowels, Quenya vowels than Bilbo was, and so on. So there's. There's definitely variation here. And although, as Tolkien says, much of it likely detection. But the thing that I want to get to is. Well, there's a few things. So. And we'll come back to some of this, actually, when we come to the mailbag question. I want to point out a few things, though. The fact that the I is always an E sound. It's not an sound. It's always an E sound.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

The A is always an ah sound. Not an sound, not an a.

[Alan Sisto]

So it's not apple, it's the A as in father.

[James Tauber]

Right, Right, exactly. It's always the ah. The really weird one, though, for me, and this is the rabbit hole that I. I talked about.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Is the word that he gives for how to pronounce e is were.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And I am 100 positive that he did not mean the E to be pronounced the way I say were. He meant e to be pronounced as eh, not er.

[Alan Sisto]

Well. And even I would pronounce that. It's not like it's an Australian thing, because Americans would pronounce the e in were as were.

[James Tauber]

Right. And in fact. And in fact, received pronunciation in Britain would be the same. So I started wondering, what's going on here? Why is He. I mean, one way of getting around it if it is, if it's not the auxiliary verb were, but actually where, as in where like a werewolf. Right. You could get around it that way. But. But he. I. It's a very, very odd choice. And I struggled this for a long time until I came across a few times when Bilbo actually rhymes. Well, in this case. So in Bilbo does it. In a couple of occasions, Bilbo rhymes were with hair in of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that were with morning mists and silver sun and wind upon my hair.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay, so now I'm hearing him say, of yellow leaves and gossamer and autumns at their wear.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

This is odd.

[James Tauber]

Which is the only way to make it work. And so I started to wonder, are there dialects of English where. Where, where, where. Where hair and were rhyme.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh.

[James Tauber]

And it turns out there are. And this is something that linguists refer to, goes by a variety of names, but one of the names for it is the Nurse Square merger. And there are a lot of cases where certain dialects merge sounds that are different in other dialects, but in a particular dialect, they merge, they become the same. Okay, a great example for American listeners. Many will be familiar with a certain southern merger between pin and pen.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah.

[James Tauber]

You get people talking about a pin.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And you can't tell if they're saying pin or pen.

[Alan Sisto]

They mean pin something or Give me a pen to write with.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. They say pen, and that's called a pin pen merger. Okay, Right. It turns out there are certain dialects of English in England that have a score. Nurse Square merger. So if you can imagine square. So you can imagine a Liverpudlian saying, nurse. I went to the nurse square.

[Alan Sisto]

Nurse square.

[James Tauber]

Nurse. That's a nurse square.

[Alan Sisto]

The ua. The ur becomes like the UAR and.

[James Tauber]

That'S what's going on with the where in the wear and hair. Exactly. So it's not just Liverpool. It's that there are other parts, pockets in England that do this as well.

[Alan Sisto]

So are you saying that every other paragraph, Tom Bombadil on Rings of Power will shift into this accent?

[James Tauber]

There's a chance. There is 25% chance in any sense.

[Alan Sisto]

Roll a D20. Okay, now you're Liverpudlian. For those who don't listen to Rings of Power. Wrap up. That's a reference to the fact that when Tom Bombadil debuted in season two, Sara and James especially, Sara especially just went off on the fact that he shifted his accents from place to place all Over England. He was from the. Oh, now he's from the North. Oh, now he's from the South. Now he's from over here. Now he's from over there. I had no clue. Of course, I'm. I'm an absolutely incompetent American with. You know, as. You know, I try to do accents every now and then, and it's just. It never works. Anyway, I digress. Continue, sir.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So I'm convinced that Tolkien was either just giving Bilbo a particular accent that rhymes it this way, but then that would be strange, why he would describe it independently. I have evidence to think Tolkien himself actually rhymed these two together. I'll get. I'll get to that in a moment. There's another example I just want to point out. Again, this is from Bilbo in Earender was a mariner, we read Earender was a mariner that tarried in Arvernian. He built a boat of Timberfeld in Nimbithrell to journey in her sails he wove of silver, fair of silver were her lanterns made. That internal rhyme only works if, again, you rhyme fair with were.

[Alan Sisto]

So that's also Bilbo writing it.

[James Tauber]

It's Bilbo writing it.

[Alan Sisto]

So we go back to the idea of Bilbo maybe being the one with.

[James Tauber]

That accent, although that still doesn't explain why Appendix E would do it. But then I noticed quite recently, in Tolkien's translation of Sir Ufeo, we get the following. In Britain, all these lays are writ. They're issued first in rhyming fit concerning adventures in those days whereof the Britons made their lays. For when they heard men anywhere tell of adventures that there were, they took their harps in their delight and made a lay and named it. Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Whoa.

[James Tauber]

So here's an example of Tolkien rhyming anywhere with were. Were. Exactly. So I'm. I'm now completely convinced that. That Tolkien would have rhymed. And I've been trying to hear in recordings anytime when he says the word were to see if he says where.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, boy.

[James Tauber]

So I would love to know if there are listeners from particular regions in England associated with Tolkien. I don't know if this was a Birmingham thing, though. This is what confuses me. I think there were some parts of Yorkshire that do it. Liverpool does it.

[Alan Sisto]

But if that's the case, we've been pronouncing everything wrong for a very long time. I mean, you just mentioned Earendel is a mariner that tarried in Arvernian. But it would be Arvernian Nimbrethil.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, well, okay, it is Avernian. We have a tense in English and we'll get to this in a moment. To change the vowel when there's an R. Yeah, but. Which we shouldn't do.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly, but nimbrethyl instead of nimbrethyl.

[James Tauber]

Oh, yeah. Bre. Brethil. Brethil.

[Alan Sisto]

That is the weirdest example, because even then, if I'm pronouncing it like I pronounce the e in wir, it'd be nimbruthal. I don't get the E in where or worse, I don't understand what it's supposed to be. Help me, Obi Wan. You're my only hope.

[James Tauber]

Anyway, this is a rabbit hole that I've gone down for a number of years now.

[Alan Sisto]

Thank you and curse you and your sudden but inevitable betrayal. All right, we'll get back to the text. Appendix. So Tolkien continues. In Sindarin, long E, a, o had the same quality as the short vowels. Again, going back to the idea that they had the same sound being derived in comparatively recent times from them. Older eao with the diacritic marks had been changed. In Quenya, long e and o were when correctly pronounced as by the Eldar tenser and closer than the short vowels.

[James Tauber]

So Italian does this. Italian has a distinction. It's hard. Hard for me to do these things, but there's a difference between a kind of a. Slightly higher. By closer. What he means is that the tongue is slightly higher up.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay.

[James Tauber]

So if you. If you imagine when you're saying eh, you can sort of. There's an eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh.

[Alan Sisto]

That's not going to translate well to podcast.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. I'm moving my tongue slightly higher up.

[Alan Sisto]

Alternating, which also results in a little bit more of a narrow mouth, too, like you, sort of almost like a smile.

[James Tauber]

And that's what's meant by closer. Yeah, the tongue's lifted up and so on. This is the point, though, at which there's a footnote basically saying that because notice he says by the. Correctly pronounced as by the Eldar.

[Alan Sisto]

In other words, humans don't worry about this.

[James Tauber]

Bilbo couldn't do it. Frodo is unusually good for a Hobbit, apparently.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay, okay.

[James Tauber]

But this is one of those things.

[Alan Sisto]

That I'm terrible over that stuff. Terrible.

[James Tauber]

Italians would be good at it. The Spanish, not so much. Because Spanish only has one type of E like that, Italians have two.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay.

[James Tauber]

So it's interesting, though, that there is this sort of subtle, subtle difference. But as I said, there's a footnote that basically says most Hobbits couldn't get it right.

[Alan Sisto]

Which then I'm not going to feel bad.

[James Tauber]

So I. Yeah, my, my. What I tell everyone is I am excused. Be like bilbo. We continue on the vowel stuff. Sindarin alone among contemporary languages, possessed the modified or fronted you more or less, as in French, lune. Also the umlauder U in German as well. Yeah, the E sound, which you can make, by the way, if you. If you say an E sound, but then round your lips. So if you say start with an.

[Alan Sisto]

E. Yeah, I always say make. Make a sound like you're going to make an oo, and then just say E. Like, take your lips.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. Your lips are making an ooh, but the tongue is making an E. Exactly. It was partly a modification of o and U, partly derived from older diphthongs, eu iu. For this sound, y has been used as in ancient English, as in lug, snake, Quenya, luka, or emun, which is the plural of Amon Hill. In Gondor, this Y was usually pronounced like I.

[Alan Sisto]

And I'm always grateful for that.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. So in Gondor, they would just say emin. They wouldn't say emun.

[Alan Sisto]

Which is why when we were watching Rings of Power last season and they mention turngorthad, they were. We would say tirngorthad. They were talking about the Barrow Downs, but these were elves. So they're going to pronounce it correctly with that.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. But notice, I love the fact here that we get this reveal. Again, we may have been able to work this out from the main text that amon means hill, but that emun is the plural of Amon.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Amon is the plural or a singular, and emun is the plural. So we get an explanation of how a singular morphs into a plural.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And we can obviously collect a bunch of other examples and work it out.

[Alan Sisto]

Tolkien never explains Adain to Edain is probably the one that we can get without a lot of. I mean, like, that's all we get from context.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And in both cases, what's going on is some vowel harmony where basically there used to be. You see it in Quenya, still, the plural ending is an I, like in Istario Palantiri, that I in Sindarin ended up modifying the preceding vowels to be more I like. And then the eye just dropped. In Sindarin.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It's exactly the same thing that we get in English. That's the reason why the plural of man is men. Woman is Women. Foot is feet. Goose. Geese. They're all examples where exactly the same thing has gone on.

[Alan Sisto]

Moose. Moose. Oh, wait. No, just kidding.

[James Tauber]

Well, so the funny thing about moose is that that's not an English word. That's actually an Algonquin word.

[Alan Sisto]

Is the ro.

[James Tauber]

Reason why it isn't. Germanic rules don't apply. But it's great that we, you know, we don't get the explicit grammatical rule, but we do get this. Nice.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Glossing a really good example of it.

[James Tauber]

Right, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

So moving on. Long vowels are usually marked with the acute accent, as in some varieties of Feanorian script in Sindarin, long vowels in stressed monosyllables are marked with the circumflex, since they tended in such cases to be specially prolonged. So in Dun, compared with Dunedan, the use of the circumflex in other languages, such as Adonaic or Dwarvish, has no special significance and is used merely to mark these out as alien tongues, as with the use of K. Final e is never mute or a mere sign of length, as in English. To mark this final e, it is often but not consistently written E with the diacritic what looks like an umlaut.

[James Tauber]

I love it. Daresis. Yep. Yes. There's a couple of really fun things here. One is this idea. Well, first of all, the acute symbol only indicates length, not. Not stress. I think there's a tendency to think it sometimes means stress and it can influence stress. It often does influence stress. In fact, we had a. We were talking about Calabrian.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

That's an example where it's. The accent is indicating the long vowel, which in turn causes it to be stressed.

[Alan Sisto]

That's what makes it be the stressed syllable. Not because it has the stress mark.

[James Tauber]

Right, Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Because it's not a stress mark. It's. I mean, it is a stress mark, but it's not.

[James Tauber]

Right? Well, it's. Yeah, it's indicating the vowel length, and therefore that's why it's.

[Alan Sisto]

That's how it affects the stress.

[James Tauber]

So it only indicates the vowel length. What's interesting is this idea that the circumflex in Sindarin, when it's used for. It's only used in single syllable words, but means exactly the same thing. It's purely aesthetic. Right. There's no functional difference. Although, I mean, he does suggest that maybe it was especially prolonged because it's only one syllable. If you say a long vowel in a single syllable word, maybe you say it for extra long. But I love the fact that the Other languages, like Adonaic or Dwarvish, use a circumflex everywhere.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Means nothing.

[James Tauber]

It's purely. It has no special significance. It's used merely to mark these out as alien tongues. Again, it's just that visual aesthetic. He wanted it to look a particular.

[Alan Sisto]

Way because it is alien to the sindarin and Quenya that he's working with primarily. I love that.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

And then, of course, obviously, the final E. Very important.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And again, what's important here is that it means that those two dots, the diresis, that's in Germanic, in German, it's, you know, often used to indicate umlaut. They're optional because they're not ever actually necessary. They don't tell you anything you didn't already know. They're just a little helpful reminder.

[Alan Sisto]

Reminder.

[James Tauber]

So when you get something like Eine Lindelay, it's just a reminder to say the let.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Not einer, linda, lindale or, you know, in earendel or feanor. It's just a reminder that they're two separate. The two vowels are separate sounds.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It's not necessary.

[Alan Sisto]

I find that very useful. Yes.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Then we get a remark that I talked about a little bit earlier. The groups er, ir, finally, or before a consonant, are not intended to be pronounced as in English fern, fur or fur, but rather English air, ir. And again, the principle here is simply that when you add an R after a vowel, it doesn't change.

[Alan Sisto]

It doesn't change the quality of the vowel. The vowel is still the vowel.

[James Tauber]

You still say it as an E, OO sound like you normally would.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, there we have the answer to the E pronunciation you talked about. Were. It's pronounced as in were, but there it is. The er is pronounced as in English air. And it's been hitting us in the face the whole time.

[James Tauber]

Well, I had no doubt at all that it's to be pronounced E. The question was, why does he use the word were?

[Alan Sisto]

Why does he use were as the example? Right, yeah, exactly. But, I mean, there it is hitting me in the head that that is. Is. It's supposed to be the English word where not were.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The question is why he uses were as the example. I don't think there's any doubt that the pronunciation.

[Alan Sisto]

There is no doubt now at all.

[James Tauber]

That it should be a. Yeah, definitely. And then in Quenya, U, I, O, I, A, I and I, U, E, U, A, U are diphthongs that is pronounced as one syllable.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

All other pairs of vowels are disyllabic.

[Alan Sisto]

And that's why we use the. The diuresis.

[James Tauber]

The diuresis, exactly. So, yeah, so this is often dictated by writing like e diresis A or E diresis O or o e diresis, like in. Like in feanor or air, and. Or it's not needed. If you ever see an ea in Quenya, ea is never a diphthong. It's always air, but it's just a helpful little reminder.

[Alan Sisto]

Whereas eu is always a diphthong. These. These combinations. These.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Basically the ones with the eyes and the ones that the U's.

[James Tauber]

Yes. In Sindarin, slightly different set of diphthongs. You get ae, AI, ei, oe, ui, and au. Notice, some of these are not diphthongs in Quenya. So ae is not a diphthong in Quenya. And notably, oe is not a diphthong in Quenya either. But it is in Sindarin, which is why I think he gives the example of. Of oe with a duresis. In Quenya, other combinations are not diphthongal. And then he. He says the writing of final au as aw is in accordance with English custom, but not actually not uncommon in Feanorian spellings. So we. You get that in stuff like claw.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

Is. Is. Is actually no different than. I mean, it should be lihla. I mispronounced it because it is just an au. Many time you see an aw, it is. Is an au.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay.

[James Tauber]

Okay. Then he says there's nothing in English closely corresponding to these cinder and diphthongs. Ae, o, e, e, eu, ae, and oe may be pronounced as AI, oi. So in other words. So the way diphthongs work. I'll just. I'll just explain. They're really a slide between two vowels. So when you get something like AI, you start your tongue in the R position and end it in the E position. So you say I, I. Yeah. But if you start with an R and end in an air, I, I, it's almost indistinguishable to our ears from an a. And that's what he's basically saying. Here's pronounce. Giving up. Just be done saying, look. Yeah, don't worry if AI and ae are pronounced the same.

[Alan Sisto]

So I'm trying to think of a Sindarin word that has that AI diphthong that we would pronounce. I'm sorry. That has the ae diphthong that we would pronounce as AI.

[James Tauber]

Mythros.

[Alan Sisto]

Mithros. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Miglan.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, Miglan. Yeah. And we would pronounce those as AI.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And I'm pronouncing it as if it were an AI.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. And that's the way we should. Yeah, makes sense. Okay, well, now we come to a very helpful guide, one that's going to provide me with much embarrassment. Where to put the stress on words. As we all know, in season one, when I didn't know where to put the stress on the holy mountain, but that was thanks to the audiobook.

[James Tauber]

How did you say it, Alan?

[Alan Sisto]

I always call it now, I lovingly call it the Aztec pronunciation. I used to pronounce it Taniquetl. I mean, I didn't really pronounce it Aztec, but I did pronounce Taniquetl instead of Taniquetil. And learning where the stress goes, and I did learn that from a mispronounced name in the audiobook. And we'll talk about that. I think there's a question in the mailbag that talks about.

[James Tauber]

There's a great mailbag question.

[Alan Sisto]

Really good one.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

But, you know, this is one of those things where studying this is a little difficult, but it pays off so much because when you're reading the book aloud, as I highly recommend everybody does, you'll feel so much better and more confident when you get to the names, if you understand where to put the stress on words. So Tolkien writes, the position of the accent or stress is not marked, since in the Eldaran languages concerned its place is determined by the form of the word. In words of two syllables, it falls in practically all cases on the first syllable. So, for example, names like Elrond. Right. It's going to fall on the first syllable, not Elrond. In longer words, it falls on the last syllable but one, where that contains a long vowel, a diphthong, or a vowel followed by two or more consonants. Where the last syllable but one contains as often a short, short vowel followed by only one or no consonant, the stress falls on the syllable before it, the third from the end words of the last form are favored in the Eldaran languages, especially Quenya. And he's giving you a little tip there, folks. If you're not sure, lean that way. Lean towards the antipenalt rather than the penult. So ultimate is last. Right? So penult is the one before the last. The antipenalt is the one before the one before the last. And that's what he's talking about here, is it will. Usually, you know, in longer words, it falls on the penult, where that contains those elements, either the long vowel Diphthong or the vowel, two or more consonants. But more often than not, because words of this last form are favored in the Eldar languages, where it contains a short vowel followed by either one or no consonant, the stress falls on the antepenult. And then he gives us some examples. Right, James?

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So I'm going to go through the examples and I'll briefly explain why it is what it is. But it's very helpful that he rattles off a bunch of.

[Alan Sisto]

This really does help. This helped me a lot.

[James Tauber]

And some of these are the ones that I know I've gotten wrong in the past as well. So he says in the following examples, the stressed vowel is marked by a capital letter. So he's just Isildur. It's not Isildur, it's Isildur. And the reason it's on the second to last is because of the ld. Because of the sild. It's got two consonants there. So it's a heavy. The penult is heavy. So that's where the stress. Isildur.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. And that's the vowel followed by two or more consonants.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. Orme has three syllables, but the second to last is a light syllable. It's just a short vowel, and there's only one consonant after it. So it's the stresses on the third last orame. Then we get one that I struggled with until I reread Appendix E a few years ago, and that's ares.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I've so often pronounced it. Eric.

[James Tauber]

I think one of the reasons is because we see that direesis, and it feels like it's telling us where the accent should be, and it's not. So in this case, the second last syllable is the E with the diresis on it, which is a light syllable. It's short. It doesn't have any consonants after it. And so therefore the stress has to go on the third last.

[Alan Sisto]

So it's.

[James Tauber]

And again, this is one of those ones that's hard for English speakers, but it's a double. It S. So holding that S for extra long, then we get Fernor. I think that's pretty straightforward. Ankalima. Not ankalima. Ankalima. Because again, the li is light. It just has one. It's short and has one consonant. But elentari, because it's got an acute accent on it, it tells you it's long.

[Alan Sisto]

It's not telling you the accent is here, though the accent is here. It's telling you that the A is a long vowel. But. But because it's a long vowel, the stress is on the penult, not the antipenalt.

[James Tauber]

So if you ever do get that acute on the second last syllable, that is where it's going to be stressed.

[Alan Sisto]

Because it's a long vowel.

[James Tauber]

Right, Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

That's why Calabrian.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly. Then denethor. Again, the interesting thing here, I have to point out, this is where we have to make a distinction between two consonants and one consonant that happens to be written by two letters, like the th. The th here is a digraph. It's one sound. It's one consonant, even though we write it with two letters. Thor. Right. The th is just one sound. And so that second last syllable is light. And so the stress goes on the third last denithor. And then perianth, again, because the. It goes on the second last because of the double n. The double N. Right.

[Alan Sisto]

The long consonanth.

[James Tauber]

And we can hold that longer as well. And then ecthelion, again, the E is short, doesn't have any consonants after it. So it goes on the third last ecthelion. And then we get palargir. Yeah, Again because of the rg.

[Alan Sisto]

Yep.

[James Tauber]

It's. It's heavier, so it becomes palargir. And then silivrin. For the same reason. Silivrin. It goes on that second last because of the VR. He goes on to say words of the type elentari, and we get that glossed star. Seldom occur in Quenya, where the vowel is long e, long, a long o. Unless, as is this case, they are compounds. So in other words, he's saying that. That. That existence of the. Of the long vowel in the second last position, that would cause that stress to be there is unusual.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

In Quenya, only tends to form when they're really two words going on. Elentari and celebrian is another one of.

[Alan Sisto]

Those because Caleb is silver. It's a separate element from rion.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Although that's Sindarin, not.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, I dropped the ball on that one.

[James Tauber]

It's tricky. I can't keep track of Alan weighing in his head.

[Alan Sisto]

Jordan, edit that or let it go. I don't know. We're gonna let that go. I'm not perfect. I don't want to pretend to be. All right. Good catch, though. James. Thank you.

[James Tauber]

Newsflash.

[Alan Sisto]

I don't think anybody needs a ticker for that one.

[James Tauber]

They are commoner with the vowels long I, long u, as in Dune, sunset, West. They do not occur in Sindarin except in compounds. So there we get the. And then we get what? The point we made. We Already made with the Denethor in Sindarin, dh, T, H, C, H are single consonants and represent single letters in the original script. Of course.

[Alan Sisto]

Because it's not written as th in the Elvish languages.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. That's just a result of the way English is written.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. We have to represent the sound with something that makes the sound in English. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And then we get this bit that we alluded to much earlier on in names drawn from other languages than Eldaren. Although I guess if. That. If we. Well, Eldaren's an English word. I was going to say, should it be Eldarin? But it's an English word. It's not a.

[Alan Sisto]

That makes sense.

[James Tauber]

Well, which word? So that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. The same values for the letters are intended where not specifically described above, except in the case of Dwarvish. In Dwarvish, which did not possess the sounds represented by th and ch. And so th and kh are aspirates, that is a T or K followed by an H, more or less. As in backhand or outhouse. So in other words, not just the kh but the th as well in Dwarvish are not. But they're just a T and a K followed by an H. Exactly. Now, I need to point out that does not include Thorin, because Thorin's not a Dwarvish name. It's not Torn Tauren, because that's not a. That's not a Dwarvish name. That's actually an old Norse name. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

He has an actual Dwarvish name that we'll never know, because Dwarves don't tell anybody their name.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. That's. That's his outer name. Right. That's what the men of the Dale would have called him.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

As. As Tolkien explains in his retcon, but.

[Alan Sisto]

An actual Dwarvish word. So I'm trying to think of maybe the names of the mountains. Trying to think of any.

[James Tauber]

I'm actually trying to think of any examples where we get. I'm not sure.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I'll have to think about that. I mean, Kh is a little easier. We see that a little.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Kh. Yeah. As you said, the. The Khazadoom is just a aspirated K, so it's. Yeah, yeah, Kul. Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And I've messed that one up a thousand times, folks. I'm sorry.

[James Tauber]

Actually, in English. In English, we always aspirate initial syllable, initial K's anyway. So you don't have to do anything special.

[Alan Sisto]

No, you really don't. Because we don't. It's not like it's soft. Yeah. We always make it kind of hard there.

[James Tauber]

And then we're told where. Where. Where Z occurs. The sound intended is that of English Z.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay.

[James Tauber]

But then we're told that the Gh in the Black speech and Orcish represents a back spirant related to G as DH is to D. So in other words, if you think about. If you think about D versus the. And do the same with G, it's.

[Alan Sisto]

G. And I'm glad you had this section and not me, because I'm struggling.

[James Tauber]

There was a reason I gave myself this section.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

But, yeah. So we're told that in Black speech and Orcish, words like and are that voiced backspyrant, as Tolkien describes it, as fascinating.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, going back to the Th. I realize now, Cloudy Head, I've been calling that Bundu Shathur, but it's Bundu Shathoor.

[James Tauber]

You're absolutely right. Yes. I've always gotten that wrong, too.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. The only other one that I can think of, and I was just looking at a list of examples of words, was one that I don't think I've mentioned very often, but a place that I would have referred to as Gabilgethal, which is Great Fortress is Belegost's name, but that would have been Gabilgathal, not Gabilge. That is fascinating.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, okay, one other one.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

But it's at the initial. Their name for Gandalf was Tharkoon, but would it have been Tharkun, or would it have been Taharkun?

[James Tauber]

It would have been Takun.

[Alan Sisto]

Tarkun.

[James Tauber]

Takun. Just Takun. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

That is interesting.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Ooh.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I don't think I ever realized that either.

[Alan Sisto]

No. And, boy, I've been mispronouncing Dwarvish all over the place. All right, well, moving on and leaving that embarrassment in the. In the rearview mirror, we get an explanation of Tolkien's use of northern forms. The outer or Mannish names of the Dwarves have been given northern forms, but the letter values are those described. So also in the case of the personal and place names of Rohan, where they have not been modernized, except that here, Ea and Eo, like Eomer, Eowen. Right. Are diphthongs which may be represented by the Ea of English bear and the Eo of Theobald. Why is the modified U? The modernized forms are easily recognized and are intended to be pronounced as in English. They are mostly place names as Dunharrow, for Dunhare. Am I getting that old English right?

[James Tauber]

I think so, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. With a G is a Y.

[James Tauber]

Wouldn't be a Y in that case. I don't think so, because it doesn't have a I or an E following it.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay. Oh, yeah.

[James Tauber]

We can't remember exactly, but I think you could say Haag. You could say.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, Dunhag. Except Shadowfax and Wormtongue, obviously. Those are modern English. Sort of already translated names.

[James Tauber]

Right. What's interesting here is that suggests that.

[Alan Sisto]

That.

[James Tauber]

That Eowyn should actually be Erwin. Two syllables, not three.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Erwin. Not Ayo, not Aowin, but just Erwin. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Eowyn.

[James Tauber]

Airmere.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, I've always tried to do that. Not like Eomer, but Eomer.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Eowyn. But you're right, it's. You need to do it even quicker because it's.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. He does say they're not diphthongs.

[Alan Sisto]

They're not.

[James Tauber]

Sorry. They are diphthongs.

[Alan Sisto]

They are diphthongs. They're separate syllables. Syllables.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

So they should be. That should be two syllables. Theoden.

[James Tauber]

Theoden.

[Alan Sisto]

Not Theoden. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It's tricky.

[Alan Sisto]

Dang. That's hard.

[James Tauber]

It is tricky. So we do get a brief mention here. I won't talk about a lot of this because we'll cover this in Appendix F, I think, but this whole way that he retconned the use of Old Norse names in the Hobbit by having this notion of an outer or manish names of the dorm. So they're not their real names, they're just what the men. What the Men of the Dale called them. And he used Old Norse to represent the men of the Dale and so on. Yeah, yeah, I think that's it for pronunciation. Let's move on to the writing systems.

[Alan Sisto]

All right, now, we're not going to cover everything here because it is a little hard to describe some of the more visual aspects on a podcast. But we'll do our best to cover the key points. And the section starts off with some helpful history. The scripts and letters used in the Third Age were all. All ultimately of Eldaran origin. And already at that time of great antiquity, they had reached the stage of full alphabetic development. But older modes, in which only the consonants were denoted by full letters were still in use.

[James Tauber]

So I think this is a really important point. There's this association we have nowadays of the runes being Dwarvish.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

But it's made clear here, and it's obvious elsewhere that the runes were developed by Elves as well. So this is all elvish writing systems that we're talking about.

[Alan Sisto]

And this is Rumil would have a word, and Daeron and Dairon, for sure, it's his runes.

[James Tauber]

But we get mentioned here of modes, and what modes refers to is the fact that the same writing system can be applied to different languages and sometimes in different ways. Even the same language can be written with the writing system in different ways, and they referred to as different modes. But we're told here that there are older modes where really only the consonants get given full letters.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And the vowels are just written as diacritics, essentially. Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. So the alphabets were of two main and, in origin, independent kinds. The tengwar or tu, here translated as letters, and the kertar or kir translated as runes. The tengwar were devised for writing with brush or pen, and the squared forms of inscriptions were, in their case, derivative from the written forms. The kertar were devised and mostly used only for scratched or incised inscriptions. And that sort of explains why we end up thinking of them as dwarvish. Because they're going to be carving more into stone than writing on paper.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And we.

[Alan Sisto]

And so we just kind of think that way.

[James Tauber]

There's some further discussion about that. But it's interesting that the medium of writing sort of dictates what was used there. It's also worth pointing out that tengua, which means letters, and kyth, which means runes or k in Konya. They're just Tolkien's translations of these things to capture that idea that. But one of them's more of a brush or pen kind of thing versus a carving.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It's interesting that it does mention that in theory, you can carve the tengwa with squarer forms. It refers to.

[Alan Sisto]

I don't necessarily imagine, like 45 degree angles and things, you know, could be.

[James Tauber]

Done, but it continues. The Tengwar were the more ancient, for they had been developed by the Noldor, the kindred of the Eldar, most skilled in such matters long before their exile. The oldest Delaran letters, the Tengwar of Rumil, were not used in Middle Earth. The later letters, the Tengwar of Feanor, were largely a new invention, though they owed something to the letters of Rumal. They were brought to Middle Earth by the exiled Noldor and so became known to the Edain and the Numenoreans. In the Third Age, their use had spread over much the same area as that in which the common speech was known.

[Alan Sisto]

I like that by the way that they owed something to the letters of Rumil. Not that Feanor would acknowledge that. So Tenguar were developed by the Noldor before the exile. So they were developed initially in Valinor. Rumil did his work before Feanor. Right. Feanor stood on the shoulders of giants to achieve that particular greatness. Not that he wasn't great on his own, as we know. The greatest of all the children of Iluvatar. It would then later be brought to Middle Earth by the exiles. That's how the Edain and the Numenoreans came to understand and know these letters. Then we read this. The Cirth were devised first in Beleriand by the Sindar and were long used only for inscribing names and brief memorials upon wood or stone. To that origin they owe their angular shapes very similar to the runes of our times, though they differed from these in details and were wholly different in arrangements. The Kirth, in their older and simpler form, spread eastward in the Second Age and became known to many peoples, to Men and dwarves and even to Orcs, all of whom altered them to suit their purposes and according to their skill or lack of it. One such simple form was still used by the men of Dale and a similar one by the Rohirrim. I love that. Or their lack of it. Orcs.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. There's more I want to say about that, but I just want to sort of summarize that. So the runes were developed by the Sindar in Beleriandrigate here. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

So not in Valinor. Very different from the Tengwar.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, Exactly. And they were intended initially for inscribing in wood or stone. That's why they have their angular shapes, because they were intended for that carving. It's interesting. I just want to point out that the runes that we get in the Hobbit are very different from the Kiev that are described here in Appendix E. And the runes in the Hobbit are actually the Anglo Frisian runes that actually would have been used.

[Alan Sisto]

Primary world. Right?

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And I wonder if that's what's referred to when he talks about the Second Age development over time and simpler forms when it's adopted by men and even orcs. And this altered them to. Altered them to suit their purposes. Of course, you have to do that when you apply a writing system to a different language. Different languages have different sounds. You don't need certain letters. You need some extra letters. You repurpose things. And that's why you get weird relationships between, like, the Greek Alphabet and the Latin Alphabet. It's not that different sounds get repurposed. But this example of the Men of the Dale, I wonder if that's a reference to the Hobbit runes and whether. When Tolkien says, according to their skill or lack of it I wonder if in some respects he's referring to the fact that a lot of the consistency was lost in the way that runes are used in the primary world. They're not nice and clean like the way Tolkien devised them. I want to point out a couple of mentions of runes, actually, in the. The. In the book itself. So we do get in book one, where Strider says, on Weathertop, right, they find the G rune, thin branches. It might be a sign left by Gandalf, though one cannot be sure. The scratches are fine and they certainly look fresh. But the marks might mean something quite different and have nothing to do with us. Rangers use runes, and they come here sometimes. So it's interesting that Rangers are using. Get another example.

[Alan Sisto]

Example again, though, if you're leaving a message on a stone, you kind of.

[James Tauber]

Have to cover it. Yes, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Then in book three, we get. There were four Goblin. This is Gimli, I think, saying there were four. Four goblin soldiers. Upon their shields they bore a strange device, a small white hand in the center of a black field. On the front of their iron helms were set an S rune wrought of some white metal. Aragorn says, I've not seen these tokens before. What do they mean? And Gimli says, s is for Sauron. That it's easy to read and it always makes me feel the Cookie Monster. S is for Sauron it's good enough to read. S is for Sauron it's good enough to read S is for Sauron it's good enough for. Read. Oh, Sauron. Sauron, Sauron. Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

[Alan Sisto]

No, you couldn't. That was brilliant. I absolutely love it. And, of course, Gimli's wrong, right?

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

Like, there's only one person with a name that starts with the letter S, you know?

[James Tauber]

And it's Legolas that points that out. Sauron doesn't use runes.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Sauron. No. All right, continuing on, because I can't top that. Thanks so much. But in Beleriand, before the end of the First Age, the Cirth, partly under the influence of the Tenguar of the Noldor, were rearranged and further developed. Their richest and most ordered form was known as the Alphabet of Dairon since, in Elvish tradition, it was said to have been Devised by Daeron, the minstrel and loremaster and tattletale of King Thingol of Doriath. Sorry, I inserted the tattletale part. That's not in the text. Among the Eldar, the Alphabet of Daeron did not develop true cursive forms since for writing, the Elves adopted the Feanorian letters. The Elves of the west, indeed, for the most part gave up the use of runes altogether. In the country of Eregion, however, the Alphabet of Daeron was maintained in use and passed thence to Moria where it became the Alphabet most favored by the Dwarves. It remained ever after in use among them and passed with them to the north. Hence, in later times, it was often called Angerthas Moria or the long rune rose of Moria. As with their speech, the Dwarves made use of such scripts as were current. And many wrote the Feanorian letters skillfully but for their own tongues. They adhered to the kir and developed written pen forms from them. So. Interesting.

[James Tauber]

So they did actually write.

[Alan Sisto]

They wrote, but they never had. They never developed their own written language. They developed their own language, but they never developed their own writing. They borrowed writing to represent their language.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

That's interesting.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, it is. It is. So we're told here that the first Age, Balerion, Kiy, split into two. Right. The older, simpler forms are what spread to men, Dwarves. But then among the Elves, under the influence of the Tengwa a different arrangement emerged and that's, you know, the Alphabet of Daeron. But then the Elves continued to have the Tengwar as their main writing system. They had the runes for carving.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And they. But they eventually passed out of usage by the Elves except in Eregion. And that's how the Dwarves came to learn.

[Alan Sisto]

Which makes sense. As close as they were to.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And so it was used in Moria then. But then we're told, spread among other Dwarves as well.

[Alan Sisto]

Which makes sense. Well, you think about when the Dwarves fled Moria and moved north, you know, then they were closer to some of the other Dwarves. So it would have eventually found its way because obviously they didn't have a writing system of their own. So that's how you get messages to people now.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Fascinating with that.

[James Tauber]

So, interestingly, we're told Angathas Moria means the long rune roses of Moria. And I just want to point out the girthas. Well, actually, the girth part in Ungerthas is actually just the kurth.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

With that initial modification. Just like we saw. Remember, we saw that Perion becomes Fairyenough similar things going on here. That kurth, which means rune, gets that as ending, which gives us a rune row.

[Alan Sisto]

Like a plural.

[James Tauber]

Ungurfas is a long rune row on is long, Right?

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. Like Anduin.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. Yes, exactly. The long river. Yep. The great river. Exactly. I love the fact that we're told that the dwarves could write Feanorian letters. Many, many of them. Skillfully.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, we know that when we get to in the text itself, in the story, when they get to the chamber of Mazarbul and they see the book and they see that, oh, you know, he uses the elvish letters.

[James Tauber]

Right, Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Not the runes.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So in Balin's tomb, we're actually told that they're Daeron's runes. Gandalf says these are Daeron's runes as such as were used of old in Moria. Said Gandalf here is written in the tongues of men and dwarves.

[Alan Sisto]

Balin, son of Funden, Lord of Moria. He is dead. As I thought. So we've got the runes, but then a good example in the book itself of dwarves writing in the Feanorian letters in the book.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

We're going to get to the specifics of the writing system, starting with those Feanorian letters, the tangible. Right after this break.

[James Tauber]

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[Alan Sisto]

Workday starting to sound the same. I think you're on mute. Find something that sounds better for your career on LinkedIn. With LinkedIn job collections, you can browse curated collections by relevant industries and benefits like Flexpto or hybrid workplaces, so you can find the right job for you. Get [e-mail] jobs finding where you fit. LinkedIn knows how to. Folks, if you're enjoying the PPP, please consider supporting the show by joining the Fellowship of the podcast. So it gives me the time and resources to work on making the show the best that it can be. When you join, you become part of an amazing discord community. You get live episode recordings, hangouts every month. You get episode postscripts ad free episodes, free merch and more.

[James Tauber]

You can also become part of our questions after Nightfall episodes, or even join us as a guest in the North Wing. So Please go to patreon.com prancingponypod to show your support and join the Fellowship of the Podcast.

[Alan Sisto]

Of course, you can always help us out by giving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and a rating on Spotify. And please recommend us to your friends.

[James Tauber]

Okay, Alan, let's get back to the letters, starting with the Feanorian letters. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Do we have to call them that?

[James Tauber]

Tolkien does. I know.

[Alan Sisto]

All right, so we get a table of the Tengwar, and. And this is the part that threw me when I first looked through this. The arrangement is really important. We're told it's the one in which the letters were usually recited by name. He explains. This script was not in origin an Alphabet that is a haphazard series of letters, each with an independent value of its own, recited in a traditional order that has no reference either to their shapes or to their functions. It was rather a system of consonantal signs of similar shapes and style, which could be adapted at choice or convenience to represent the consonants of languages observed or devised by the Eldar. None of the letters had in itself a fixed value, but certain relations between them were gradually recognized. And there is a footnote to the line about the fact that a normal Alphabet has no reference either to their shapes or functions. The only relation in our Alphabet that would have appeared intelligible to the Eldar is that between P and B. And because I'm speaking to a microphone and trying not to make terrible noises, so I'm talking about the letters that begin the words part and boy. So those are the two letters P and B, and their separation from one another, Tolkien writes, and from F, M, and V would have seemed to them absurd. Exactly. Let's understand what he means by this, James.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, so one of the things that Tolkien does very differently in this writing system, and this is the thing that captivated me as a 12 year old, is that in most writing systems, there's no systematic relationship between the way that we write the letters and the differences in the sounds they make. And Tolkien, in that footnote, suggests that the only one that would have made sense to the Eldar among our letters is pnb. And what he means by that is, if you think about the shape of a pnb, they're very similar, except the stem of the P goes down and the stem of the B goes up.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, right.

[James Tauber]

But otherwise they're the same shape. And it turns out that not only do they have that Visual correspondence, but they also have a correspondence in the way that they're produced. P and B differ only in whether the vocal cords vibrate. The position of the tongue, the position of the lips is identical in those two sounds. And so there's a nice relationship that they're just the unvoiced and voiced version of the same sound. And the way they're written in our Alphabet, they look very similar. There's just a downward stem versus an upward stem. And so the L's would kind of go, oh, that makes sense. You put the stem down if it's unvoiced, and you put the stem up if it's voiced. That doesn't work.

[Alan Sisto]

Anything else?

[James Tauber]

And in particular, the reason he brings up the FM and the V is that FM and V all have a similar relationship to P and B. They're sort of in the same family. They're what are referred to as labials because they all involve the lips. But, of course, the way we write F, M, and V is nothing like the way we write P and B. So that relationship that exists between the way the sounds they represent is not reflected in the way that the letters are written. And that's what would have seemed absurd to the elves.

[Alan Sisto]

I think a lot of things would have seemed absurd to the elves.

[James Tauber]

I want to point out a couple of other things. One is that in the part you read, Tolkien says that none of the letters had, in. In itself, a fixed value. In other words, Tolkien set up this system where there's a bunch of letters arranged in a grid, and we'll talk about the grid in a moment, that have a relationship to one another, but they don't all have a fixed value. Because if they're going to be applied to different languages, different languages need different sounds. And so the way that the tengwar is applied to Quenya, it's going to be different than the way the tengua is applied to Sindarin.

[Alan Sisto]

So this would be the mode thing that you talked about earlier.

[James Tauber]

This is the mode thing. Exactly. Okay, so what he's saying is none of the letters had a fixed value. They could be adapted at choice or convenience to represent the consonants of languages observed. But the goal was always, let's try to retain this relationship between the visual form of the letter and the sounds.

[Alan Sisto]

And the variations of that consonantal sound. So in this case, the P, the B, the F, the M, the V, the labials.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, Exactly. So the primary tengua are arranged in a grid of four columns and six rows. And we're told that the columns are called series or temar, and the rows are called grades or teler. Here's a word that's got the ty. Maybe gondorians or something would say cela, but tiela. So if you look at the grid, there's a visually consistent relationship between the letter forms in the columns and the rows. Now, there are some additional letters we're told about, and there's some diacritics, it's a little called the techta, that are used for vowels. We're not going to go into a ton of details because I think it's too difficult to talk about those.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, because it's a visual thing. It's really hard.

[James Tauber]

But we will try to talk a little bit about the grid.

[Alan Sisto]

We will. And if, folks, if you do have a copy of appendix E handy, even in an electronic copy, you might want to open it to the table of tenguar and follow along. I think you'll find this very interesting. So we're told first off, that the primary letters were each formed of a telco, that's a stem, and a louva, which is the bow. Now, if you look at the rows or grades, right. The second row is the same as the first, but it's got the bow doubled. The third row is the same as the first, but with a raised stem. Fourth row is the same as the third, but with the bow doubled. So you can kind of see the pattern and see the structure. If you look at the columns, Right. The second column or series is the same as the first, but the bows have been closed. The bow or bows. Because depending on the row. Right. The third column is the same as the first, but flipped vertically. And then the fourth column is the same as the third with the bow closed. It's just. It's logical. It's laid out intelligently.

[James Tauber]

Exactly, exactly. But this is, of course, just talking about visual relationships. We haven't said anything at all yet.

[Alan Sisto]

There's nothing about sounds. The sound thing.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, this is neat pattern. You can almost imagine this being one of those logic puzzles or an IQ test or something where it's saying, what's missing shape here? And you work out, well, it's in this column, in this row. So it must have.

[Alan Sisto]

Therefore it's been two rows or it's got a bow. Yeah, exactly.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. But we then do get a description of how this is mapped in general to pronunciation. There's going to be differences from language to language, but we're told in general, the theoretic freedom of application had in the Third age been modified by custom to this extent that Series 1 was generally applied to the dental or T series, Tinko Tama, and two to the labials or P series, Parma Tama. The application of Series 3 and 4 varied according to the requirements of different languages.

[Alan Sisto]

So these are the first and second columns, not the first and second rows. Because that's a reminder folks, the series are the columns. So look up top you'll see like the Roman numeral 1 and 2. That's what James is talking about here. So that, that left hand column is the dental series or T series.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

And the, the P series is the second.

[James Tauber]

Is the second one. Yeah. So the T series or dental, that's. The dentals are where you, you basically place your tongue at the back of or on the teeth and that's how you get sounds like T, D, th, D, H. So okay, they're all called.

[Alan Sisto]

Dentals and the only difference is the voicing in that case. Right?

[James Tauber]

Yes, the differ. And there's a slight difference in the, in the, in the.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, yeah. Position.

[James Tauber]

So. Well, T and D are also. Briefly explain this, that T and D are plosives where you stop the air completely and then release it, whereas the th and the DH and the spirants, so you can actually continue the sound. They're sometimes more modernly probably called fricatives, but Tolkien refers to them as spirents. So there's a difference between plosives or stops on the one hand and spirants or fricatives on the other. The stops are where you stop the sound and release it in a burst. The fricatives or spirents are when you, you kind of just cause friction in the airflow, but you can continue it. So T and D, you can't continually say a T or D, but you can continually say a th or. Right, that's, that's the difference.

[Alan Sisto]

But if you wanted to annoy people, you could. Yes.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. You can imagine it like a six year old going around.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm just extending the fricative, dad, but because this all implosive for you, boy.

[James Tauber]

So in the dental series that's all happening around the teeth, basically. Hence the name dental or the T series or what does he call it? The Tinkotema.

[Alan Sisto]

Tinkotema. And I love how it's Tinkotema. Whereas the P series is parmatema, Parma, tema.

[James Tauber]

And it turns out these are actually the sounds of the letters. We'll get to the sounds of the letters in the moment because that gives us a whole bunch of new glosses.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, One wonderful.

[James Tauber]

So the second series, the P series or labials, because they involve the lips, and that's pb, F and V. And again, the difference between pb, F and V are voicing. And whether you're talking about a plosive or a fricative, a stop or aspirant. So it's exactly the same relationship between td, th, and DH on the one hand. And pbfv, you're changing the point, what's called the point of articulation, from being dental to labial. What happens with series three and series four actually ends up varying depending on the language. Okay. Because different languages have different sounds. I'll just quickly say Westron, because it uses. It has a ch and a j and a sh sound, which aren't necessarily needed in the elvish languages. Westron uses Series 3 for that and then uses Series 4 for the K series, the color, the. The kalamatema. So which again are just the same corresponding sounds as the. As we saw in the dentals. And the labels, they're just made back of the mouth. At the back of the mouth. Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Interesting.

[James Tauber]

Little different in Quenya, series three is used for that K series, not series four. And then the series four is used for this interesting combination of a K and a W. It's a combination of being in the back of the mouth, which referred to as the vela and labial. So que gwe. And where you put the W in front of it, that gets a whole series. So that's the series. We've already kind of touched on the. On the rows. Right. The first row are the voiceless stops. The doubling of the bow indicates the addition of voice. So again, completely systematic, if you know how to write it unvoiced, the voiced version, you just double the bow.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And similarly, raising of the stem indicates that the consonant becomes aspirant. So the way you turn something from plosive to the spirant or a stop for the fricative, you just raise the stem. And so that takes you from a T to a F or a P to a F or a K to a K. And then of course, if you both raise the stem and double the bow, you get a voice. So that gives us the. So completely consistent within that. At least within that, that, that.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that. I love how that's. That approaches. I mean, it's still confusing to me, but I like it. Then there's this note about some changes made for Quenya. Because in Quenya, isolated D, B and G are rare and instead are normally just found in the Combinations, right? Nd, mb, and ng. So in. In those cases, the grade two letters, that's the second row, are actually used for these combinations. In other words, in Quenya, NDMB and NG are written as single letters, right? Only in English, when it's translated into or represented using English letters, that it has to be written with the two. Similarly, grade four letters are used for other combinations, the nt, mp, and nk. And then this is what we read here. The vowels were, in many modes represented by tektar, usually set above a consonantal letter. In languages such as Quenya, in which most words ended in a vowel, the tekta was placed above the preceding consonant. In those, such as Sindarin, in which most words ended in a consonant, it was placed above the following consonant. Wow. That could be tricky, then, because you're reading the vowel. Your vowel reading is going to depend on whether you're reading Sindarin or Quenya because of where it's placed in the. Where the dots are. The three dots most usual in formal writing for a were variously written in quicker styles, a form like a circumflex being often employed. The single dot and the acute accent were frequently used for I and E, but in some modes for E and I, curls were used for O and U. In the ring inscription, the curl open to the right is used for U, but on the title page, this stands for O, and the curl open to the left for U. The curl to the right was favored, and the application depended on the language concerned. In the black speech, O was rare.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, so it's. It seems these weird variations, like, sometimes it's E and I, sometimes it's I and E. Sometimes. Sometimes it's O and U, sometimes it's U and O. That's largely to do with what letters are most helpful to have, or most sounds that are useful to have in the language. Although I sometimes wonder if it's also Tolkien explaining inconsistencies.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I know. I think he's often retconning his own, like, oops, I did this. So why did I do it this way? Well, let me come up with a good reason why, exactly.

[James Tauber]

We're told that the Westgate inscription, the Doors of Durin, that inscription is a little different in that the vowels each get their own letter. So it's instead of just the tektar, the dots in front, they actually get full letters for the vowels. And Frodo says, though, I thought I knew the elf letters, but I cannot read these. And I wonder if that's the reason we're not explicitly told. That's the reason. But it's interesting that Frodo struggles with the way those.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, he wouldn't recognize the vowel letters because the vowel letters aren't used.

[James Tauber]

It was a much older, older form. Although, of course, one theory is that Killer Brimbor just had bad hag. Anyway, Tolkien continues, there was, of course, no mode for the representation of English. One adequate phonetically could be devised for the Faenorian system. The brief example on the title page does not attempt to exhibit this. It is rather an example of what a man of Gondor might have produced, hesitating between the values of the letters familiar in his mode and the traditional spelling of English, which, again, I think is Tolkien just kind of hedging. There's some inconsistencies in the way that the title pages were written, of course.

[Alan Sisto]

And of course people have, you know, figured out how to represent English in Tenguar. I mean, that's, that's, you know, Tolkien fans all over the world have played around with English as represented by Tenguar. And you've probably seen Tenguar tattoos that are actually Tenguar as English, right? Instead of Tenguar representing Quenya or Sindh.

[James Tauber]

That's the thing. When you see Tenggvar, it's incorrect to say that it's an Elvish language. It doesn't say anything about the language.

[Alan Sisto]

It's an Elvish lettering system that may be applied to English or any other language.

[James Tauber]

And I just want to make a point about that being applied to any language. One of the amazing things some of you may be familiar with the translations of the Hobbit that Michael Everson publishes, his company Evertype, that does the Hobbit in a variety of different, lesser known languages. But one of the things he does which amazed me when I found this out, is he reproduces the illustrations from the Hobbit as well, including in that picture by Tolkien of Smaug on the gold and Bilbo invisible. There is actually a little bit of Tengwa.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, is there?

[James Tauber]

On the urn. Oh, and there's a little curse and it's signed by th and th. It's amazing to think that that was a bit of Tengua we got in 1937, and people wouldn't have known what nerf that was until. Until 54, 55. But when he translates or gets translated the various versions of the Hobbit, he also translated, translates the words on the urn. So if he's doing a Cornish version or a Scottish Gaelic version of The Hobbit. He wants the writing on the urn to be in Scottish Gaelic, which means he has to work out the mode.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, my goodness, he has for Tengua for that language.

[James Tauber]

So he's done an amazing job of actually developing Tengwa modes for all these few languages. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow, that's wild.

[James Tauber]

Okay, Alan, tell us about the history of the Kiyth.

[Alan Sisto]

All right. And this will be quick because we are definitely running short on time. The Cirthos Dairon was originally devised to represent the sounds of Sindarin, only the extension. Of course it was, because Daedaron was a minstrel for Thingol, and Thingol doesn't give it anything about Quenya. The extension and elaboration of this cirthas was called in its older form the Engerthas Dairon, since the additions to the old Cirth and their reorganization was attributed to Dairon. The principal additions were actually most probably inventions of the Noldor of Eregion, since they were used for the representation of sounds not found in Sindarin. In the rearrangement of the Angerthas, the following principles are observed, observable, evidently inspired by the Feanorian system. One, adding a stroke to a branch added voice. Two, reversing the kirth indicated opening to a spirit, and three, placing the branch on both sides of the stem added voice and nasality.

[James Tauber]

So again, we're seeing that systematicity.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly, yeah. If you know how to make one sound, you can make them all and represent them by these characters.

[James Tauber]

So if you look at the table of values in the appendix, there are often multiple pronunciations given. And Tolkien explains, in the table of values, those on the left are, when separated by the dash, the values of the older Ungothas. Those on the right are the values of the Dwarvish Ungothas Maurya. The Dwarves of Moria, as can be seen, introduced a number of unsystematic changes in value as well as new Keth. This Angerthas Moria is represented in the tomb inscription. The Dwarves of Erebor used a further modification of this system, known as the Mode of Erebor and exemplified in the Book of Marzabul.

[Alan Sisto]

All right, that was fascinating. And if you all thought that I expected we'd spend two hours talking about writing and spelling, you were wrong, but it was absolutely fantastic. Fortunately, all of the questions in Barlaman's bag are in simple Westeron, but only because he throws away letters he can't read. James, what does Barlaman have for for us tonight?

[James Tauber]

Well, we have A wonderfully relevant question that we were able to find that fits in quite nicely. Julie from Vermont asks, what do you think are some of the most mispronounced words in Tolkien? And I want to emphasize major us that definitely one of the ones I want to mention. I want to emphasize, though, that even Tolkien himself isn't always consistent in pronunciation in the recordings that we have, especially.

[Alan Sisto]

The more difficult ones.

[James Tauber]

So I don't want people to either be. Beat themselves up about it or worse still, you know, attack others for their. For their pronunciation.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I was going to say, please don't beat me up. Please.

[James Tauber]

So. So I've got a couple here that come to mind. They're either ones that I've misheard or ones that I struggle with myself. Even. Even today, during. During this recording, I've realized I get certain things wrong.

[Alan Sisto]

I still. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So, yeah, I mean, I think the most obvious one that I think we both get. Right. But some people that have not ever looked at Appendix E or maybe have never heard anyone say the words is just the whole C for K. Oh, that's true.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I hear a lot of Celeborn and other. Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

Some of the more subtle ones, we get things like. Which we talked about Karadras with that DH being the.

[Alan Sisto]

Yep.

[James Tauber]

And then, of course, the ae. So Myglan instead of Meglit and the combination of the two Maedhros. Right. So Maedhros.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that one's. Maybe somebody gets the voice that goes Maedras. I've also heard Maedras.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

It's very rare. And I'm always. I get a smile on my face when somebody says Maedras.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. But then we start to get into a few that it took me a while to get used to because they really fly in the face of the way that English works. And one of them is that whole series of names with a sounds in them. In English, we have this at sound, which does not exist in the Elvish languages. There is no sound.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

But we frequently say Aragorn, Faramir, Galadriel.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

None of those vowel sounds are English. It really should be. Sorry, Elvish. It really should be Aragorn, Faramir, Galadriel.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's easier for me when I do Galadriel's name because it's an Elvish name. I know these are all Elvish names, but it's the name of an elf, literally, for some reason, because they're guys. They're just men. Aragorn. It's hard for me to say Aragorn. Especially when it's in the initial position.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

With Faramir, it's a little easier because it's not in the initial position. I don't know why starting an A word with an ah sound is so alien to me, but it is.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Should be Aragorn, but it's not. It's Aragorn.

[James Tauber]

Aragorn, yeah. The other one that I. The other whole type of mistake that. That I've often make. And it's just, again, one of those things that is difficult for English speakers. There's a tendency in English, if you have an unstressed vowel, to just reduce it to what's called a schwa. Just an sound. And so, I mean, if you just say Aragorn or Faramir or. Or Galadriel. Right. If you listen to the Faramir, that second vowel, I'm just saying, is an oh, like an.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

Right. And. And that's not the way it should be said. We. We need to be very deliberate and careful about each vowel. Faramir. And one word that I frequently do this and have to really concentrate is something like silmarillion.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So in Silmarillion, I'm just saying. Right. Silmarillion. If you listen to Christopher Sayet, he very clearly always says silmarillion, and you've got each vowel being independently pronounced. And even that's not quite right because we're told, of course, that the I is actually an E sound, not an it sound. So it should be Silmarilion.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow, that's hard.

[James Tauber]

It is difficult. And. And again, it just comes down to the fact that that's not the way English works. And so when we come across a word and we just pronounce it the way that our mouths have.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah. My brain is trained program to run that one. Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

One other one that I want to bring up that comes to mind is Kiran. And that's another. And there's a whole set of these. These cases where IR really needs to be pronounced as ir.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Not. Not. Right.

[Alan Sisto]

It's not Kurdan.

[James Tauber]

It's not Kurdan or Kurdan. Right. The A is, again, is another one of those ones. So it's kir. Dan.

[Alan Sisto]

And also it's kind of hard to trill the R when it's followed by a D. Right. I don't know why that is. I just wanted. It's so weird for me to get it done, but it is. It's done. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And then we get to the one that really, really tripped me up for so long. And that's. And that's stress. Because when you're just reading a word quickly, you know, you just follow the normal stress rules of English. It's teleri, you know. Yeah, exactly. So teleri, Nargothrond, Eressea.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, but they're all wrong, especially because the barks in Erisa or Eressia make me think it's. But it's not exactly.

[James Tauber]

So it's obviously teleri.

[Alan Sisto]

Yep, yep, teleri.

[James Tauber]

But one that I honestly, it was at Westmout that I heard it said Nargothrond. And I thought, you know what, that's actually the correct stress. I've always said Nagathrond.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I had too.

[James Tauber]

But really because of the thr. Now the th is not itself enough because remember, the th is actually just one consonant sound. Right, right. But because it's a th and then an R, it's Nargothrond. So that's one I'm going to have to train myself on.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm going to really have to work hard on that one.

[James Tauber]

What are some other examples you can think of? And any audio books as well?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, my first thought, of course is going to be Daniquetl. Right. The one that I pronounced taniquetil wrong for so long and it was because the audiobook pronounced it that way with the emphasis on the. The penult as opposed to the antipenal. So it was. They were saying Taniquetl instead of Taniquetil. But he did the same thing with Iluvatar's name, where it was Iluvatar. Now I've never mispronounced that one. I don't think I. But that's because I used to once again look at the stress mark. But it's not. It just in that case emphasizes the vowel length, which in turn means it is. That's the syllable.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

But for me, the biggest struggle has always been, other than stress has always been sounds that aren't native to English, specifically American English. So the sounds like Kh, you know, that are supposed to sound like the German or the ch that are supposed to sound like the German ch, as opposed to church or something. Those are. Yeah. Narn ichinh is really difficult. Any sound that's not native to American English has always been hard for me in learning any language. It's always been the stumbling part point. The other thing for me, and this is more of diphthong versus individual vowels, was the names of the dwarves. To think that it was gloin, but it's glowing.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Very, very common. I think most people still think of these names as being diphthong.

[James Tauber]

So what's interesting about that one is, of course, that pronunciation wasn't discussed in this appendix.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

At all. Because you have to look at the Old Norse pronunciation for those.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. And. But that's. And you're right. That's not something that we get here. I'd forgotten about that. But.

[James Tauber]

But, yeah, it is a very common.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Thing to retrain.

[Alan Sisto]

But stress is the hardest one for me.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And sometimes I find myself having to count syllables and look and see. Is that a. Is that a double consonant? Is that a long vowel?

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Well, the one that I changed, I had to change my mind about as we were recording this episode was the ungirth Us.

[Alan Sisto]

The ungir.

[James Tauber]

In fact, if you go back, back and listen to this episode, which I encourage everyone to do, I started off saying angathas, and then I heard you say ungerth us. And I'm like, you know what? That's actually the correct stress. So I changed ungerthas during the episode.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a single consonantal sound, the th.

[James Tauber]

No, but the R. You've got the R and the th. So it's stressed. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. You think of it that way. But it's the R and the th. Because it's a multiple.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Man, that is interesting.

[James Tauber]

Even after 40 years of being in love with Appendix E, I still. Or make mistakes and learn. Learn something new every day.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, and that's the thing, folks. You know, if you're going to get a takeaway from this, it's. It's. Don't be hard on yourself. Don't be hard on others.

[James Tauber]

It is tricky, but have fun with it. Have fun. Do it for the fun.

[Alan Sisto]

And roll your Rs.

[James Tauber]

Roll your Rs. That's the solution.

[Alan Sisto]

Roll all of your Rs. No, you know what the hardest part actually is? When I'm reading the book aloud, I've gotten better at trilling the R's. So, you know, Aragorn or Galadriel. But then it might be Galadriel replied. And I'll have a tendency to say, reply, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I don't Trill. That are. And that's the tricky part is sometimes going from the Sindarin or Quenyan to English and forgetting to not Trill to.

[James Tauber]

Turn off Elvish mode.

[Alan Sisto]

Want to turn that onto the Trill?

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, man. That was a lot of fun, though. Folks, that does wrap it up though for another episode of the Prince Dancing Pony podcast. Now, we are taking next week off for the Independence Day holiday, but join us again in two weeks as we begin our two part exploration of Appendix F, starting with the section on languages.

[James Tauber]

As if we haven't had enough of the language. I know already. This would be great though because we're gonna next time we're going to be talking a lot more about the translation, the relationship between the languages.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, that'll be the time after the second of those, right? The first.

[James Tauber]

Oh, yes, true.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. So part exploration will be the languages. So we get to. And we'll get to talk about like the really unique languages and things, you know, talk about some of the ones that just don't get a lot of exploration in the text. And then two weeks after that we'll talk about translation.

[James Tauber]

Right, in two weeks time we'll talk about the translation issues.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, that's where we get into things like, you know, Old English representing Rohirric and why we even have gothic names representing the names of the Eotheod and things like that.

[James Tauber]

What Frodo's real name is.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes, good stuff, Alan.

[James Tauber]

And I want to thank the members of Team PPP editor Jordan Renels Barleyman, Becca Davis, Social media manager Casey Hilsey, Event and Patreon, community coordinator Katie McKenna, graphic artist Megan Collins and website guru Phil Dean.

[Alan Sisto]

And please take a minute to check out the prancingponypodcast.com that's where you'll find show notes, outtakes, prancing pony ponderings, and our online storefront where you can get PPP merch featuring all the great episode artwork that Megan's been doing for the show since the start of season seven.

[James Tauber]

You'll also want to be visit our library page. The Prancing Pony podcast is, after all, a podcast about the books. So if you're interested in a book we've mentioned on the show, you'll find a link for it in our library. We do get a small amount of compensation when you make your purchase and we thank you for that.

[Alan Sisto]

Indeed we do. We also want to thank our patrons at the Kirdan's contribution tier. I'll start with Demay in Alaska, Chad in Texas, Lance in New Jersey, Joseph in Michigan, Kathy from North Carolina, Carlos in California, Brian in the uk, Jerry from Washington, Joe in Washington, Irwin from the Netherlands, Ben in Minnesota, Anthony in Texas, Zaksu in Illinois, Sarah in New Jersey, Joshua in Massachusetts, Lucy in Texas, Keith in Alabama, Erica in Texas, Vivian in California, and James in Massachusetts.

[James Tauber]

There's also Ann in Kentucky, Sean in New Jersey, Mason in California, Maureen from Massachusetts, Olivia in London, Robert in Arizona, Nick in Wisconsin, Lewis in South Carolina, Thomas in Germany, Craig in California, Bailey in Texas, Kevin in Massachusetts, Julie in Washington, Bruce in California, Joe in Maryland, Nathan in Arizona, Kevin in Pennsylvania, Tom in Pennsylvania, and Jeff in Michigan. Thank you all so very much for your support indeed.

[Alan Sisto]

Thank you.

[James Tauber]

Now, make sure you don't miss any episodes of of the Prancing Pony podcast. Subscribe now through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

[Alan Sisto]

And one last thing. As always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments, and most of all, your most hilarious mispronunciations to parliamentheprancingponypodcast.com and if.

[James Tauber]

You want your voice literally heard, well, just send us audio of your question. Visit podinbox.com prancingponypilot and record record your question for us. Please be sure to still email the question to Barleyman, though.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, even though Bartiman's been a lot more reliable, there is still a lot of mail to sort through. We'll get to you just as soon as we can. As always, though, this has been far too short a time to spend amongst such excellent and admirable listeners.

[James Tauber]

But until next time, may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill sa.