Sounds in Quenya

 « Reference Material   «          Course Index         » Writing »     

This entire section on writing is optional.  This post on pronunciation is all "Extra Material for Geeks."

Sounds in Quenya

First we consider the sounds and letters in Quenya.   Probably no one really cares whether your Quenya pronunciation is accurate, but this gives you an idea what letters exist in the language.   Look over this quickly.   

 

Consonants

C – ALWAYS pronounced “k”.   (Tolkien preferred writing “c” because it looks more like Latin.   Some editors prefer to write Quenya with “k” to make the pronunciation clearer.)

LH – In archaic (Aman) Quenya, represents a voiceless “l”.   In Third Age Middle-Earth Quenya it is pronounced (and sometimes written) as ordinary “l”.

NG -- In Third Age Middle-Earth Quenya, when this letter occurs at the beginning of a word, it is pronounced (and usually transcribed into English) as “n”.  

QU – The same as “cw” or “kw”.   Tolkien (and most editors) use “qu” or “q” because it looks better.   In Quenya, “qu” is considered one letter.

R – Always a “strong” or trilled “r”.  (Remember in the movies, Gandalf and Aragorn always said "Mordor" with funny "R"s ?)

HR -- “Weak” or “voiceless” (that is, ordinary English) “r”.

S – Always voiceless.   The “z” sound does not occur in Quenya.

TH – Voiceless, as in English “thin”.   In Third Age spoken Quenya, it is pronounced “s”, although it is considered a different letter from the other “s”.   (Ithil/Isil)

HW – Voiceless “w”, as in English “white”.

X – The same as “cs” or “ks”.   Tolkien (and some editors) use “x” because it looks better.   In Quenya this sound is two letters, a consonant cluster.

Y – is a consonant in Quenya.

Native speakers of Westron (“Common”) sometimes pronounce Quenya “TY” as “ch”, and Quenya “HY” as “sh”.   Go figure.

Consonants usually occur singly, rather than in clusters.

However, “b” occurs only in “mb” and “lb”;

            “d” occurs only in “nd”, “ld” and “rd”;

            “g” occurs only in “ng”.

A word will not start with a consonant cluster, unless you count “qu” (= cw), “nw”, “ng”, “ty”, “hy”, “ny”. (Native speakers of Quenya apparently considered each of these as a single consonant.)

Normally a word will not end with a consonant cluster.

Vowels

A – as in English “father”

AI -- as in English “rye”

AU -- as in English “loud”, “how”

E – as in English “were”.   Final “e” is NEVER silent; it is often written “ë” as a reminder that it is to be pronounced.

EU – diphthong (one syllable), no close English equivalent

ER -- as in English “air”

I – as in English “machine”

IU -- diphthong (one syllable), no close English equivalent

IR -- as in English “eer”

O – as in English “for”

OI -- as in English “boy”

U – as in English “brute”

UI -- diphthong (one syllable), as in English “ruin” {That's what Appendix E says!}

UR -- as in English “oor”

Other vowel combinations are two syllables.   They are often written with ¨ mark as a reminder (ëo, ëa, etc.).

“Long” vowels are marked with an accent ´.   I think that, in general, “long” refers to prolonged duration (not a change in sound like English “long” and “short” vowels).   However, Professor Tolkien says:  “In Quenya long é and ó were, when correctly pronounced, as by the Eldar, tenser and 'closer' than the short vowels.”

As far as I can tell, the main effect of “long” vowels is changing which syllable is stressed.

A long (accented) vowel cannot occur before a consonant cluster.   A vowel in that position will remain short (unaccented).

{The students were gratified that Quenya pronunciation is predictable, unlike English.}

A few point to notice

Final "E" (or Ë) is never silent.

“Ë” is the same letter as “E”.   The only function of the dots ¨ is to remind English-speakers that E at the end of a word is pronounced (or sometimes to remind you that some vowel combinations, such as “Ëo” and “Ëa” are two syllables).   (These are sometimes written “Eö” and “Eä”.   It doesn't matter, since the dots are only a reminder.)

“B”, “D”, and “G” never occur by themselves.   So, as we will see soon, there are no separate letters for “B”, “D” and “G”.

Stress

In two-syllable words, the first syllable is nearly always the stressed syllable.

In longer words,

if (as is common) the second-to-last syllable contains a short vowel followed by one (or no) consonant, the stress does NOT fall on it, but rather on the third-from-last syllable.

            ORomë, erESSëa, FËanor, anCALima

Otherwise, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable.   (A long vowel in the second-to-last syllable will always attract the stress.)

            elenTÁRi, andÚnë

Just keep in the back of your mind that long (accented) vowels exist, and that they affect the pronunciation as far as which syllable is stressed.

Why one-syllable words have accents is a mystery.   Though it might explain why some one-syllable words are sometimes written with and sometimes without an accent.

 « Reference Material   «          Course Index         » Writing  »