Names in Middle-Earth, Quick Guide

[lastalliance]

I am getting my information from RoTK Appendix E, page 438.


In "Dúnedain" you pronounce the u like you do in "lune". It's not like "duhn". That's actually the exact example given in the text. You say "duhn" when the u is accented 'û'.

I'm sorry my previous example was reversed.

I should have said...
û is short, like for example, say Dhun.
ú is long, like for example say Dune.

Ah, many thanks! That makes very much sense.

So "u" = long u, "ú" = prolonged long u and "û" = short u is my new understanding. Is that correct?

[Cleitanious]

Ah, many thanks! That makes very much sense.

So "u" = long u, "ú" = prolonged long u and "û" = short u is my new understanding. Is that correct?

Both U's are pronounced as long vowels, like there's an e on the end. Its only in English that "length" changes the entire sound. In Sindarin long 'u' sounds the same as short 'u', but has a longer duration. You say the u in Dúnedain, dûn, and rhûn all the same, just with different lengths.

In Sindarin, the typical English short pronunciation of u is represented by y, like in emyn which you say like emun.

Whether or not the acute accent 'ú' or the circumflex 'û' is used in Sindarin depends on the amount of sylabals in the word. Dúnedain is more than one syllables to the acute accent is used. Rhûn is one syllable so the circumflex is used.

I'm not a Linguist or Language Professor, so I'm sorry if what I am saying is hard to understand clearly.

[Berephon]

Ah, many thanks! That makes very much sense.

So "u" = long u, "ú" = prolonged long u and "û" = short u is my new understanding. Is that correct?

U is a short oo, ú is slightly longer oo, û is the longest oo. Hard to differentiate in English. In short, u is always an oo sound as in Dune.

[Cleitanious]

U is a short oo, ú is slightly longer oo, û is the longest oo. Hard to differentiate in English. In short, u is always an oo sound as in Dune.

Yes. It's only the "length" of the sound. It's not a different sound altogether. Hard to explain!

[lastalliance]

Thank you, Berephon and Cleitanious. After looking at Tolkien's writings in the appendices, it seems that the circumflex "û" also demands stress, forming the only possible exception to the stress-falls-on-first-syllable-of-bisyllabic-words-rule. The examples given were Annûn and Amrûm. Is my interpretation of the writings correct? The examples should be stressed as an-NUN and am-RUN?

And is the Sindarin "y" really pronounced as an English short "u"? I had thought it was much closer to a German "ö".

Thanks again. My confusions are gradually fading.

[Berephon]

Thank you, Berephon and Cleitanious. After looking at Tolkien's writings in the appendices, it seems that the circumflex "û" also demands stress, forming the only possible exception to the stress-falls-on-first-syllable-of-bisyllabic-words-rule. The examples given were Annûn and Amrûm. Is my interpretation of the writings correct? The examples should be stressed as an-NUN and am-RUN?

And is the Sindarin "y" really pronounced as an English short "u"? I had thought it was much closer to a German "ö".

Thanks again. My confusions are gradually fading.

If you see a diacritic, it usually demands stress as it indicates a long vowel (Númenórean, for instance, is NOO-meh-NOHR-ee-ahn.) However, ordinarily the stress falls on the first vowel (in two syllable words) or the next to last vowel in multi-syllable words. In some cases, it falls on the syllable third from the end, as in Gah-LAH-dree-ehl or AH-rah-gohrn.

Y in Sindarin is technically pronounced as the u in the French word lune (which has that weird truncated eu -- almost a short yu -- that no one but a Frenchman can pronounce.) However, as it hardly appears anywhere except at the end of multi-syllable plural words, it usually gets truncated to a short i (as in him), a sound that does not otherwise appear in Sindarin.