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LalaithThaliondil
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on: June 26, 2015 05:51
I am extremely detail oriented, so I hope you will forgive me if some of my questions are nit-picky or redundant. I would really appreciate answers just so I can be sure I'm saying it right. Here are the few questions I have gathered from my start in Sindarin so far:

~A friend just asked me how to pronounce Sindarin. Is it sIndarin (as I have been pronouncing it all along) or sindArin? I never questioned it before now...
~A word I came across, Edhellond (Elf Haven): is the stress on the second syllable, as in, edhEllond? Just want to check, since that's not what my brain immediately wants to do but it seems to make sense according to the pronunciation guide.
~When saying the phrase "... i eneth nín" should the i become long before the e for fluidity as it does in the word Gilthoniel? Or should it be said with a slight pause to indicate the fact that it is a separate word?

Thanks in advance!
Galadivren
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on: June 28, 2015 04:15
My brain has currently died and I can't remember if the word 'Sindarin' is just a Quenya loan, or what. Assuming it's now a native Sindarin word, the stress falls like so - sin-DAR-in. It has more than 2 syllables, and the penultimate syllable contains a long vowel.

Edhellond however is stressed differently as the penultimate syllable has a short vowel - EDH-ell-ond.

I admit I do tend to lengthen the vowel a wee bit when I'm saying this phrase as otherwise it sounds stilted. Whether that's actually 'correct' or not though... difficult to say without collaring an Elf.
Tyrhael
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on: June 28, 2015 09:15
"Sindarin" is a Quenya word, which wasn't loaned into the Sindarin language. Fauskanger notes on his Sindarin article that "It is said of the Elves in Beleriand that "their own language was the only one that they ever heard; and they needed no word to distinguish it" (WJ:376). The Sindar probably referred to their own tongue simply as Edhellen, "Elvish"."

Regarding pronunciation, it would be pronounced SIN-da-rin whether it is Quenya or even if it were Grey-elven, according to Appendix E in LotR. Edhellond is edh-ELL-ond.

Why? From Appendix E: "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 vowel followed by only one (or no) consonant, the stress falls on the syllable before it, the third from the end."

"Sindarin" and "Edhellond" are more than 2 syllables, however DAR contains a short vowel and no diphthong or following consonant-cluster, so it falls into the pattern last mentioned by JRRT. Edhellond also has a short vowel in edhellond, but there is a consonant cluster following it, so it is stressed edh-ELL-ond. If (for example) there was only one L, it would then be EDH-el-ond.

Galadivren, I realize you're quite familiar with the pronunciation rules Tolkien laid out: the inconsistency between our statements is that you're defining a "long vowel" differently than he does. From what I can tell, you're referring to syllable weight, i.e. DAR is long because there isn't a consonant cluster following it, and ELL is short because there is.

However, Tolkien talks about long vowels, diphthongs, and consonant clusters at the same time. If he were using "long vowel" to refer to syllable weight, there would be no need to also mention consonant clusters. Therefore "long vowel" simply means "long vowel", i.e. the A in Sindarin is short, but is long in Sindárin.

Furthermore, Tolkien would have been well aware of syllable length in Greek and Latin poetry, and indeed Elvish's stress patterns seem to be somewhat inspired by them. In that system as in Elvish, a long/heavy syllable would be one with a long vowel, diphthong, or followed by 2 or more consonants. A short/light one would be a short vowel (no diphthong) followed by one or zero consonants. So if we are using syllable-weight terminology, DAR is "short" and ELL is "long" (not the other way around). Tolkien seems to use syllable weight for Elvish stress as such: in words of three or more syllables, the stress falls on the third-from-the-end syllable, unless the penultimate syllable is long/heavy, in which case the latter receives the stress.

Gibberish examples showing stress: sin-DÁR-in, sin-DAIR-in, sin-DAR-nin, SIN-dar-in. This still holds up even if the syllables are separated (though I don't know how exactly they are broken up, and offer no opinion on that), as in sin-DÁ-rin, sin-DAI-rin, sin-DARN-in, SIN-da-rin, because it is the vowel that Tolkien focuses on. Similarly we have e-DHEL-lond, edh-EL-lond, edh-E-llond no matter how the syllables are split (though I imagine some patterns would be harder to say), because the nature of the vowel and what follows it is the key. We unfortunately get no help from Tolkien in this regard, as the examples given in App. E only capitalize their vowel to show stress.

However, here are the examples Tolkien gives to illustrate the rules he sets out above them: isIldur, Orome, erEssëa, fËanor, ancAlima, elentÁri, dEnethor, periAnnath, silIvren, andÚne.

"Sindarin" is the same pattern as Orome, Denethor, and ancalima (the two final syllables are short/light), and "Edhellond" the same as silivren and Isildur (short, long, short - though it is the long penultimate which ultimately matters, as long-long-short would still be stressed on the penultimate, i.e. sin-DAR-nin).

Edit: Fixed two typos, added EDH-el-ond example

[Edited on 06/28/2015 by Tyrhael]
LalaithThaliondil
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on: July 15, 2015 03:48
Thank you very much Tyrhael! The detail is very helpful

I am still wondering about "... i eneth nín." Should the i become long as in Gilthoniel, or remain short since it is a separate word?
Tamas Ferencz
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on: July 30, 2015 11:55
Why would the i in Gilthoniel become long? The stress is on THON - listen to Tolkien's own reading of the hymn.
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Eadburga
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on: December 10, 2015 05:36
Got a question when Haldir in LoTr, says "Well met" (Mae Go'vannen) where should I put the stress when talking and greet someone?
~I aear can ven na mar~
Elthir
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on: December 11, 2015 12:47
Mae govannen: according to the rules outlined by Tyrhael above, based upon information in the Appendices, I would say it should be...

... mae govAnnen.

I assume you're not asking about mae as that's only one syllable

Note Tolkien's example above (Tyrhael's post): periAnnath. In both examples the vowel in the penultimate syllable (the syllable before the last syllable) is followed by two consonants (-nn-). If the vowel in the penult were long or a diphthong, it would also attract primary stress.

[if Tolkien's dEnethor is confusing for example, that's because -th- is considered one consonant. One could write it using "thorn" rather, thus Deneþor, and when writing in the Elvish system only one character would be used for this sound]


In notes to Words, Phrases And Passages (Parma Eldalamberon 17) Tolkien appears to muse about altering the punctuation to g'ovannen due to a "final" etymology (at least in this document), but it also appears that he never did this later for the revised second edition, in any case.

[Edited on 12/11/2015 by Elthir]
Eadburga
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on: December 11, 2015 05:11
I was referring to Govannen... But then I know I am on the right track, haven't been studing sindarin for very long you see, but am in love with the language!
~I aear can ven na mar~
limwencaevudoriel
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on: June 04, 2016 07:29
I am wondering how to pronounce Aragorn's alternate name "Edhelharn" (Elfstone), which is a compound word constructed from the words "edhel" and "sarn". After lenition occurs, the "s" becomes a "h", resulting in the consonant combination "lh". Is this pronounced as a voiceless L, an English L followed by an H, or something else entirely? According to Dragon Flame, it is pronounced "l̡h", but I have no idea what that sounds like.
Lokyt
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on: June 06, 2016 08:06
Well, this is one of the cases where the latin script (and the corresponding orthography) gets confusing when used for sindarin
The digraph "lh" does stand for the phoneme "voiceless L" indeed. But it's not the case of "Edhelharn" - here, the string of characters "l-h" emerges only because two separate word-roots (one ending with "-l", the other beginning in "h-" after the mutation) meet in a compound word. So these two phonemes definitely remain separate sounds, "(most probably) voiced L" and "(most probably) unvoiced H".
It's just an imperfection of the orthography, that they look alike in latin script (but not in tîw or cirth, where there is a difference in spelling between "lh" and "l-h" ).

[Edited on 06/07/2016 by Lokyt]
dirk_math
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on: June 09, 2016 12:23
In English an l is only unvoiced when it follows an unvoiced stop like k, t or p. As words beginning in tl are more something Aztec-like, the best examples are words like plot and plus (class however has a voiced l because of the a).
You can also hear the difference between a voiced and an unvoiced l by whispering an l. And you can feel it when you put your hand round your throat as a voiced consonant clearly gives a different feeling in contrast to an unvoiced one.


[Edited on 06/09/2016 by dirk_math]
Yassë engë lómë, anarties calali.
limwencaevudoriel
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on: June 26, 2016 05:15
Would the pronunciation therefore be closer to saying "edhel" then "harn" in rapid succession? It seems like the l at the end of "edhel" would therefore be voiced. Also, I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between the voiced and voiceless h.

Interestingly, in the third version of the King's Letter from Sauron Defeated, "Edhelharn" is spelled using alda and hyarmen. However, in the first version, it is spelled using lambë and hyarmen. Different modes are used, but this should not affect the consonants.
Lokyt
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on: July 03, 2016 08:44
Saying edhel and harn in rapid succession is not closer to it, it's just precisely it

You're right about that lambë and alda in the King's letter. But whatever characters there are and whatever kind of "l"-sound(s) they stand for, they still clearly show, that the -lh- in edhelharn represents two phonemes (sounds), not just one.

As for voiced and voiceless "h", you may simply check Wikipedia here and here. There are playable recordings of both sounds, so you may easily compare them
Tolkien pronouced Sindarin "h" as voiceless, English "h" is voiceless as well.
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