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Tinny
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Post phonology vowel i
on: April 25, 2019 05:48
I took a look at this lesson: http://www.councilofelrond.com/reading/01-phon-stress/

What confuses me is this part:

I– pronounced like I in ‘sick’. If I is at the beginning of a word, in front of another vowel, it has the consonantal sound of Y like in ‘yore’.


So if the i is before a vowel(a,e,i,o,u) it is pronounced Y like in 'yore'

Soooo by above knowledge Gilthoniel would be pronounced Gill-thon-yell (gills/thorn/yell)

but then it also sais:

“I” would have to take on an “ee” sound before another vowel, if both vowels are to be pronounced, and fluidly at that. Otherwise you would be “spitting out” words like Gilthoniel with “i el” sounding like a hiccup !! An example in our own language of this pronunciation would be a word like “orient”, where the “i” isn’t considered “long” but certainly doesn’t sound “short” either. In Sindarin, the ‘i’ near the end of a word like Gilthoniel isn’t “long”, but happens to sound long. This is how Tolkien pronounces the “medial i” before other vowels in his recordings.


Sooo by above knowledge Gilthoniel would be pronounced as Gill-tho-nee-yell (gills-thorn-kneel-yell)

So which one is it?
And if it's the second option, then why not just write it as an î since î is explained to pronounced as ee anyway?

Wouldn't Gilthonîel be pronounced Gill-tho-nee-yell just the same?

dirk_math
Quenya Workbook Mentor
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on: April 30, 2019 05:22
The final -iel is pronounced as yell.
You can hear a lot of examples on following page:
https://realelvish.net/pronunciation/sindarin/

(go to the first example under Consonants)


[Edited on 05/01/2019 by dirk_math]
Yassë engë lómë, anarties calali.
Earwe
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on: April 26, 2023 01:27
dirk_math

I'm confused... In lesson #1 of the Sindarin workbook, it is said that i is "pronounced like I in ‘sick’", but when "at the beginning of a word, in front of another vowel, it has the consonantal sound of Y like in ‘yore’" (which is the case with words like iell "daughter", iant "bridge",...). So I always thought the -iel in Gilthoniel was pronounced with -i- and -e- in separate syllables: "Gil-tho-ni-el", because that -iel is not at the beginning of the word. Maybe I'm missing something... I don't know.

[Edited on 04/26/2023 by Earwe]

[Edited on 04/28/2023 by Earwe]

[Edited on 04/28/2023 by Earwe]
Earwe
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on: April 27, 2023 08:55
Tinny

It's been 4 years since, but...


《And if it's the second option, then why not just write it as an î since î is explained to pronounced as ee anyway?

Wouldn't Gilthonîel be pronounced Gill-tho-nee-yell just the same?》


The short answer is: No. But an appropriate answer requires a complete explanation about short and long vowels:

The vowels in Sindarin are i, e, a, o, u and y. These are pronounced short. With regards to the quality of the sound (not to the length), i, e, a, o, u have approximately the same sound as in "machine", "were", "father", "for", "brute" (all in the British pronunciation), and y is something between i and u — it has more or less the sound of "u" in French "lune", or "ü" in German "Müller".

All those vowels have long counterparts, which are marked with an acute accent:
í, é, á, ó, ú, ý. These have the same sound of the corresponding short vowels, but are pronounced with apporximately twice the length. For example, both short e and long é have the soud of "e" in "yes", but while e would be pronounced with more or less the same length as in this word, é would have about two times that length. In stressed monosyllables, long vowels are marked with a circumflex: î, ê, â, ô, û, ŷ. This is because, in such cases, they are specially long, with more or less twice and half the length of the short vowels (but, again, the quality of each vowel is the same as that of the corresponding short vowels). For example: dûn "west" — compare with Dúnadan "West-Man" (dûn + Adan "Man" ) or with possessive adjectives (or personal adjectives) like nín "my", lín "thine"/"yours", etc., in which have long vowels written with an acute accent. A long vowel in a stressed monosyllable which occurs as the last element of a compound word is, in some cases, written with an acute accent and, in other cases, written with circumflex. Example: Eruchín "child of Eru", also the plural "children of Eru", annûn "west", "sunset".


[Edited on 05/08/2023 by Earwe]
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