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Faelil
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Post Lesson number one vowels
on: February 23, 2014 09:36
Hi,

I have a question about the pronoounciations of the vowels in lesson one. First it is said that all vowels are pronounced short:

"The Sindarin vowels are A, E, I, O, U and Y. The sounds represented by all the vowels, even those with accents, are short."

But then with the vowel 'A', the example given is father. But isn't the A long in that word?

Thanks in advance!
Galadivren
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on: February 23, 2014 11:48
First of all, you can check for yourself the majority of Sindarin pronunciation in the Appendices of the Lord of the Rings.

The sentence you've quoted is incorrect in more than one way.

A = always long, as in 'father'. Never short. An accent lengthens it further.
E = Short, as in 'fed'. Lengthens with an accent.
I = Previously thought to always be long, now known to be short as in 'sick' unless it has an accent, when it takes the long I of 'machine'.
O = Short as in 'hot', becomes rounder with an accent (like 'cope')
U = 'oo' sound. It's not 'cut'. Lengthens with an accent.
Y = 'u' of French 'lune', it's a more rounded version of 'u'. Lengthens with an accent.
Faelil
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on: February 24, 2014 09:08
Thanks a lot. This helps.
tarcolan
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on: February 24, 2014 02:19
Would I be right in thinking that the U is pronounced as in 'cook' or 'should'? (Here in Yorkshire the U is always like this, so buck is pronounced as book). Is the accented U pronounced as in 'rude' or 'moon'?
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Galadivren
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on: February 24, 2014 02:39
Accents lengthen a vowel - a U should be like 'moon' (the Yorkshire way of saying it in 'book' is pretty accurate tbh!)

[Edited on 02/24/2014 by Galadivren]
Sugarfoot1
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on: February 28, 2014 03:37
I was thinking that the fact that they are all "short" refers to the fact that a "long" vowel in English (at least in America) means the vowel will essentially say its name. Such as say...feet. doubling a vowel in English makes it long. Phonetically that would be written as an e with a bar over it. A short e would be as in pet.
Galadivren
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on: March 01, 2014 07:34
Well, this is why IPA is useful, it removes ambiguity from people's meaning when it comes to pronunciation. Saying they are 'all short even when accented' is just wrong.
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