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Elvish Pronunciation Guide

The hyperlinks refer to sound files of me speaking the sounds. I donot claim that my rendition is ideal (there are particular sounds Ihave a mental block about), but it should be fairly accurate. Thesound files are in .wav format; although this is neither the mostcompact nor the best sound file format, owing to the influence of theGreat Satan, it's probably the most widely understood.

Quenya

Vowels

• a is pronounced by most people as in Spanish or French, although for all we know it could be as in Dutch or English. So pronounce as in French patte, or German man. (This sound doesn't exist in Received Pronunciation English, but is roughly thea of northern English dialects in words such as bath.)
• e is pronounced as English pet, French fait, or German denn.
• i is pronounced with the same sound as English peat, but shorter; French lit; German vital.
• o is roughly English (but not American!) pot; French comme; German Topf.
• u is the sound of boot, but shorter; Frenchou; GermanUran.

The long vowels are pronounced thus:

• á, í, ú: just like the short vowels, but longer!(About twice as long, if you want a guide figure, but just do whateveryour own language does.)
• é is pronounced a little `closer' thane. The first part of the diphthong in English may; a longversion of Frenché; or german Tee.
• ó is similarly pronounced closer thano. English paw (but closer); French hôte; German Sohn.

Quenya also has a set of six diphthongs (note that all other pairs ofvowels should be pronounced separately). They areai, oi, ui, au,eu, iu. In each case, pronounce the first vowel strongly, andglide into the second (except foriu, where is it alsoacceptable to glide from a weaki to a strongu -- thatis a Third Age pronunciation).

Examples:ai, oi, ui, au,eu, iu (old),iu (3rd Age)
Ainu, coimas, cuivie, Laurelin, leuca, miule

Finally, a note on the diaeresis. Tolkien used this sign in order toremind English speakers thate should be pronounced at the endof words, and that combinations such asea are two sounds, nota diphthong, as inAldëa, Atalantë, hísië. Since this is completely unnecessary,it's usual not to use it in articles on Tolkienian linguistics.

Consonants

In describing the consonants of Quenya, I'll follow approximately theorganization of the tengwar. Quenya had five series of consonants: thefour columns of the tengwar chart, plus the first column with two dotsbelow. The first column, ortincotéma, aredental (orperhapsalveolar) consonants, such as Frencht (orEnglisht). The first column plus dots, thetyelpetéma, arepalatalized versions of the tincotéma. Actually, there is room for quite a lot of debate on the exact nature of these, but for the purposes of this guide, they are like (British) Englishtune. The second column, theparmatéma, are thelabials, as Englishpat. The third,calmatéma, arevelars, as Englishcat. The fourth,quessetéma, arelabio-velars, as Englishquick.

The rows of the tengwar correspond (in theory) to differentmannersof articulation, such asstop orfricative,voiced orvoiceless. However, Quenya didn't follow thetheory exactly, so I'll now discuss individual sounds according totheir manner, rather than according to exact place in the tengwar.

• Thevoiceless stopst, ty, p, c/k, qu are simple. (Note thatc andk are both sometimes used in writing Quenya; there is no difference, so in particularc is always a hard sound.) We don't know whether they were pronounced as in English, with aspiration (puff of breath), or as in French, with no aspiration. On general principles, a French accent is probably better...

  Examples: tinco, tyelpe, parma, calma, quesse

• Quenya doesn't havevoiced stopsd, dy, b, g, gw on their own, but only afternasals (andliquids, in the case ofd). In late Quenya,ng always means the combination of the back nasal (which Tolkien sometimes wroteñ) and ag sound (always hard, even beforei, e). . Thus the second row of tengwar is:

  ando, indyo, umbar, anga, ungwe

• The correspondingvoiceless fricatives introduce some complexities, as they changed quite a bit.
  • th, as in Englishthin, and written with the tengwathúle/súle, existed in early Quenya, but turned intos. It therefore doesn't appear in the Quenya we see.s also existed independently (tengwasilme). (Actually, this is a very complicated story---see "The Shibboleth of Feanor" in HoM-e 12.) In all cases,s is the voiceless sound of Englishsee, Frenchsi, German bis.
  • (The palatized version of súle has a nameistyar, but it's not clear that it would ever be used -- it shouldn't, according to the pattern, have the soundsty.)
  • f is Englishfee, Frenchfait, Germanvon.
  • h is a bit of a problem, since Appendix F of LotR is a little inconsistent. My interpretation is: in late Quenya,h should be pronounced as English or Germanh when it's at the beginning of a word. In other positions, it should be pronounced like Germanch as in Bach (next toa, o, u) or Ich (next toe, i). However, between vowels it is probably harmless to reduce it to a simpleh sound.
  • hy is pronounced as Englishhuge, German Ich.
  • hw is pronounced like Scottishwhite.

  Examples: thúle (archaic),silme, formen, halla, aha, Mahtan, tehta, hyarmen, hwesta

• Most of thevoiced fricatives disappeared from Quenya one way or another. Onlyv remains, as in Englishvoice, Frenchvous, and Germanwo.(Archaic Quenya also hadz, but this had turned intor by the Third Age.)

  Examples:vala, áze (archaic)

  (Since they had disappeared, the tengwar that would have represented them were in Quenya used for the common combinations of nasal + voiceless stop: anto, intya, ampa, anca, unque.)

• Late Quenya has just the three nasalsn, ny, m. However, earlier it also had the back nasalñ, andñw, which appear in many of the HoM-e volumes. Confusingly, these are occasionally writtenng -- if you seeng at the beginning of a word, it certainly meansñ. In late Quenya, these becamen andnw.

  Examples: (late Quenya)númen, nyelle, malta, noldo, nwalme
  (early Quenya)númen, nyelle, malta, ñoldo, ñwalme

• Quenya had a fair assortment ofrhotics. The rhotics (r-sounds) are another of those problematic issues. There was certainly a trilledr, as in Italianr or Spanishrr. At some stage there was also a `weak'r. This may have been a tap, like the Spanishr, or the West Coast American later, or it may have been a continuant like the British Englishr. In either case, it's not clear whether it still existed in Third Age Quenya -- and you would have to know the etymology of words to work out whetherr is weak or strong. So the simplest solution is to assume it was always strong -- or if, like me, you have a mental block about trills, to do whatever you can! (So these examples are not too good.)
  In addition, there was a voicelesshr, apalatalizedry, and the combinationrd.

  Examples: rómen, óre (weak),hríve, arya, arda

• Thelaterals are less problematic. There wasl (English speakers should avoid the English `dark'l aftere, i--compareEnglishelder withQuenyaelda), voicelesshl, palatalizedly, and the combinationld.

  Examples: lambe, hlápa, alya, alda

• Finally, there are thesemi-vowels,w as Englishwill, andy as Englishyes or Germanja.w was rare in Third Age Quenya, having becomev initially. (At least, according to LotR.)

  Examples: wilya (archaic),yanta.

It should also be noted that consonants written double are pronounced long:atta, ekko, anna, telluma, esse

Stress

AlquaLONde, ElENna, ELdamar, HísiLÓme, LótESSe

and finally...

Vanda sína termaruva Elenna-nóreo alcar enyalien, ar Elendil Vorondovoronwe. Nai tiruvantes i hárar mahalmassen mi Númen, ar i Eru i orilye mahalmar ea tenn'oio.