Ay-o-whin?
 

This may be a question for the Languages forum, but I felt that it was just a bit too juvenile for that, so here it stands.

I've always pronounced the name Eowyn "Ay-o-whin" and Eomer "Ay-ah-mur" (that's with a long "A"), but my mother thinks that I'm pronouncing them wrong.

Has anyone heard these pronouced, maybe on the old LotR BBC broadcasts?

Thanks,
the Muse

[ August 06, 2002: Message edited by: The Silver-shod Muse ]

Gee, I'll have to go pop mine into the CD player and find out.

I intepret the pronunciation of Eowyn in the same manner. However I pronounce Eomer as
Ay-oh-mur instead. Anyone know if JRRT ever specified how to pronounce the names of the LoTR character's, or are they mostly up to personal interpretation?

I have the same problem since I read for the first time LoTR... Now I looked in the Encyclopedia of Arda... Here's what it says about this...

ÉOMER
Pronunciation: earme'r

Notes
1 The first syllable of Éomer's name is pronounced approximately like the English word 'ear'.
1 The éo- element of Éomer's name is surely 'horse', but -mer is less certain. It is most likely derived from Old English maer, meaning 'famous, glorious, heroic'.


ÉOWYN
Pronunciation: Approximately 'earw'in'

Notes
1 The diphthong éo is effectively extinct in English, and pronunciation is doubly difficult since Tolkien's example, the name Theobald, is also rare. The vowel-sound of the word 'ear' comes close to the correct pronunciation.

Theobald, incidentally, is a real Old English name, of the kind that might have been used by the Rohirrim, though they would likely have rendered it Théodbold. It combines the elements théod 'people' and bald 'bold'.

I always thought that the correct way to say it was Ay-oh-mur and Ay-oh-win. But when I read LotR I like to pronounce it E-oh-mur and E-oh-win.
When I was watching the behind the scenes in LotR, P.J. said Ay-oh-whin and Ay-oh-mur or something like that. I don't know if that is necessarily the correct way to say it though, but that's just what P.J. said. Oh, another one. How would you say Edoras?

I pronounce Edoras:

Ed-door-rass

On the BBC CD it is pronounced as you have, Sliver Shod Muse.

wow!i've never heard those pronounced that way! i've always heard from every 1 it's pronounced E-UH-When and E-OH-MUR. wierd...

on the two towers thing on the FotR DVD Peter Jackson says A-oh-win, and A-oh-mere.

Thank you for that definitive pronunciation Anunia [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] !

Ahh I see, I always pronounced them E-o-win and E-o-mer but obviously I was way off...but I'm so bad with pronunciations...I pronounce Legolas different from what they say in the movie, too... [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] Oh well!

Legolas- Lego(like the toy}lass
Eowyn- Ayowhin
Eomer- Ayomer

I have a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien reading from The Return of the King - The Muster of Rohan and The Ride of the Rohirrim. Here is how he pronounces the two names:

Eowen:

A (long A sound) - O (long O sound) - wen (no 'wh' sound)
A - o - wen

Eomer:

again - A (long A)-O (long O) - murr
A - o - murr

I have a similar pronunciation question: How is Ioreth, from the Houses of Healing, RotK, pronounced? Is it a long I, as in Iowa and iodine? That would be Eye-oh-reth. Have any of you heard readings of those passages in which she shows up?

"I: initially before another vowel has the consonantal sound of y in you, yore in Sindarin only: as in Ioreth, Iarwain. See Y." -- Appendix E

"In Quenya ui, oi, ai and iu, eu, au are diphthongs (that is, pronounced in one syllable). All other pairs of vowels are dis-syllabic. This is often indicated by writing ëa, ëo, oë.
In Sindarin the diphthongs are written ae, oi, ei, oe, ui, and au. Other combinations are not diphthongs." -- ibid.

"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." -- ibid.

Therefore: /'i: oreþ/ (preferrably with the Elven [R])


See the excellent online resource pages The Pronunciation of Old English and The Historical Grammar of the Old English Language for all guides on the names of the Rohirrim and Men of the vales of the Anduin such as the Beornings.

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Sharku ]

piosenniel:

I have been looking everywhere for a CD or tape of Tolkien reading his books or reading in Elvish, but I can't find anything! Can you tell me where you got yours?

Silver Shod Muse & any others interested:

Readings by both J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien can be found on:

'The J.R.R. Tolkien Audio Collection' put out by Caedmon recordings. It is a division of Harper-Collins Publishers, and can be ordered through any large bookseller, I would imagine. I found mine at Barnes and Noble.

There are readings by J.R.R. from 'The Hobbit' and the LOTR, and also from 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil'.

Christopher Tolkien does readings from the 'Silmarillion', which is how I discovered how much more accessible those stories were to me when listened to, rather than just read. It becomes like the oft repeated histories a bard might impart during a performance, and the images and continuity of the stories were eadier for me to grasp and remember.

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: piosenniel ]

Thanks pio! I'd searched for something like this on BN's before, but I guess I didn't really know what it was I was looking for.