Incidentally, I am aware of what it says in
The Road Goes Ever On concerning short
i, but as Arden Smith points out in 2000...
'Properly pronounced, it should be more like the latter. Tolkien writes in Appendix E, "[T]he sounds were approximately those represented by _i, e, a, o, u_ in English _machine, were, father, for, brute_, IRRESPECTIVE OF QUANTITY" (emphasis mine). Of course, many people frequently (mis)pronounce short Elvish _i_ as the lax vowel of English _fit_, and if you listen to the recordings of Tolkien reading from the books, you'll find that he often made the same error.' Arden Smith
So I went with Mr. Smith and Appendix E
