I've always presumed that "Tolkien" is a German name, and thus "correctly" pronounced "Tol-keen"--following German pronunciation rules in which the second vowel in an "i-e" "e-i" combination is the one pronounced.
But in my experience, English speakers tend to fall back on English pronunciation "rules" when pronouncing German words. "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Thus, Tol-kin.
Anybody know how the Tolkiens say it?
__________________
"Art is our way of keeping track of what we know and have known, secretly, from the beginning."--John Gardner
|