New interview with Christopher Tolkien

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

In short, Gandalf was never considered by Tolkien when he wrote the bit about f at the end of names, nor should he have been. Like the Dwarves he bears a name understood to be adapted to Weston both in the original imagined tale and in the English translation.

Why do you persist in ascribing to me statements I've never made and opinions I've never advanced? OF COURSE the bit on terminal F in App F refers to the Elvish tongues.

The statement you give is at the end of http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthr...827#post674827 and is my own statement and not ascribed to you. It appeared to me that I was answering what I felt you meant. Sorry if I misrepresented you.

What you did say at http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthr...778#post674778 was:

Of course, JRRT also moved a bit between theory and practice himself: in his recordings he invariably pronounces the final consonant of Gandalf [f] while himself averring that in 'proper' Norse it would be [v].

As far as I can determine Tolkien never said that in ‘proper’ Norse it would be [v], though the statement itself would usually be considered to be quite correct. If Tokien did say what you say, exactly as you have cited it, that statement does not indicate that Tolkien ever pronounced his name Gandalf with the Norse [v], therefore there is no inconsistency.

"Adapted to Westron" is all well and good- except that Westron nowhere appears in the book (save a couple of "actual" hobbit-names presented in App F); the CS is feigned to have been turned into English.

"Westron nowhere appears in the book (save a couple of "actual" hobbit-names presented in App F”? Tolkien first mentions Westron in his Prologue where he writes:

And in those days also they forgot whatever languages they had used before, and spoke ever after the Common Speech, the Westron as it was named, …

It appears at various other places in the Appendices other than the place you mention. I agree that Westron or the Common Speech “is feigned to have been turned into English”.

However, Gandalf is not an English name, not even an Old English name. Tolkien is just being inconsistent (or nonrigorous).

Correct. I like your use of the word nonrigorous in referring to Westron where he ought to have said something like “name from a language related to Westron” instead of “Westron name”.

He could after all make mistakes! Just recall the self-created mess he had to dig himself out of regarding Thror-Thrain.

I have never denied that. I do question that Tolkien wrote that in ‘proper’ Norse f would be pronounced [v] and wrote anything that suggested that readers of his book ought to pronounce Gandalf as though if ended in [v], other than in the statement that Galin dug up which I also consider to be non-rigorous usage. Tolkien would have meant, “… but the letter values would have been approximately those described.”

Just perhaps related -although I have no idea what JRRT's scholarly opinion was on the matter - might be the theory that in at least some regional OE pronunciations no distinction was made between voiced and unvoiced fricatives: [s] and [z], [f] and [v] were interchangeable (think of the slightly but not wholly stagey "Zummerzet" accent)

Please cite your source.

General theory is that [s] and [z] were both normally spelled S/ſ/s, that [f] and [v] were both spelled F/f, and that [θ] and [ð] were normally both spelled either Þ/þ or Ð/ð. I do not remember ever encountering the idea that there was an Old English dialect that made no distinction between the two sound values of each of the letters. Pronunciation guides, so far as I have read, carefully distinguish when one of these letters should have the unvoiced pronunciation and when they should have the voiced pronunciation.

Psychologically the speakers of Old English likely tended to be mostly unaware that these letters had two pronunciations, just as many Modern English speakers are unaware that the letter combination th has two common pronunciations heard in thin [θɪn], breath [brɛθ] and then [ðɛn], breathe [briːð], but still pronounce them differently. That the two sounds of each letter were usually related would have inclined them not to notice the difference. Similarly many speakers of modern English do not notice that the pluralizing -s is sometimes pronounced [s] and sometimes pronounced [z] but still differentiate the sounds. Both [bɛtz] and [bɛds] would sound wrong for bets and beds respectively.