New interview with Christopher Tolkien

[Galin]

The Appendices also note...

The 'outer' or Mannish names of the Dwarves have been given Northern forms, but the letter-values are those described.

And 'those described' would appear to point back to what was said about F, indicating a final -v sound in Gandalf as in Old Norse (if one assumes the name Gandalf is to be included here anyway).

Yet...

The still more northerly language of Dale is in this book seen only in the names of the Dwarves that came from that region and so used the language of the Men there, taking their 'outer' names in that tongue.

Here 'only' is interesting. While Gandalf as representing a Westronized form makes some sense to me, in my opinion technically the account in Unfinished Tales refers to the name as representing Westron, attributed to the North 'in general'.

Still leaving Gandalf with a final -f sound.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galin

And 'those described' would appear to point back to what was said about F, indicating a final -v sound in Gandalf as in Old Norse (if one assumes the name Gandalf is to be included here anyway).

I am not “assuming”. Gandalf is a name found in Old Norse and made of Old Norse elements. The same is true for Forn which is applied to Tom Bombadil, although it is not found in the Eddas.

I agree that the sentence you cite seems to mean that Tolkien’s rules about F should apply to the name Gandalf. However, as you point out, Tolkien elsewhere says that “Gandalf must be supposed to represent a Westron name”. Yet Tolkien elsewhere indicates that Westron represents English and Gandalf is not an English name.

Tolkien is not always perfectly consistent. The tie-breaker is that Tolkien’s own pronunciation of Gandalf with the last letter pronounced f indicates what Tolkien intended despite places where, if Tolkien’s words are pressed to the full, that is not what he is saying.

Gandalf, I see, as Tolkien’s representation of an Old Norse name in English and slightly Anglicized.

[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.

"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.

However, Gandalf is not an English name, not even an Old English name. Tolkien is just being inconsistent (or nonrigorous). He could after all make mistakes! Just recall the self-created mess he had to dig himself out of regarding Thror-Thrain.

--------------------------


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)

[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.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Jallanite

However at least some earlier sources indicate the hard sound for þengel. See http://www.bosworthtoller.com/031660 for the page on þengel from Bosworth-Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary of 1898. According to the pronunciation guide at the centre top of the page the word is pronounced /θeŋɣel/. I cannot account for the vowel /ɣ/ but at least this is closer to J. R. R. Tolkien’s pronunciation. It suggests that the pronunciation provided by J. R. R. Tolkien was not simply an inexplicable error.

For what it's worth, I don't think the pronunciations given in the online Bosworth and Toller are all that reliable. Note the little asterisk that, when hovered over, says that the pronunciation is an experimental feature. I expect it is generated automatically by a computer program for each word.

I noticed this the other day when I saw that the spelling variants 'gyld' and 'gild' gave different pronunciations for the initial 'g' (apparently, /ɣ/ is assigned when the 'g' is followed by 'y' and /j/ when it's followed by 'i', which is perhaps a decent rule of thumb but by no means universally true). And for some reason, /ɣ/ seems to appear in all the places one would expect /g/, which would explain the strangeness with /θeŋɣel/.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

For what it's worth, I don't think the pronunciations given in the online Bosworth and Toller are all that reliable. Note the little asterisk that, when hovered over, says that the pronunciation is an experimental feature. I expect it is generated automatically by a computer program for each word.

Thanks for pointing that out. Then the electronic version of the dictionary gives no evidence for the correctness of J. R. R. Tolkien’s pronunciation of Thengel.

I note that both the online and printed Peter S. Baker Introduction to Old English gives the word þengel with a soft g (þenġel). See http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resour...E/postyle.html . I have come to the conclusion that Christopher Tolkien’s pronunciation The[ndʒ]el is the commonly accepted pronunciation of the word.

Why J. R. R. Tolkien’s pronunciation differs I do not know. Possibly it was the standard pronunciation in an earlier era. Possibly J. R. R. Tolkien had a different theory. Possibly even today the pronunciation the[ndʒ]el over the[ŋɡ]el is still not really proved. Perhaps some day I will stumble across the article which explains the deduction.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"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”.

What I was saying was that examples of actual Westron nowhere appear but in those names, not mentions of the Common Speech or Westron as a language.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

What I was saying was that examples of actual Westron nowhere appear but in those names, not mentions of the Common Speech or Westron as a language.

That is NOT what you said.

[jallanite]

Looking through some other Tolkien websites I found a post by Áhann Áhim posting under the name Mandos at http://www.lotrplaza.com/showthread....%28as-Bifur%29 , post #6, which comments on Tolkien’s pronunciation of Thengel. Áhann posts in part:

I just listened to Tolkien's reading of part of 'The Ride of the Rohirrim' (J.R.R. Tolkien Audio Collection, CD 2), where he does in fact pronounce Théoden's father as /þengel/. I'm unclear if this is a learned choice about Mercian Old English (if so, it goes against what his pupil, Alistair Campbell, wrote in his grammar, and against the standard view of most scholars before and since), or if Tolkien just aesthetically preferred that pronunciation, and so used it - since, after all, the Rohirrim aren't literally Anglo-Saxons, and he was therefore free to alter such details to his liking.

So seemingly Christopher Tolkien’s pronunciation is indeed the standard one and J. R. R. Tolkien’s is non-standard.

[Elemmakil]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I think that it would not work this way either. I have not seen GOT, but I'd imagine it works well, because there is so much detail on everyday details, if you know what I mean. Like, in LOTR, you'd hardly expect to read about a trip to the privy because of an indigestion from last night's feast. And there is less detail in general - whereas GOT would describe a fight with all the moves and details and gore, LOTR would read "they fought and X won". The scope of LOTR makes it difficult to fit into x amount of hours, but its lack of details in the writing style makes it difficult to make a series without making it profane and ruined.

So I think that LOTR is, indeed, "on principle unsuited to transform into a visual form" as a whole. Parts have been done well in the movies, and there are many beautiful drawings, but I think you just can't reenact it from cover to cover and get it right. It's just like that. For lack of a better description - on principle.

Good point, though it is often PJ's thoughtless additions that create the bulk of the problems. I have oft times felt that if I could simply take PJs movies, edit out the bad additions (which, I think could actually be done in some cases without necessarily doing harm to the overall narrative) the whole could be significantly improved. Some things would need to be refilmed to fix, however, so that couldn't be done. For example, one could probably delete the whole bit about Aragorn falling off the cliff and "dying" in TT and it would hardly be missed, though the movie would then cleave that much more closely to the books. Ditto for some elements in Moria, like the whole bit about collapsing staircases over vast chasms. Even muting bits of annoying dialogue (such as the Ringwraith's use of "she-elf", as though they were descended from Tarzan) would help some scenes.

Mostly just an interesting thought experiment, but something I wish I could at least try and see what happens.

Another, related, thought experiment of mine would be to take Bakshi's animated and add or reshoot elements of that, along with dialogue, and make it truer to the books. Curiously, that probably *could* be done (from a technical perspective - I'm not going to touch the legal aspects, of course) using modern computer graphic software. One could even give Aragorn trousers, and get rid of Boromir's annoying horned helmet! Perhaps even have Gandalf say "Saruman!" instead of "Aruman!" By the by, I am semi serious about this; if anyone knows how one could accomplish the above (software required, rotoscoping, etc.) I would appreciate the insight.