Isengard no!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Just ran across that dumb "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!" music video again, and was suddenly reminded that the movies consistently pronounce Isengard wrong (as do many, many readers).

It's not EYE-sengard. It's about halfway between EE-sengard and IZ-engard.

[Atten1970]

Thanks for the pronunciation tip on Isengard. I was saying the wrong thing the whole time. Hopefully EYE-sengard is a little easier to say.

[kiricowell]

Wow, what a wonderful post. This was too much information for me

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

It's not EYE-sengard. It's about halfway between EE-sengard and IZ-engard.

Source?

According to the Encyclopedia of Arda, Isengard is pronounced as 'eye'sengard'. Maybe that was where PJ got the pronunciation?

Wikipedia has it as 'aɪzənɡɑːrd', and someone on Reddit says it's 'Ee-sen-gard'.

Here is a good discussion I found on Boardgamegeek. There is listed 'EYE-zen-gard, 'Eisen-gard', and the one I like and tend to use is in Tolkien's reading the march of the Ents ("To Isengard with doom we come!"), he definitely pronounces it 'Eye'-zen-gard.

[Huinesoron]

I would guess the source is the first part of Appendix E, which states that the letter "i" represents the sound in "machine". The section's mostly about the Elvish languages, but there's a note that "in names drawn from other languages than Eldarin the same values for the letters are intended".

I should also note that S "is always voiceless, as in English 'so', 'geese'; the z-sound did not occur in contemporary Quenya or Sindarin." And for that matter, "e" should be as in "were", not a schwa. In a non-rhotic accent, I'd spell this pronunciation as "Eesserngard". (Edit: and the R from the original is thrilled! "Eesse(r)ngarrrd". The A at least is right, pronounced as in "father".)

But an actual recording of Tolkien definitely beats that!

EDIT2: Crikey, when you follow the Appendix E rules you get a very VERY specific accent. O is the sound in "for", so now pronounce "Rohan" and "Frodo" (remember to trill the R if you can!). I'm not even sure the text excludes "Samwise" from having three vowels: "father", "machine", and "were" respectively. Sahmweesseh.

I somehow don't think that's what Tolkien intended.

hS

[SoundingShores]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I'm not even sure the text excludes "Samwise" from having three vowels: "father", "machine", and "were" respectively. Sahmweesseh.

I somehow don't think that's what Tolkien intended.

I have no idea what Tolkien intended, but I think at the very least, it wouldn't have sounded as weird to him as it does to most people. Samwise comes from the Old English sām- +‎ wīs (half-wit). But he may have spelled it differently because he wanted it to be pronounced in the Modern English manner. There's the whole thing with him "translating" LotR into Modern English.

EDIT: The answer may be included in Appendix F. "I have therefore tried to preserve these features by using Samwise and Hamfast, modernizations of ancient English samwís and hámfæst which corresponded closely in meaning." Sounds like an argument for Modern English pronunciation.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by SoundingShores

I have no idea what Tolkien intended, but I think at the very least, it wouldn't have sounded as weird to him as it does to most people. Samwise comes from the Old English sām- +‎ wīs (half-wit). But he may have spelled it differently because he wanted it to be pronounced in the Modern English manner. There's the whole thing with him "translating" LotR into Modern English.

EDIT: The answer may be included in Appendix F. "I have therefore tried to preserve these features by using Samwise and Hamfast, modernizations of ancient English samwís and hámfæst which corresponded closely in meaning." Sounds like an argument for Modern English pronunciation.

Thankfully you are correct; the first two sentences of Appendix E say "The Westron or Common Speech has been entirely translated into English equivalents. All Hobbit names and [Hobbit] special words are intended to be pronounced accordingly." Appendix E is devoted specifically to words transcribed from Third Age scripts. So Samwise is in the clear.

But not Isengard, because from the last paragraph of Appendix E part I: "The 'outer' or Mannish names of the Dwarves have been given Northern forms, but the letter-values are those described. So also in the case of the personal and place-names of Rohan (where they have not been modernized)... the modernized forms are easily recognised and are intended to be pronounced as in English... Dunharrow... Shadowfax... Wormtongue."

Isengard is not modernised, despite being "given Northern form", so has to follow the rules of Appendix E... except that Tolkien didn't. ^_^

Interestingly, all this means that "Bilbo" and "Bilba" have different initial vowels: "Bilbo" uses English pronunciation, as in "pill", while "Bilba" is a Third Age word which pronounces its "i" as in "machine" - "Beelbah".

... of course, as the footnote to the Vowels section makes clear, if you read the everything with English pronunciation, you "will err little more than Bilbo, Meriadoc, or Peregrin". So Tolkien was reading his poem with a Shire accent!

hS

[SoundingShores]

Perhaps Isengard is meant to be the Modern English translation of a Westron name. It was originally a Gondorian fortress. I guess at first, it had a Sindarin name, which was translated into Westron. And Westron is translated into Modern English, sometimes by using actual Modern English words (Cotton), sometimes by starting with an Old English word and making it sound more "modern" (sāmwīs to Samwise).

This may explain why Tolkien pronounced Isengard the way he did. The Appendix E pronunciation rules would have only applied to the Sindarin and maybe to the actual Westron name of the fortress, whatever it was.

Isengard may have had a name in the Rohanese language as well since it was close to them, but I think it wasn't part of the territory Cirion gave to Eorl. Rohanese is a bit complicated because it's supposed to be translated into Old English, but sometimes, the words are modernized anyway. When they aren't modernized, maybe we're meant to use Old English pronunciation, rather than Appendix E pronunciation. EDIT: But to be clear I think Isengard is the Modern English translation of a Westron word, the "take an Old English word and make it sound modern" variety.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

... of course, as the footnote to the Vowels section makes clear, if you read the everything with English pronunciation, you "will err little more than Bilbo, Meriadoc, or Peregrin". So Tolkien was reading his poem with a Shire accent!

This reminds me of that funny little anecdote in Appendix F about Pippin naively and inappropriately using the familiar "you" (and he/she/they, apparently) when he was in Minas Tirith because the formal versions weren't used in the Shire.

[Galin]

As I'd agree that Appendix E is top-tier-Tolkien-published-canon, I'd also have to agree (with me) that so is The Road Goes Ever On (1967), in which the example given for Sindarin short i is "sick" . . . long i as in "see".

The intended pronunciation is given in Appendix E to volume III, but not perhaps with great clarity, so I offer a few notes (. . .) The short vowels may be rendered as in E. sick, bed, hot . . ."

Also, immediately following Tolkien's "irrespective of quantity" in the Appendix description, we have:

"In Sindarin long e, a, o had the same quality as the short vowels, being derived . . ."

So I wonder(ed), why does Tolkien note these vowels as having the same quality as the short vowels, but not long i for instance? Well, someone far more versed in the Tolkienian tongues than I am once answered my question thusly [I've "corrected" a couple words that I take to be mistaken in the following quote]:

Because he contrasts this with Quenya, where long é, ó are more closed than short e, o. But yes, it [if?] any vowels are different, I expect í/i and ú/u to be the first. In the Tenguesta Quenderinwa Tolkien wrote that in Common Eldarin the long vowels “tended to be tenser and narrower that the short vowels” (PE18/83) and it wouldn’t be of [off?] the table that at least sometimes Tolkien imagined Sindarin/Noldorin to continue this for i and u."

Posted (elsewhere) by Gilruin Oct 3, 2022

Gilruin also warns against taking even Tolkien's own pronunciation over what he writes, but that's a fairly general statement, and as far as Mithlond, Minas Tirith and Mithril are concerned, and even Tolkien's own pronunciation of linnathon and galadhremmin (to my ear at least), so far, for short i, I'm using i as in sick, rather than machine.

Konserning Quenya: i approximately as in English machine, regardless of quantity (thus short and long i only differ in duration) -- once again, according to Appendix E -- but in an early source, Tolkien himself quoted the word pit as an example of short "Qenya" i. Of course, in this case we have Tolkien-published text versus Tolkien-written text.

[side note: Appendix E also relates that ir -- "finally or before a consonant" (Boromir, for example) -- is intended to be pronounced as English "eer"]



The long and short of it (pun intended): I'm confused.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

It's about halfway between EE-sengard and IZ-engard.

This is what always sounded right to me

[AndyC]

I always figured that Isengard was Angrenost in the local language.
Angren : iron
Ost: Fortress, fortified place, guarded place
Iron-guard
Isen-gard

Thus Isen would be pronounced with the same I sound as Iron.

[Boromir88]

In FOTR, the scene where Gandalf goes to seek Saruman, Christopher Lee definitely pronounces it “Eye-zen-gard.” It sounds like the same pronunciation from Tolkien’s reading “The March of the Ents,” as Snowdog mentions.

I dislike that song “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard,” and it’s been a while since I’ve watched TTT. I can’t remember how Orlando Bloom says it.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

In FOTR, the scene where Gandalf goes to seek Saruman, Christopher Lee definitely pronounces it “Eye-zen-gard.” It sounds like the same pronunciation from Tolkien’s reading “The March of the Ents,” as Snowdog mentions.

I dislike that song “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard,” and it’s been a while since I’ve watched TTT. I can’t remember how Orlando Bloom says it.

We watched the entire trilogy a week ago; the movies are 100% consistent on "Eye-zen-guard" (to within the limits of people's accents). Presumably, since the previous LotR movie couldn't decide between "Saruman" and "Aruman", they made a point of telling everyone the approved pronunciations for everything. That doesn't mean they were right, obviously.

hS

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

We watched the entire trilogy a week ago; the movies are 100% consistent on "Eye-zen-guard" (to within the limits of people's accents). Presumably, since the previous LotR movie couldn't decide between "Saruman" and "Aruman", they made a point of telling everyone the approved pronunciations for everything. That doesn't mean they were right, obviously.

hS

To be honest, most of the way I pronounce names and places from Tolkien comes from either the movies or conversing with Formendacil over the years.

I have no idea if it's right, but in my own head, The Hobbit did get Dain wrong. I've always thought the pronunciation for Dain would be similar to Oin ("O-in") and Gloin ("Glo-in"). That would make Dain, "Da-in," and not "Dayne" as they say in The Hobbit movies.