Cellar Door

[Encaitare]

Ah, so you're a New Yorker too, Fea? I can't stand people trying to talk like rappers and whatnot... come on, it's the suburbs. There is no "hood."

And, er, yeah... on topic... Apparantly the Midwestern "accent" is the closest thing to speaking the English language without an accent, if you see what I mean. My orchestra director, who I believe is Midwestern, speaks so nicely and clearly; it's so refreshing.

Having never been to England, I have hardly any first-hand experiences with the accents, and TV is unreliable. But if you try and say it with the very distinguished sounding sort of accent, the phase sounds quite nice. New Yorkers are notorious for speaking somewhat poorly, so when I say cellar door it doesn't have quite as nice a ring to it. I try my best to break that sort of sterotype, but I am guilty of saying "cawfee" for coffee and "chawklit" for chocolate. Ah, well. I'll just run around saying "verisimilitudinous" to make up for it! (I love that word!)

[Lalaith]

Fordim, I've always wanted to visit the Boston region and what you say makes me want to all the more. However, it might not necessarily be the accent that Shakespeare himself spoke, there were strong regional variations in Tudor England too.
I do love old-fashioned regional accents and speech. My elderly neighbour, when I was living in Yorkshire, still used the old-style second person singular, he would to say to me "I worry 'bout thee, lass, so far from thy parents."

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Diamond18

I've heard speech that is English but qualifies as "garble" (cockney, anyone? )

Actually, I rather like "true" cockney. But it is quite rare nowadays. Much more common is the awful "Saaff London" accent, which is unfortunately very prevalent round where I live.

Given that he was brought up in the environs of Birmingham, it is rather amusing to imagine Tolkien as having a Brummie accent. No offence to any Brummies here, but it's not exactly the most erudite sounding of accents.

It seems to me that, in the UK at least, the harshest sounding accents are those hailing from urban areas. Rural accents seem much softer and somehow more pleasant. I particularly like the rounded burr of the West Country.

I, of course, speak the Queen's English.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

For anyone who would like to listen to the Professor reading from The Fellowship (the Ring Verse itself, no less) you will find a streaming MP3 at the following link:

http://www.warofthering.net/download...on=file&id=378

You can also download his BBC radio interview from 1971 at:

http://www.talkingabouttolkien.com/e_tolkien3_docs.html

Also at this site is a file of Tolkien reading Galadriel's poem in Elvish -- hear it as it was supposed to be spoken!!!

I don't know quite what the accent is, but it's not RP, nor is it working class northern -- more of an educated country ("plummy" -- which only makes sense, I suppose).

[The Saucepan Man]

Great links, Fordim! Thanks.

I think that "plummy" is probably a good description. Much as one would expect an Oxford professor to speak.

I particularly like his pronounciation of Morrrdorr in his reading from The Fellowship of the Ring. Nice that they used the same pronounciation in the films. I suspect that this was Ian McKellen's doing. Or perhaps Christopher Lee's?

The interview is great too. At one point, you can hear him puffing on his pipe!

[Bêthberry]

Well, lookee 'ere. Fordim and this thread have been commemorated in Middle-earth Magnets:

"Mordor door"

mouthed Fordim Hedgethistle,

smiling @ the difference.

Great links, Fordim. I happen to have cassettes of the BBC recordings. It is indeed fun to hear his voice pronounce various of his own creations.

Oh, and SpM, I also speak The Queen's English, but with a North American lilt.

[Guinevere]

Apropos your discussion about American English and British English: it made me remember something Tolkien wrote in letter #58 (1944)

I found myself in a carriage with an RAF officer and a very nice young American officer, New-Englander. (......)
I did however get a dim notion into his head that the "Oxford Accent" (by which he politely told me he meant mine) was not "forced" and "put on", but a natural one learned in the nursery - and was moreover not feudal or aristocratic but a very middle-class bourgeois invention. After I told him that his "accent" sounded like English after being wiped over with a dirty sponge, and generally suggested (falsely) to an English observer that, together with American slouch, it indicated a slovenly and ill-disciplined people - well, we got quite friendly.

I've recently bought "the J.R.R. Tolkien audio collection" consisting of 2 CD's with Tolkien reading from the Hobbit and LotR, and 2 CD's with Christopher Tolkien reading from the Silmarillion. I enjoyed hearing their voices tremendously! I too noticed the rolling R's .
(Btw did you know that Finarfin and Fingolfin have the stress on the middle syllable ? that was new for me.)
The Quenia in Galadriel's poem sounds rather like Italian to me, though Quenia is inspired by Finnish. Italian is the language that sounds most beautiful to my ears, but Tolkien's English - especially the "archaic" direct speech seems beautiful to me too. Although I don't really manage to separate the pure sound from the meaning of the words...
I studied for my CPE in London, but I lived then with an American family, and it was their way of speaking that stuck with me... , so that's "everyday" language to me, and the way Tolkien talks seems somehow "nobler" to me, but I guess that's just subjective.

[Diamond18]

Originally Posted by Encaitare

Apparantly the Midwestern "accent" is the closest thing to speaking the English language without an accent, if you see what I mean. My orchestra director, who I believe is Midwestern, speaks so nicely and clearly; it's so refreshing.

Well, that explains it. All New Yorkers must bow before my nice, clear Midwestern accent. Or at least nod your heads as if you're paying attention.... (And just for the record, trust me, no one in Wisconsin talks anything like Laverne and Shirley in real life. )