Questions on Pronunciation

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Are you Frodo2968 sure about the pronaunciation of Eärendil? I don't meant to offend anybody or doubt anyone's knowledge but I was quite sure about Eärendil's pronaunciation which slightly differs from your view. In Quenya there are certain diphthongs, groups of two basic vowels pronounced together as one syllable: There are three diphthongs in -i (ai, oi, ui) and three in -u (au, eu, iu, though the diphthongs eu and iu are quite rare). So there isn't such a syllable as "ea" (which we already knew since there are the two dots above that "ä").

Next quote is from Ardalambion: "Quenya vowels are pure. For people who want to pronounce Elvish vowels with some degree of accuracy, Tolkien recommended Italian vowels as a model. Speakers of English have an ingrained habit of blurring many vowels, especially when they are not fully stressed; hence in a word like banana it is typically only the middle A that comes out as a "proper" A-sound. The two other A's, that are not stressed, are typically made to sound like a blurred, obscure "reduction vowel" that linguists call a schwa (from a Hebrew word for nothingness; English textbooks sometimes prefer the spelling "shwa"). But in Quenya all vowels, in all positions, must be clearly and distinctly pronounced; any tendencies to "blur" them must be strongly resisted."

Anyone who agrees with this can find the pronaunciation directions for the rest of the vowels from my previous post or more likely from the Ardalambion's Quenya course.

[edit: sorry pio, I posted cross with you...since your link is there, there's no need for my explanation but I'll let it stay anyway ]