"How does one pronounce Tolkien?"

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

I agree with what you've said, davem. Changing Cirith Ungol to Kirith Ungol, Seleborn to Keleborn and Sirdan to Kirdan was hard for me, and it's not the same. But then, when you read it again, it seems to fit better (at least to me).

As well as this let me take this as an opportunity to ask how you pronounce Smaug. Is it Sm-or-g or Sm-ow-g or neither?

I didn't think of this problem until when I joined the 'Downs, or just a bit after that, because it's always been just Šmak for me (the Czech "translation").

As for the others, I always took great care of pronouncing all names correctly, with the exception of Tolkien (only after learning its origins somewhere, everybody says Tol-kee-en in my home country anyway, there was even a radio broadcast where they said "Well, it should be really pronounced like this and this, but people usually pronounce it that way here, so I think it doesn't matter" and spent the rest of the broadcast calling him Tol-kee-en anyway), and then names like "Cirith Ungol", "Celeborn" and "Círdan", which I pronounced (and sometimes still pronounce, if I am not careful enough) as "Tsirith Ungol", "Tseleborn" and "Tsírdan". I believe that "Kírdan" sounds really awful, by the way. It doesn't sound right to me (the others do).