"How does one pronounce Tolkien?" - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

davem · 08-08-2009, 12:39 PM

The varied pronunciations given here are fascinating - I wonder if they are determined by people's accents, & the pronunciation of similar looking words they use on an everyday basis?

I also wonder whether people feel a kind of 'emotional' attatchment to their original pronunciations, in the sense that (as I've mentioned) when they revert to their old pronunciations they are 'taken back' to their first reading - rather than simply liking their own pronunciation over the official one?

On the Isengard thing - I remember pronouncing it "Iz'-engard' as opposed to 'Eye-zengard', & I'm wondering whether that was because, encountering an unfamiliar word you sort of attempt to match it up with a similar looking word - & the closest I could come up with was the first name of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel?

08-08-2009, 12:39 PM	#10
davem Illustrious Ulair Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties Posts: 4,240	The varied pronunciations given here are fascinating - I wonder if they are determined by people's accents, & the pronunciation of similar looking words they use on an everyday basis? I also wonder whether people feel a kind of 'emotional' attatchment to their original pronunciations, in the sense that (as I've mentioned) when they revert to their old pronunciations they are 'taken back' to their first reading - rather than simply liking their own pronunciation over the official one? On the Isengard thing - I remember pronouncing it "Iz'-engard' as opposed to 'Eye-zengard', & I'm wondering whether that was because, encountering an unfamiliar word you sort of attempt to match it up with a similar looking word - & the closest I could come up with was the first name of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel? __________________ “Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects." Last edited by davem; 08-08-2009 at 12:43 PM.