New interview with Christopher Tolkien - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

jallanite · 09-19-2012, 12:25 PM

This tape is welcome here, at least to me.

Christopher Tolkien’s pronunciation of Thengel (using International Phonetic Alphabet symbols) as Then[dʒ]el where his father pronounced it as The[ŋɡ]el stands out as an odd differing pronunciation. It is probably not an error by either of the Tolkiens but would indicate different theories of how the Old English name may have been pronounced, and possibly theories of how the name was pronounced in different dialects of Old English.

Old English grammars, at least those that I have seen, get vague in their rules for words which contain ng. See http://www.lotrplaza.com/archive7/fo...asp?TID=234771 for a discussion which in its later sections, towards the top, gets into Christopher Tolkien’s pronunciation. Another possible pronunciation is The[nj]el. It is noted in the forum I have linked to that Tolkien preferred to pronounce the name Hengest as something like Hen[dʒ]est or Hen[j]est where other systems of Old English pronunciation prefer He[ŋɡ]est.

09-19-2012, 12:25 PM	#18
jallanite Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 479	This tape is welcome here, at least to me. Christopher Tolkien’s pronunciation of Thengel (using International Phonetic Alphabet symbols) as Then[dʒ]el where his father pronounced it as The[ŋɡ]el stands out as an odd differing pronunciation. It is probably not an error by either of the Tolkiens but would indicate different theories of how the Old English name may have been pronounced, and possibly theories of how the name was pronounced in different dialects of Old English. Old English grammars, at least those that I have seen, get vague in their rules for words which contain ng. See http://www.lotrplaza.com/archive7/fo...asp?TID=234771 for a discussion which in its later sections, towards the top, gets into Christopher Tolkien’s pronunciation. Another possible pronunciation is The[nj]el. It is noted in the forum I have linked to that Tolkien preferred to pronounce the name Hengest as something like Hen[dʒ]est or Hen[j]est where other systems of Old English pronunciation prefer He[ŋɡ]est.