Isengard no!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Just ran across that dumb "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!" music video again, and was suddenly reminded that the movies consistently pronounce Isengard wrong (as do many, many readers).

It's not EYE-sengard. It's about halfway between EE-sengard and IZ-engard.

[Atten1970]

Thanks for the pronunciation tip on Isengard. I was saying the wrong thing the whole time. Hopefully EYE-sengard is a little easier to say.

[kiricowell]

Wow, what a wonderful post. This was too much information for me

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

It's not EYE-sengard. It's about halfway between EE-sengard and IZ-engard.

Source?

According to the Encyclopedia of Arda, Isengard is pronounced as 'eye'sengard'. Maybe that was where PJ got the pronunciation?

Wikipedia has it as 'aɪzənɡɑːrd', and someone on Reddit says it's 'Ee-sen-gard'.

Here is a good discussion I found on Boardgamegeek. There is listed 'EYE-zen-gard, 'Eisen-gard', and the one I like and tend to use is in Tolkien's reading the march of the Ents ("To Isengard with doom we come!"), he definitely pronounces it 'Eye'-zen-gard.

[Huinesoron]

I would guess the source is the first part of Appendix E, which states that the letter "i" represents the sound in "machine". The section's mostly about the Elvish languages, but there's a note that "in names drawn from other languages than Eldarin the same values for the letters are intended".

I should also note that S "is always voiceless, as in English 'so', 'geese'; the z-sound did not occur in contemporary Quenya or Sindarin." And for that matter, "e" should be as in "were", not a schwa. In a non-rhotic accent, I'd spell this pronunciation as "Eesserngard". (Edit: and the R from the original is thrilled! "Eesse(r)ngarrrd". The A at least is right, pronounced as in "father".)

But an actual recording of Tolkien definitely beats that!

EDIT2: Crikey, when you follow the Appendix E rules you get a very VERY specific accent. O is the sound in "for", so now pronounce "Rohan" and "Frodo" (remember to trill the R if you can!). I'm not even sure the text excludes "Samwise" from having three vowels: "father", "machine", and "were" respectively. Sahmweesseh.

I somehow don't think that's what Tolkien intended.

hS

[SoundingShores]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I'm not even sure the text excludes "Samwise" from having three vowels: "father", "machine", and "were" respectively. Sahmweesseh.

I somehow don't think that's what Tolkien intended.

I have no idea what Tolkien intended, but I think at the very least, it wouldn't have sounded as weird to him as it does to most people. Samwise comes from the Old English sām- +‎ wīs (half-wit). But he may have spelled it differently because he wanted it to be pronounced in the Modern English manner. There's the whole thing with him "translating" LotR into Modern English.

EDIT: The answer may be included in Appendix F. "I have therefore tried to preserve these features by using Samwise and Hamfast, modernizations of ancient English samwís and hámfæst which corresponded closely in meaning." Sounds like an argument for Modern English pronunciation.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by SoundingShores

I have no idea what Tolkien intended, but I think at the very least, it wouldn't have sounded as weird to him as it does to most people. Samwise comes from the Old English sām- +‎ wīs (half-wit). But he may have spelled it differently because he wanted it to be pronounced in the Modern English manner. There's the whole thing with him "translating" LotR into Modern English.

EDIT: The answer may be included in Appendix F. "I have therefore tried to preserve these features by using Samwise and Hamfast, modernizations of ancient English samwís and hámfæst which corresponded closely in meaning." Sounds like an argument for Modern English pronunciation.

Thankfully you are correct; the first two sentences of Appendix E say "The Westron or Common Speech has been entirely translated into English equivalents. All Hobbit names and [Hobbit] special words are intended to be pronounced accordingly." Appendix E is devoted specifically to words transcribed from Third Age scripts. So Samwise is in the clear.

But not Isengard, because from the last paragraph of Appendix E part I: "The 'outer' or Mannish names of the Dwarves have been given Northern forms, but the letter-values are those described. So also in the case of the personal and place-names of Rohan (where they have not been modernized)... the modernized forms are easily recognised and are intended to be pronounced as in English... Dunharrow... Shadowfax... Wormtongue."

Isengard is not modernised, despite being "given Northern form", so has to follow the rules of Appendix E... except that Tolkien didn't. ^_^

Interestingly, all this means that "Bilbo" and "Bilba" have different initial vowels: "Bilbo" uses English pronunciation, as in "pill", while "Bilba" is a Third Age word which pronounces its "i" as in "machine" - "Beelbah".

... of course, as the footnote to the Vowels section makes clear, if you read the everything with English pronunciation, you "will err little more than Bilbo, Meriadoc, or Peregrin". So Tolkien was reading his poem with a Shire accent!

hS

[SoundingShores]

Perhaps Isengard is meant to be the Modern English translation of a Westron name. It was originally a Gondorian fortress. I guess at first, it had a Sindarin name, which was translated into Westron. And Westron is translated into Modern English, sometimes by using actual Modern English words (Cotton), sometimes by starting with an Old English word and making it sound more "modern" (sāmwīs to Samwise).

This may explain why Tolkien pronounced Isengard the way he did. The Appendix E pronunciation rules would have only applied to the Sindarin and maybe to the actual Westron name of the fortress, whatever it was.

Isengard may have had a name in the Rohanese language as well since it was close to them, but I think it wasn't part of the territory Cirion gave to Eorl. Rohanese is a bit complicated because it's supposed to be translated into Old English, but sometimes, the words are modernized anyway. When they aren't modernized, maybe we're meant to use Old English pronunciation, rather than Appendix E pronunciation. EDIT: But to be clear I think Isengard is the Modern English translation of a Westron word, the "take an Old English word and make it sound modern" variety.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

... of course, as the footnote to the Vowels section makes clear, if you read the everything with English pronunciation, you "will err little more than Bilbo, Meriadoc, or Peregrin". So Tolkien was reading his poem with a Shire accent!

This reminds me of that funny little anecdote in Appendix F about Pippin naively and inappropriately using the familiar "you" (and he/she/they, apparently) when he was in Minas Tirith because the formal versions weren't used in the Shire.

[Galin]

As I'd agree that Appendix E is top-tier-Tolkien-published-canon, I'd also have to agree (with me) that so is The Road Goes Ever On (1967), in which the example given for Sindarin short i is "sick" . . . long i as in "see".

The intended pronunciation is given in Appendix E to volume III, but not perhaps with great clarity, so I offer a few notes (. . .) The short vowels may be rendered as in E. sick, bed, hot . . ."

Also, immediately following Tolkien's "irrespective of quantity" in the Appendix description, we have:

"In Sindarin long e, a, o had the same quality as the short vowels, being derived . . ."

So I wonder(ed), why does Tolkien note these vowels as having the same quality as the short vowels, but not long i for instance? Well, someone far more versed in the Tolkienian tongues than I am once answered my question thusly [I've "corrected" a couple words that I take to be mistaken in the following quote]:

Because he contrasts this with Quenya, where long é, ó are more closed than short e, o. But yes, it [if?] any vowels are different, I expect í/i and ú/u to be the first. In the Tenguesta Quenderinwa Tolkien wrote that in Common Eldarin the long vowels “tended to be tenser and narrower that the short vowels” (PE18/83) and it wouldn’t be of [off?] the table that at least sometimes Tolkien imagined Sindarin/Noldorin to continue this for i and u."

Posted (elsewhere) by Gilruin Oct 3, 2022

Gilruin also warns against taking even Tolkien's own pronunciation over what he writes, but that's a fairly general statement, and as far as Mithlond, Minas Tirith and Mithril are concerned, and even Tolkien's own pronunciation of linnathon and galadhremmin (to my ear at least), so far, for short i, I'm using i as in sick, rather than machine.

Konserning Quenya: i approximately as in English machine, regardless of quantity (thus short and long i only differ in duration) -- once again, according to Appendix E -- but in an early source, Tolkien himself quoted the word pit as an example of short "Qenya" i. Of course, in this case we have Tolkien-published text versus Tolkien-written text.

[side note: Appendix E also relates that ir -- "finally or before a consonant" (Boromir, for example) -- is intended to be pronounced as English "eer"]



The long and short of it (pun intended): I'm confused.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by SoundingShores

EDIT: But to be clear I think Isengard is the Modern English translation of a Westron word, the "take an Old English word and make it sound modern" variety.

I think you're right? One of the bits I elided was Tolkien saying, of "modernized" forms (of "Northern" forms which are standing in for Rohirric; I think "Northern" means "Old English" in this case), "They are mostly place names". His example is "Dunharrow (for 'Dunharg')", and Tolkien Gateway says that -gard is from Old English -geard; so despite not being as obviously "modernised" as Wormtongue, it looks like Isengard is a "modernized form" and should be pronounced as it would be in England.

Originally Posted by Galin

As I'd agree that Appendix E is top-tier-Tolkien-published-canon, I'd also have to agree (with me) that so is The Road Goes Ever On (1967), in which the example given for Sindarin short i is "sick" . . . long i as in "see".

Oh noooo...

Okay, so RGEO is specifically clarifying Appendix E. That's actually good, because it means there's no question of which has priority: RGEO does, it's a correction! I'm looking at the notes to "A Elbereth Gilthoniel", if anyone's having trouble finding it. Comparing the two, and looking at Sindarin:

• A is as in "ah"/"father"; long A has the "same quality"
• E is as in "were" (App.E) or "bed" (RGEO); long E has the "same quality".
• I is as in "machine" (App.E) or "sick" (RGEO); long I is as in "see".
• O is as in "for" (App.E) or "hot" (RGEO); long O has the "same quality".
• U is as in "brute" (App.E) or "foot" (RGEO); Long U is not mentioned.

So... apart from A, all of those are different sounds in my own accent. I know that a Durham accent would move "foot" to match "brute", so it's possible that Tolkien's accent (what would that be, a Birmingham-altered RP?) could make all of these sound alike. Seems like a stretch, though.

On the other hand, at one point he claims that "eo" in "Theobald" is a diphthong (ie pronounced in one syllable), which I can't even come up with a possible sound for, so who even knows!

Originally Posted by Galin

The long and short of it (pun intended): I'm confused.

Meeeeee too.

hS

[SoundingShores]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I think you're right? One of the bits I elided was Tolkien saying, of "modernized" forms (of "Northern" forms which are standing in for Rohirric; I think "Northern" means "Old English" in this case), "They are mostly place names". His example is "Dunharrow (for 'Dunharg')", and Tolkien Gateway says that -gard is from Old English -geard; so despite not being as obviously "modernised" as Wormtongue, it looks like Isengard is a "modernized form" and should be pronounced as it would be in England.
hS

It seems "Northern" was a euphemism used for Germanic languages/cultures during Tolkien's time, so it covers Old English. But in-universe, it could also refer to the languages of the Northmen... which Tolkien then translates into various Germanic languages (Old English, Old Norse), so same difference, I guess.

Re the personal and place names of Rohan, I think that since the "ancient scripts" were written by Westron-speakers, maybe they translated or transliterated the Rohanese words into Westron sometimes, and this is reflected in the English text as Dúnharg becoming Dunharrow and Wyrm-tunge becoming Wormtongue. The real-life equivalent would be Schwarzwald -> Black Forest; Friedrich der Große -> Frederick the Great; Den Haag -> The Hague.

But I actually think the word Isengard has nothing to do with the country of Rohan (probably even predates Rohan), and is just formed by modernizing an Old English word because Westron is an "evolved" version of the languages of the Northmen. Probably the English translation of any Westron place name could be formed like this, maybe even Adûnaic names for places in Númenor (if translated into English).

Originally Posted by Galin

The long and short of it (pun intended): I'm confused.

I’m also confused... and pretty sure I couldn’t get the pronunciation right even if I understood the rules. I don’t have Frodo’s "skill with foreign sounds."