Elvish Pronunciation Guide

The hyperlinks refer to sound files of me speaking the sounds. I do not claim that my rendition is ideal (there are particular sounds I have a mental block about), but it should be fairly accurate. The sound files are in .wav format; although this is neither the most compact nor the best sound file format, owing to the influence of the Great Satan, it's probably the most widely understood.

Quenya

Vowels

• a is pronounced by most people as in Spanish or French, although for all we know it could be as in Dutch or English. So pronounce as in French patte, or German man. (This sound doesn't exist in Received Pronunciation English, but is roughly the a of northern English dialects in words such as bath.)
• e is pronounced as English pet, French fait, or German denn.
• i is pronounced with the same sound as English peat, but shorter; French lit; German vital.
• o is roughly English (but not American!) pot; French comme; German Topf.
• u is the sound of boot, but shorter; French ou; German Uran.

The long vowels are pronounced thus:

• á, í, ú: just like the short vowels, but longer! (About twice as long, if you want a guide figure, but just do whatever your own language does.)
• é is pronounced a little `closer' than e. The first part of the diphthong in English may; a long version of French é; or german Tee.
• ó is similarly pronounced closer than o. English paw (but closer); French hôte; German Sohn.

Quenya also has a set of six diphthongs (note that all other pairs of vowels should be pronounced separately). They are ai, oi, ui, au, eu, iu. In each case, pronounce the first vowel strongly, and glide into the second (except for iu, where is it also acceptable to glide from a weak i to a strong u -- that is a Third Age pronunciation).

Examples: ai, oi, ui, au, eu, iu (old), iu (3rd Age)
Ainu, coimas, cuivie, Laurelin, leuca, miule

Finally, a note on the diaeresis. Tolkien used this sign in order to remind English speakers that e should be pronounced at the end of words, and that combinations such as ea are two sounds, not a diphthong, as in Aldëa, Atalantë, hísië. Since this is completely unnecessary, it's usual not to use it in articles on Tolkienian linguistics.

Consonants

In describing the consonants of Quenya, I'll follow approximately the organization of the tengwar. Quenya had five series of consonants: the four columns of the tengwar chart, plus the first column with two dots below. The first column, or tincotéma, are dental (or perhaps alveolar) consonants, such as French t (or English t). The first column plus dots, the tyelpetéma, are palatalized versions of the tincotéma. Actually, there is room for quite a lot of debate on the exact nature of these, but for the purposes of this guide, they are like (British) English tune. The second column, the parmatéma, are the labials, as English pat. The third, calmatéma, are velars, as English cat. The fourth, quessetéma, are labio-velars, as English quick.

The rows of the tengwar correspond (in theory) to different manners of articulation, such as stop or fricative, voiced or voiceless. However, Quenya didn't follow the theory exactly, so I'll now discuss individual sounds according to their manner, rather than according to exact place in the tengwar.

• The voiceless stops t, ty, p, c/k, qu are simple. (Note that c and k are both sometimes used in writing Quenya; there is no difference, so in particular c is always a hard sound.) We don't know whether they were pronounced as in English, with aspiration (puff of breath), or as in French, with no aspiration. On general principles, a French accent is probably better...

  Examples: tinco, tyelpe, parma, calma, quesse

• Quenya doesn't have voiced stops d, dy, b, g, gw on their own, but only after nasals (and liquids, in the case of d). In late Quenya, ng always means the combination of the back nasal (which Tolkien sometimes wrote ñ) and a g sound (always hard, even before i, e). . Thus the second row of tengwar is:

  ando, indyo, umbar, anga, ungwe

• The corresponding voiceless fricatives introduce some complexities, as they changed quite a bit.
  • th, as in English thin, and written with the tengwa thúle/súle, existed in early Quenya, but turned into s. It therefore doesn't appear in the Quenya we see. s also existed independently (tengwa silme). (Actually, this is a very complicated story---see "The Shibboleth of Feanor" in HoM-e 12.) In all cases, s is the voiceless sound of English see, French si, German bis.
  • (The palatized version of súle has a name istyar, but it's not clear that it would ever be used -- it shouldn't, according to the pattern, have the sound sty.)
  • f is English fee, French fait, German von.
  • h is a bit of a problem, since Appendix F of LotR is a little inconsistent. My interpretation is: in late Quenya, h should be pronounced as English or German h when it's at the beginning of a word. In other positions, it should be pronounced like German ch as in Bach (next to a, o, u) or Ich (next to e, i). However, between vowels it is probably harmless to reduce it to a simple h sound.
  • hy is pronounced as English huge, German Ich.
  • hw is pronounced like Scottish white.

  Examples: thúle (archaic), silme, formen, halla, aha, Mahtan, tehta, hyarmen, hwesta

• Most of the voiced fricatives disappeared from Quenya one way or another. Only v remains, as in English voice, French vous, and German wo. (Archaic Quenya also had z, but this had turned into r by the Third Age.)

  Examples: vala, áze (archaic)

  (Since they had disappeared, the tengwar that would have represented them were in Quenya used for the common combinations of nasal + voiceless stop: anto, intya, ampa, anca, unque.)

• Late Quenya has just the three nasals n, ny, m. However, earlier it also had the back nasal ñ, and ñw, which appear in many of the HoM-e volumes. Confusingly, these are occasionally written ng -- if you see ng at the beginning of a word, it certainly means ñ. In late Quenya, these became n and nw.

  Examples: (late Quenya) númen, nyelle, malta, noldo, nwalme
  (early Quenya) númen, nyelle, malta, ñoldo, ñwalme

• Quenya had a fair assortment of rhotics. The rhotics (r-sounds) are another of those problematic issues. There was certainly a trilled r, as in Italian r or Spanish rr. At some stage there was also a `weak' r. This may have been a tap, like the Spanish r, or the West Coast American later, or it may have been a continuant like the British English r. In either case, it's not clear whether it still existed in Third Age Quenya -- and you would have to know the etymology of words to work out whether r is weak or strong. So the simplest solution is to assume it was always strong -- or if, like me, you have a mental block about trills, to do whatever you can! (So these examples are not too good.)
  In addition, there was a voiceless hr, a palatalized ry, and the combination rd.

  Examples: rómen, óre (weak), hríve, arya, arda

• The laterals are less problematic. There was l (English speakers should avoid the English `dark' l after e, i--compare English elder with Quenya elda), voiceless hl, palatalized ly, and the combination ld.

  Examples: lambe, hlápa, alya, alda

• Finally, there are the semi-vowels, w as English will, and y as English yes or German ja. w was rare in Third Age Quenya, having become v initially. (At least, according to LotR.)

  Examples: wilya (archaic), yanta.

It should also be noted that consonants written double are pronounced long: atta, ekko, anna, telluma, esse

Stress

AlquaLONde, ElENna, ELdamar, HísiLÓme, LótESSe

and finally...

Vanda sína termaruva Elenna-nóreo alcar enyalien, ar Elendil Vorondo voronwe. Nai tiruvantes i hárar mahalmassen mi Númen, ar i Eru i or ilye mahalmar ea tenn'oio.