Gandalve?

[bluejay]

Ok so given the general consensus on pronunciation plus the massive amount of research linguists carried out for the movies, I'm pretty sure we all say Gandalf with a hard f at the end of the word.

However just reading through the guide to pronunciation in the appendices and it clearly states that an f at the end of a word is to be pronounced as in of. From everything I can see the pronunciation guide is fairly universal applying to Westron, Quenya, Sindarin and the language of Dale and Rohan. They give Nindalf as an example of a word that would have this sound.

So .. Surely by this reckoning Gandalf should be pronounced more like Gandalve?

Can one of the many illustrious Tolkien scholars here please enlighten me?

[Arkat]

Not a Tolkien scholar or a linguist, but since Gandalf is a name found in the norse sagas I would guess that norse pronounciations could give insight into how it is supposed to sound. In both norse and modern norwegian ending a word with an f or a v sounds very similar. It is mostly a matter of how much empfasis you make on the ffff-sound.

It is the same way that elf in norwegian can be spelled both as alf or as alv, although the first is an older form.

[bluejay]

Thanks Arkat, yes that does seem to be the case. Of course this might be the correct pronunciation in Westron or the dialect/language of Dale and so the hard f sound is the Anglicised version of his name.

[Heilemann]

You pronounce 'of' like 'ove'?

[Stormcrow]

I'm not convinced that Tolkien regularized everything to that pronunciation key. Elvish names, certainly. Mannish names translated into English/Norse/other Germanic languages? Not at all certain to me. This includes Gandalf, "wand elf." When going beyond Elvish, nothing is certain.

I once thought to get assistance in pronouncing Thráin by looking at Old Norse, but I'm pretty sure Tolkien didn't mean to pronounce it thrawin.

[bluejay]

You pronounce 'of' like 'ove'?

Yes, a soft f sound

[bluejay]

I'm not convinced that Tolkien regularized everything to that pronunciation key. Elvish names, certainly. Mannish names translated into English/Norse/other Germanic languages? Not at all certain to me. This includes Gandalf, "wand elf." When going beyond Elvish, nothing is certain.

I once thought to get assistance in pronouncing Thráin by looking at Old Norse, but I'm pretty sure Tolkien didn't mean to pronounce it thrawin.

As I say, it doesn't feel right but Tolikien does say on page 2205 'In names drawn from other languages than Eldarin the same values for the letters are intended...'

[bluejay]

You pronounce 'of' like 'ove'?

Yes, a soft f sound

Ah unless you thought I intended the e at the end of Gandalve to be sounded. I was really just going for a construction like 'valve'. Since writing this I've seen people write it as Gandalv but I avoided that because formally English (non-slang, non-loan) words don't end with v.

[Buri]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3_2D_ErL_I

Sounds more like the typical pronunciation to me, but he says it very quickly.

[bluejay]

Yeah but there are examples of JRRT pronouncing Sauron as 'soar on' so I'm not convinced that even his pronunciation can be trusted.

I do think it's likely that he intended Gandalf to end with a hard f but it seems amazing that he didn't make this more clear in his pronunciation guide.