Canon - Alphabets and pronunciation of Adunaic and Westron

An overview of the alphabet and pronunciation of Adunaic and Westron.

The alphabet and the pronunciation of both languages are identical in their canon versions and their expanded P-AdW versions.

 

Alphabets


The Adunaic alphabet

Consonants: b, d, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z
Vowels: a, (e), i, (o), u, â, ê, î, ô, û / Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û
Diphtongs: âi, âu, ôi, êu / Âi, Âu, Ôi, Êu

Adunaic has all five long vowels (in this, it is identical to the Slovak alphabet), but Tolkien's second draft of this fictional language does not contain the short vowel letters "e" and "o". The author himself claims that these vowels were once present as phonemes in the hisrorically older forms of Adunaic. However, Tolkien's first draft of Adunaic, and even more importantly, his third draft of the language, once again contain the sort versions of the vowels "e" and "o". In his notes, there is even a comparison of a word from the second draft and third draft, so it seems that professor Tolkien changed his opinion concerning the use of these vowels in Adunaic. (Nevertheless, I have placed both the short "e" and "o" into brackets, just to emphasize that their status in the language is a bit vague.) I think the best reconcilling of these contradictions is to expect that Adunaic favoured the long forms of these vowels over the short forms, but the short forms continued to exist. The obsolete diphtongs are ai (assimilated into ê) and au (assimilated into ô), while the extant diphtongs are the following four: âi, âu, ôi, êu. Adunaic also doesn't use the consonant letters "c", "f", and "j".

The Westron alphabet

Consonants: b, c, d, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, y, z
Vowels: a, e, i, o, u, â, ê, î, ô, û
Diphtongs: âi, âu, ôi, êu / Âi, Âu, Ôi, Êu (most likely, if there was no less from Adunaic)

Westron has all five of the typical short and long vowels (in this, it is identical with the Slovak alphabet, with the exception of the "y" not being among the vowels). The long "e" letter is used quite a bit less in Westron. Besides this, Westron also doesn't use the consonant letters "f", "j", "ch" and "w".

(The letter "ch" as a separate letter and phonetic equivalent to English transcription "kh" does not occur in most real world languages, even some that have the "ch"/"kh" phonetics. Given that Adunaic recognizes this sound, I've decided to treat it as a letter, a consonant in its own right. This also makes it easier to say that Westron doesn't use its phonetics, and of course, doesn't use it as a separate letter either. The only related letter it has is the more universal "h", on both an ortographic and phonetic level.)

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Pronunciation of letters and phonemes

By a lucky coincidence, the vowels in Adunaic and Westron are pronounced essentially in the exact same way as the vowels in modern day Slovak. The vowels with the added caron (roof) are the long vowels, functionally identical to long vowels in Slovak or other Slavic or European languages that use them.

Kh is not pronounced like "kh" (as in the case of the Dwarven language, Khuzdul), but as a "ch" of many Indoeuropean and Middle Eastern languages, e.g. the German word machen, Scottish word loch, Slovak word chodec, Arabic word/name Chalid, etc. However, the Westron language does not have the "ch" phoneme and thus also lacks the related letter (or letter combination recognized as a phonetically separate letter). Westron only uses the letter and phoneme "h".

Ph is pronounced as an English "ph" combination, so in a roughly similar manner to "f", e.g. real world words such as philosophy, unphased, Philip.

Th is pronounced as an English "th" (in the vast majority of cases), so roughly like a slower, more guttural "f", e.g. real world words such as thanks, thought, maths.

Y is pronounced like the "y" in the English word yellow or like the "j" in the Slovak word jahoda. Even though this letter is usually recognized as a vowel, its function in both of Tolkien's fictional Mannish languages is purely on the level of a consonant, at all times. This is the reason why I include this letter as a consonant in my above overview of both languages' alphabets.

Bear in mind, in Adunaic and in Westron, there is no palatalization and soft pronunciation of the consonants d, t, n, l (unlike in plenty of Slavic and some Romance languages, etc.). The only "i" in both of the fictional languages is a simple "i" (a soft i, a.k.a. a iota), because the "y" letter is used in both languages only as a consonant, but the letter (and phoneme) "i" never causes the softened or palatalized pronunciation of the consonants d, t, n, l.

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External links

TBA