I went through the conjunctions and prepositions listed in the Ambar
Eldaron Quenya Dictionary [1] and the Omikhleia Sindarin Dictionary [2]
and added all the ones with a single light syllable to the list as
unstressed (with one exception). I think this improves the way some
texts are read a little bit (though I have to admit I find it hard to
tell the difference).
[1]: https://ambar-eldaron.com/telechargements/quenya-engl-A4.pdf
[2]: https://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/index.html
Switch to Quenya when encountering ⟨q⟩ in Sindarin
In Sindarin, ⟨q⟩ or ⟨qu⟩ do not occur, so if we encounter it, the word
must actually be Quenya. Let’s be user-friendly and switch to Quenya in
that case (though I’m not sure how common it would be to encounter a
single Quenya word in a Sindarin text – I suspect it would be more
likely that the user chose the wrong language and really the entire text
is in Quenya).
According to the Tolkien Gateway article on Qenya [1], Tolkien used ⟨q⟩
to represent [kʷ] before the writing of The Lord of the Rings (during
which he decided to use ⟨qu⟩ instead). Let’s support it, in case someone
wants to use eSpeak NG to pronounce names from the earlier volumes of
the History of Middle-earth.
[1]: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Qenya
According to Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings, ⟨k⟩ is used with the
same value as ⟨c⟩ in names from non-Elvish languages (both representing
/k/). However, in the Silmarillion, ⟨k⟩ is also used in some Elvish
names, such as Tulkas and Kementári, as well as in some words in the
Appendix (Elements in Quenya and Sindarin Names), e.g. kir- as an
element or root in Calacirya, Cirth, and other words. And in earlier
versions of the language (when Quenya was called Qenya and Sindarin
Gnomish), ⟨k⟩ also often occurs. Therefore, let’s support it as an
alternative spelling of ⟨c⟩.
Currently, eSpeak NG doesn’t seem to do the two-step replacement of
⟨kh⟩→⟨ch⟩→⟨x⟩, which means that ⟨kh⟩ is ultimately pronounced as /kh/
(or /kʰ/?) rather than [χ]; according to Appendix E, this is correct in
Dwarvish, while in Orkish and Adûnaic ⟨kh⟩ should be equivalent to ⟨ch⟩.
Since we’re not really aiming for pronouncing any of these languages,
either way is fine.
Consonants written twice always represent long consonants, not actual
repetation. eSpeak NG’s default behavior when speaking a doubled
consonant phoneme seems to work well enough for non-plosive consonants,
but for plosives, we need to tell it that the two input characters
correspond to one long phoneme, not a repeated regular one.
All three doubled voiceless plosives – ⟨tt⟩, ⟨pp⟩, ⟨cc⟩ – are regularly
found in Quenya, according to the Ambar Eldaron Quenya Dictionary [1].
Their voiced counterparts – ⟨dd⟩, ⟨bb⟩, ⟨gg⟩ – apparently don’t occur,
nor are any doubled plosives to be found in the Omikhleia Sindarin
Dictionary [2], voiced or not. But let’s define all six pairs in both
languages anyways, since it doesn’t cost us much to do so, and it seems
fairly clear that this is how these double consonants should be
pronounced, if they ever occurred.
[1]: https://ambar-eldaron.com/telechargements/quenya-engl-A4.pdf
[2]: https://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/index.html
⟨o⟩ almost certainly represents [ɔ] – Appendix E of The Lord of the
Rings describes it as the sound in English “for”. This means we should
use a phoneme [[O]], not [[o]]; we should also create our own phoneme
for this, since the one we inherit from Latin sounds much more like [o]
to me.
In Quenya, long ⟨ó⟩ (and, presumably, ⟨ô⟩) is, according to Appendix E,
“tenser and ‘closer’”, which presumably means [o]. (Online sources seem
to agree.) The Latin [[o:]] phoneme works well enough for this.
In Sindarin, ⟨ó⟩ has “the same quality” as ⟨o⟩ according to Appendix E,
so emit it as [[O:]] for [ɔː]. This sounds sensible enough te me.
I’m undecided whether “Lothlórien” should be in sjn_list, to pronounce
it with [oː] instead of [ɔː]. It’s composed of Sindarin “loth” and
Quenya “Lórien”, so that could potentially justify a pronunciation with
a Quenya ⟨ó⟩. But then again, maybe it should be a standard Sindarin
⟨ó⟩. For now, I’ve opted to not add it; in the film The Fellowship of
the Ring, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) says “Lothlórien” after the
Fellowship leave Moria, and to me his ⟨ó⟩ sounds more like [ɔː] than
[oː], so if this is wrong, at least it’s no more wrong than the famous
movie adaptation :)
⟨e⟩ almost certainly always represents [ɛ], not [e]. Appendix E of The
Lord of the Rings describes it as the sound in English “were”, and I’m
not aware of any English dialect that pronounces “were” with an [e].
In Quenya, long ⟨é⟩ (and, presumably, ⟨ê⟩) is, according to Appendix E,
“tenser and ‘closer’”, which I assume means [e]. Several online sources
agree with this as well.
In Sindarin, Appendix E is quite clear that ⟨é⟩ has “the same quality”
as ⟨e⟩, only differring from it in length: I assume this must mean that
⟨é⟩ is [ɛː] in Sindarin. The online information on this is confusing and
sometimes contradictory even within the same page; several sources claim
that Sindarin has an [eː], but I have not seen this claim substantiated
with a source from Tolkien, and I suspect it’s simply a confusion with
Quenya. It scarcely matters, anyway: Sindarin words with ⟨é⟩ or ⟨ê⟩ seem
to be pretty rare. (I’m aware of a single word with an ⟨é⟩ – the name
Eluréd, son of Dior – and the Omikhleia Sindarin dictionary [1] features
some words with ⟨ê⟩, giving their pronunciation with [ɛː].)
The [[EI]] phoneme for Sindarin ⟨ei⟩ is copied from the base2 phonemes.
[1]: https://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/index.html
Previously, we used vdiph/ui_4 for [[ui]]; I think the main reason for
that was that I didn’t like how the most common ⟨ui⟩, vdiph/ui, seemed
to almost vanish in “Cuiviénen”. However, vdiph/ui_4 has the curious
property that in some positions, e.g. ⟨uia⟩ in “tuia” or ⟨uil⟩
“tuilindo”, it sounds (to me) more like /ul/ than /ui/. (This also
affects Finnish, which seems to be the only other language that uses
vdiph/ui_4 [a few other languages also use it for [[ui]] but don’t seem
to emit that phoneme in their rules files] – listen to eSpeak NG
pronounce Finnish ”luiun”, for instance.) I eventually found out that
this can be worked around by substantially lengthening the phoneme
(length 500 seems to work in all positions), but this extreme length
(the absolute maximum is just 511) becomes rather noticeable whenever
the ui is used, including in positions where it had sounded just fine
before. Meanwhile, the more standard vdiph/ui can be made to sound
reasonably well in “Cuiviénen” with a much smaller increment to its
length: 290 (as also in ph_lithuanian) instead of 240 (as in ph_base2)
is enough. In this version, [[uI]] sounds acceptable enough for Elvish
⟨ui⟩ in all positions, as far as I can tell.
According to Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings, this has the same
relation to ⟨y⟩ ([j]) as ⟨hw⟩ ([ʍ]) does to ⟨w⟩ ([w]) – this probably
means the voiceless palatal fricative [ç], though Wikipedia says a
voicless palatal approximant (which would be closer to [j], the voiced
palatal approximant) is sometimes also posited.
We previously emitted [[hj]] for ⟨hy⟩, which sounds fairly close to [ç],
similar to how [[hw]] is fairly close to [ʍ] (see previous commit) –
however, translating it into [[C]] again means better --ipa output.
(In Sindarin, ⟨hy⟩ does not occur.)
This is “a voiceless w, as in English white (in northern pronunciation)”
according to Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings, and so we copy the
[[w#]] phoneme from the English phonemes. I can’t actually hear much of
a difference from the previous [[hw]] (I know what the difference
between [[w]] and [[w#]] should be, but [[hw]] already sounds like
[[w#]] to me), but at least this improves the --ipa output, changing it
from [hw] to [ʍ].
Samuel Thibault