pronunciation

[afro-elf]

do you say the name

lay go las

or

lee go las



and where would the stress be?

[Ben]

Well I'm far from an expert (I freely admit I'm a fan of the erroneous "SOAR on") but I say "LEH go las."

[Ñólendil]

I think that's right Ben, as long as your 'a' in 'las' is like the sound heard in tawny and not as the a in apple.

But I myself am not entirely certain as to the stress rules regarding the letter 'o'. 'O' as I understand it is always pronounced like itself in the Eldarin languages, but it is not considered to be a long vowel unless the accent mark is above it. Not that the Elves themselves used the accent mark above a character to indicate that a vowel was long, it's simply a device of transcription chosen by Tolkien.

According to Quenya and Sindarin rules the accent always fell on the syllable before the last, where that syllable contained a diphthong, a long vowel, or a vowel followed by two or more consonants.* If that syllable did not have any of these the stress fell on the syllable before it, the third from the end. Thus the dilemma in 'Legolas', (for me, I am not a linguist). I guess though that that 'o' regardless of its sound would not be considered long. I'd have to ask a Tolkienian linguist.

But I guess you would be right Ben, it's 'LEH-goh-laws'.


* In words that contained only two syllables, the stress always fell on the first.

[Legolas]

I don't know how Tolkien thought it should be but I spell it /legoulas/ with the accent on the final syllable. It may be totally wrong because, as you may see, I'm not from England or USA, but from Lithuania, where it is spelled /legolasas/ with the stress on the third syllable. But I hope that it is right.