Directly from Gandalf...

As you may know, Ian McKellen is sending some reports about the filming to his own web page. They´re very interesting and he seems to be very identified with the project. Link: www.mckellen.com/cinema/lotr/index.htm

What i want to comment is the pronunciation of the term "palantir". i have always said palantÃ*r and not palántir nor pálantir. But he says:

For instance, I have to learn a new pronunciation. All this time we have being saying "palanTIR" instead of the Old English stress on the first syllable. Just as the word was about to be committed to the soundtrack, a correction came from Andrew Jack, the Dialect Coach; he taught me a Norfolk accent for Restoration, and for LOTR he supervises accents, languages and all things vocal. Palantir, being strictly of elvish origin should follow Tolkien's rule that the syllable before a double consonant should be stressed - "paLANTir" making a sound which is close to "lantern."

What do you think? If that´s true i think i should say Mithrándir and not MithrandÃ*r as i do. Am i wrong in this name too?

That's going to be one of the annoying things about the movies: our favorite pronounciations are going to be proven to be wrong

I always pronounced palantir the way you did, but if what you said is accurate, I've been pronouncing Mithrandir correctly

Yeah... the pronounciation guide in the appendix doesn't spend nearly enough time discussing vowels and accents... I remember how I used to accent the first syllable of Isildur until I found the specific mention of it as an example in the pronounciation guide...

This passage is taken from The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth by Ruth S. Noel.

"Stress. In two-syllable words the stress or accent is on the first syllable. In longer words it occurs on the next to last syllable if that syllable contains a vowel followed by two or more consonants, a long vowel, or a dipththong (two vowels pronounced in one syllable, such as ai, ei). Isildur and Pelargir are words of this type. If the next to last syllable contains a short vowel followed by one or no consonants, the stress falls on the syllable before it, the third from the end. Feanor, Eressea, and Denethor are words of this type. Digraphs, pairs of consonants that make a single sound, such as ch, dh, ph, sh, and the, are counted as one letter in the Eladarin alphabets.

I can't wait to "hear" this movie!

Looks like I've been saying just about everything "wrong"! Oh well, these guys ARE experts, but I think how it works for us is just as important as how Tolkien intended it.

I hope they aren't saying "pah LAN tir", as that would be wrong. It should be "pal AN tir". Never heard of Andrew Jack, but then, I don't run with the Tolkien linguists.

uuh, that´s too much for me, Michael, i really cannot find the difference between those two pronnunciations. Why not simply "pa LAN tir"?

That's how they'd divide the syllables in a dictionary.

"pal" doesn't sound anything like "pah". The word is derived from "pal" + "an" + "tir", "palan" being a derivation of "pal". The etymology goes:

pal = wide (open)
palan = far,distant,wide,to a great extent
palantir = (that which) watches (from) (a)far, "far-seer"

Probably only I would care.

I have to agree with you. "pah" IS such a different sound and would make the word seem, I don't know, almost American and very wimpy sounding.

I still cannot get it . But i think that the Proffesor wanted an elvish pronnunciation very near to latin pronnounciation, and IMHO latin (as Spanish) pronnuciation follows the separation of syllabes.