# Tolkien's pronunciation



## m4r35n357 (Dec 20, 2021)

Recently heard an old interview by JRRT, and he pronounces the word "myth" _consistently_ as "myeth", with a long "y" (also in "mythology"). Is this common older usage, or an idiosyncrasy?


----------



## Ealdwyn (Dec 20, 2021)

I suspect it might be one of his idiosyncracies, as I've noticed he does pronounce the odd word strangely (to my ears), e.g. the word 'secretive' at 3:30, where he places stress on the second syllable instead of the first. Can you pinpoint when he says 'myth' so I can have a listen?


----------



## m4r35n357 (Dec 20, 2021)

Ealdwyn said:


> I suspect it might be one of his idiosyncracies, as I've noticed he does pronounce the odd word strangely (to my ears), e.g. the word 'secretive' at 3:30, where he places stress on the second syllable instead of the first. Can you pinpoint when he says 'myth' so I can have a listen?


It is consistent _throughout_, as far as I can tell, but I did find one very clear example at around 31:50 (another glaring one at ~34:10), "I could not possibly construct a mythology . . .".

Yes, the way he pronounces "secretive" is quite odd!


----------



## Ealdwyn (Dec 20, 2021)

m4r35n357 said:


> It is consistent _throughout_, as far as I can tell, but I did find one very clear example at around 31:50, "I could not possibly construct a mythology . . .".


Yes, that's very odd. I've never come across 'myth' pronouced with a long vowel sound


----------



## m4r35n357 (Dec 20, 2021)

Ealdwyn said:


> Yes, that's very odd. I've never come across 'myth' pronouced with a long vowel sound


He must have influenced hundreds of students to follow his example - wonder if he was trying to establish a _shibboleth_?


----------



## TheTolkienist (Dec 25, 2021)

My first thought was that his pronounciation might have be influenced by actual Ancient Greek - that _mythos_ would be pronounced differently. 

However, a quick look at the first edition of the _OED_ on the letter M - Tolkien would ten years later work on the _New English Dictionary_, today called the _OED_ - showed me that there was an alternative pronounciation and it used to be prevalent, the one that Tolkien uses in the interview. See page 818 for this , the link is for the Internet Archive. 

So basically a sound change we do no longer realise because nobody pronounces it that way anymore.


----------

