Gandalf or Gandalv?

[IronParrot]

Here's the situation. "Gandalf" is pronounced "Gandalv", as the people who have taken the time to flip through the pronounciation appendix would know. But those people are a select group of the population, and literally everybody I know pronounces it with a hard "f" instead of a "v" sound. I myself usually pronounce it with the "f" simply out of habit from my many readings before reading the pronounciation guide. So the question is, will the Peter Jackson movie have enough foresight to pronounce it correctly with the "v", or like how most people would know it to be - the "f"? And which of the two would be better, or would they be equal? I'd say that GandalV would be preferable because it's faithful to Tolkien, but I wouldn't mind GandalF since I'm so used to it anyway.

[bmilder]

The f sound would probably be best. Still, with some accents, it sounds the same anyway :P I almost hope they don't stick with Tolkien's pronunciations. Almost everyone I know pronounces "Sauron" as "SORE on" or something similar, yet Tolkien's version was "SOUR on." I remember in that animated version, Celeborn was pronounced "Seleborn" but even I have learned to pronounce the hard C...

[IronParrot]

I'm used to the hard "C" in Celeborn. Of course, I didn't know Sauron was pronounced "SOUR on" until you told me just now... And you're right about the accents. It's like some European names... Karlov vs. Karloff; Rachmaninov vs. Rachmaninoff; when it's actually just the same person. But English books and resources have both listed... same idea here.

[Eruve]

If they say "Sellaborn" instead of "Keleborn" I'm walking out!!! I hope they say "SOUR on", too. It sounds uglier and so it's appropriate for the character. I would let GandalF go, because that's how I say it. Yeah, I know, I'm not consistant, but I've known for years it was supposed to be GandalV but I could never get used to it. BTW, the examples of Karlov/Karloff, etc. are Russian names. The spelling differences come in because Russian uses a different alphabet than English, and so when you write a Russian name in English, sometimes you run into variations. The Karlov version respects Russian spelling, i.e. that name ends in the Russian equivalent if V; the ending -OFF is more consistent with the actual Russian pronunciation. Three years of Russian at university finally paying off!

[Fat middle]

ufff, i cannot pronounce GandalV!! for me it sounds the same that GandalF...

[anduin]

I hope they stay true to Tolkien's intended pronunciations. If they do, people that are newcomers to LOTR will have the correct pronunciations right from the beginning. And for those of us that have our own way of saying Gandalf, Celeborn, Sauron, etc., will eventually get use to the movies pronunciations (hopefully if they are correct) and adopt them as their own.

[IronParrot]

Yeah, like how in Phantom Menace, everyone was surprised that Coruscant was pronounced "CORE-uh-sunt" as opposed to what they thought ("CORE-oo-skant"). But we're all used to it now.

[Darth Tater]

I still have problems with pronunciations, despite that fact that I know the right ones. However, if stuff is pronounced right in the movies it might help us pronounce stuff right as well. So I'd like to see them honor Tolkien's pronunciation key.

[anduin]

Exactly...if they stay true, we will never have to wonder how to pronounce something....I guess it will be the end of threads like this......

[Michael Martinez]

"Gandalf" is not an Elvish word. The pronunciation guide in THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not concerned with how to pronounce the Scandinavian names ("Gandalf" is derived from "Gandalfr", the name of a dwarf in the Elder Edda). So the name should be pronounced gandALF, not gandALV. Tom Shippey is the linguistic consultant on the movies project, and I've no doubt he'll ensure they use the "F" pronunciation.