Re: THEORY: language and the brain [Interesting article]

At 06:53 05/07/03, John Cowan wrote:

>I don't think we have any direct evidence of how JRRT meant "Took" to be
>pronounced.  The genuine (untranslated) Hobbitish form was indeed "Tuuk"
>with [u:], but the genuine Hobbitish form of "Boffin" is "Bophiin", with
>[i:], yet "Boffin" surely is pronounced with [I].

Fair enough: though I myself on first reading this passage modified my
pronunciation from [tUk] to [tu:k]!

He does write in his notes for translators

Took.  Hobbit-name of unknown origin represent actual Hobbit Tuk [with
macron] (see III 414).  It should thus be kept and spelt phonetically
according to the language of translation.

which suggests that it should be [tu:k] in languages other than English, at
least. :)

Ian

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