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In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth literature, Daeron is the chief minstrel to Thingol, king of the grey elves of Beleriand during the First Age of the Sun. At the top of this page, it is spelled in the Angerthas letters used for engraving -- which Daeron is said to have organized into the Sindarin alphabet -- and in Tengwar, which were used for writing with ink. The grey elves spoke the Sindarin tongue, for which Tolkien gave us a definitive pronunciation guide.
The consonants are pronounced as in English, or close enough. If you want to be precise, roll the r a bit. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
- a as in father
- e as in bed
- o in between the long and short o of English, like they are in most Germanic languages
OK. But actually, the a and e form a diphthong together; i.e., you morph the a into the e. Think about the long i sound in English. It's the diphthong a as in father, moving to a long e sound. Dae in Daeron sounds like the English word die to an English speaker's ear, but it's softer. Instead of sliding all the way to the long e sound, stop at a short e. It feels funny at first because we don't use that diphthong in English anymore. Practice it a time or two. There, by Ulmo, you've got it!
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