How do you actually pronounce “CTHULHU”?

How do you actually pronounce “CTHULHU”?

Lovecraft’s Multiverse is populated by very strange creatures. One of the most paradigmatic—not the most important—is Cthulhu, that colossal entity that slumbers in the sunken city of R’lyeh, and which made its appearance in the story: The Call of Cthulhu, published in the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales magazine, and later reissued in the 1939 anthology: The Outsider and Others.

HP Lovecraft refers to many entities and elements of the Cthulhu Mythos through epithets that allude to an impossibility of naming them directly, that is, to the indescribable. We constantly encounter terms like unmentionable, or unaussprechlichen; and those adjectives are not exaggerated. Correctly pronouncing names like Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, and CTHULHU itself can be a challenge for even the most articulate individuals (see: Is the word “CTHULHU” a secret code?).

How do you pronounce CTHULHU? Lovecraft himself appears not to have used a single pronunciation consistently, but he clarifies the following, in one of his letters:

The word is supposed to (CTHULHU) It represents a clumsy human attempt to grasp the phonetics of a completely non-human word. The syllables were determined by physiological equipment completely different from ours, therefore they could never be pronounced perfectly by human throats.

(The word is supposed to represent a fumbling human attempt to catch the phonetics of an absolutely non-human word. The syllables were determined by a physiological equipment wholly unlike ours, hence could never be uttered perfectly by human throats)

That is to say, the word “CTHULHU” is a human simplification, more or less approximate, of a word forged and spoken by beings with a physical and vocal constitution completely different from ours.

In another of his letters, Lovecraft explains the following to his friend and member of the Lovecraft Circle, Duane W. Rimel:

The actual sound, as close as human organs could imitate it, or human letters could record it, can be taken as something like KHLUL-HLOOwith the first syllable pronounced very gutturally, very thickly.

(The actual sound—as nearly as human organs could imitate it or human letters record it—may be taken as something like Khlul-hloo, with the first syllable pronounced very gutturally and very thickly)

A similar recommendation can be found in a letter to Willis Conover:

The best approximation that can be made is to growl, bark or cough at imperfectly formed syllables. CLUH-LHU with the tip of the tongue firmly fixed to the roof of the mouth.

(The best approximation one can make is to grunt, bark, or cough the imperfectly formed syllables Cluh-Lhu with the tip of the tongue firmly attached to the roof of the mouth)

The confusion over how to pronounce CTHULHU also includes several Lovecraft characters, who often must write that name—almost all of Lovecraft’s stories are in the first person—as they have heard others say it, thus generating quite a few variations. amazing.

For example, in Medusa’s Coil, written in collaboration with Zealia Bishop, an elderly African woman is heard invoking CLOOLOO; In Winged Death, written with Hazel Heald, reference is made to a certain CLULU; while in The Mound, there is talk of an octopus-headed god simply called TULU.

In all these cases, undoubtedly, we are talking about CTHULHU, and the different variations of the name respond to the different ways in which each character was able to interpret those harsh and guttural sounds. After all, if there are discrepancies about how CTHULHU is pronounced between two readers, how could they not exist between two or more characters? This simple detail proves a shocking coherence in the Myths.

The matter does not seem to find a solution even thanks to memoirs about Lovecraft written by people who knew him, who depict him pronouncing CTHULHU in several different ways. Robert Barlow, for example, maintained that the Providence teacher pronounced CTHULHU as KOOT-U-LEW, and that he sometimes referred to it as KOOTHUMLU, a term that, on the other hand, is similar to KOOT-HUMI, according to theosophy. , ancestral masters of Tibet, who also served as models for the eternal leaders of the Cthulhu Cult in China, as explained in The Call of Cthulhu.

Another close friend of Lovecraft, W. Paul Cook, recalled that Lovecraft denied any source or derivative or phonetic system for the combination of letters that make up the word CTHULHU. The reader must pronounce it as he pleases, he said; However, contrary to that, he also suggested that it be pronounced THULHU, with both U’s long and deep.

On the other hand, Donald Wandrei comments on the following anecdote in relation to how Lovecraft pronounced CTHULHU:

I referred to this story one day, pronouncing the strange word as if it were spelled K-THOOL-HOO. Lovecraft was stunned for a moment, then firmly corrected me, informing me that it should be pronounced K-LUTL-LUTL. He surprised me, and I asked him why he didn’t write it that way if that was the correct pronunciation. He responded in all seriousness that the word had been originated by the characters in that particular story, and that he had only recorded that way of spelling it.

In other words, the narrator of The Call of Cthulhu writes the word CTHULHU because that was his interpretation of the guttural sounds that make it up. Another person would have heard, perhaps, KATULU, or, as the Providence teacher says, K-THOOL-HOO. No variation is correct, and none is exactly wrong. Lovecraft simply respects the way the name was interpreted by the narrator of the story, even if he himself had a different opinion on how to write and pronounce it.

Let us remember that Lovecraft had written to Conover that the tip of the tongue should be kept fixed on the palate while the syllables are enunciated gutturally. With this in mind, the transcription of Wandrei (K-THOOL-HOO) matches quite well with what we might expect from a pronunciation recommended by Lovecraft.

Another interesting clue, although it points in another direction, comes from Julius Schwartz. Nelson Bridwell writes the following:

In August 1947, a short text about Lovecraft appeared in Famous Fantastic Mysteries describing Cthulhu as a word that only he could whistle correctly. I once asked Julie Schwartz about this, and he confirmed hearing Lovecraft do exactly that, and said my own whistling was pretty close to his.

Does that mean that CTHULHU is pronounced K-THOOL-HOO, with the tip of the tongue firmly fixed to the roof of the mouth, gutturally, and also hissing the sounds?

Probably, even more so if we take into account one last recommendation from the Providence teacher:

The type of noise made in this way is not really like talking, but rather the sound a man makes when he tries to imitate a steam hiss.

So how do you actually pronounce CTHULHU?

There is possibly no right way, at least for humans. Our orofacial system allows us certain functions of sucking, breathing, swallowing, speaking and phonation, but even the most articulate person lacks the necessary equipment to correctly pronounce a word forged by extraterrestrial biology. Elegant conclusion, if we may be praised, that avoids us answering something that really has no answer.

HP Lovecraft. I Cthulhu Mythos.

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