For all who study tolkien's languages!
 

Hello!

I myself am an editor on the "Translations from the Elvish" part of this barrow. And I would be exceedingly grateful for any input from the linguists among our fellows!

Now...to get to the point!

Since we are revising the "The Silmarillion" (much more elaborate than the '77 version) I would ask from you an advice concerning the updating of names coming from the earlier versions of the legendarium:

- Gereth: is it a valid name in Sindarin?
- Evranin: same thing...
- Hendor: same thing...
- Vaire: this might be a little problematic considering it is also a name of a Vala in the later mythology (although it is a valid name) - are there any alternate names?
- Ilfrin/Ilfiniol - is it valid in Sindarin?
- Nielthi - same thing...
- Fankil - could there be a cognate in Quenya
- Ermon & Elmir - do these names bear in significance in either Sindarin or Quenya?
- Daurin - what about that?
- Naugladur - could there be an appropriate rendering of his name to Sindarin
- Gostir (a name of dragon) - what about this one?
- Bodruith - how would you render his name in Sindarin?
- Evromord - same thing...
- Tavrobel - I'll go nuts if I don't find any cognate! (actually only cognate I could think of is Taurobel)


So, that it's for a while. (I hope I'm not overbearing too much - but I'm not well versed in languages.)

Thank you in advance!

At least with regards to the names of the Valar, I see no reason to update them (Tolkien never did), just ascribe them to Valarin. "Vaire" can be taken as a naming in honor of the Valie: Michael is a common name in the Anglosphere but certainly isn't Anglo-Saxon!

Well, I was not talking about Vairë the Valie, I was talking about Vairë (elf), wife of Lindo, the keeper of The Cottage of Lost Play.

And as for else, I was seeking an advice of how to render those names from Qenya and Gnomish to Sindarin and Quenya.

But anyway, thanks for the input.

I think I covered this in my post on the parallel thread: those "rules", even if they exist, certainly haven't bgeen sorted out by anyone! But it might help to sort out which BoLT names were Eldarissa and which Noldorissa; I believe the former is the default, and the latter only those characters who are explicitly Gnomes.

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Vaire: I realize you were talking about the mistress of Mar Vanwa Tyalieva; my suggestion was that she was named for (or in honor of) the Valie.

What I was talking about is to take the MEANING of a name in earlier conceptions of J.R.R.'s linguistic material - and THEN to form a Sindarin or Quenya (or Telerin!) translation of that meaning.

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No problem. But the name Vairë in itself means "weaver", so, personally, I don't have any qualms with it.

Are the names of Gereth, Evranin and Evromord still valid in Sindarin?

What do you mean by valid?

If you mean are those names found in in any text following HoME 1 and 2, then they are not.

If you mean is there anything in the forms which phonetically prevents them from being Sindarin, well I don’t see anything except possibly the final -rd in Evromord. The combination rd does not, as far as I remember, appear elsewhere in Sindarin in final position (though -nd and -ng do.) But that may only mean that final -rd is a rarity in Sindarin, not that Sindarin categorically does not allow it to exist.

Well int he later mythology it was said that the Elves did not name their children after the Valar, since they found it disrespectful or something, so I doubt a hypothetical, later mythology equivalent of Lindo's wife would be called Vaire after the Valar.

Yes. But the names of the Valar were given by the Elves - either as Quenya "equivalents" of their Valarin names, or, as in the case of Vairë (which simply means "weaver") to their main tasks to which they were assigned when they entered Eä - Vairë being the WEAVER of history.

Perhaps the broader question is, why the effort to graft the Cottage of Lost Play onto the later Legendarium at all? It appears Tolkien rejected the concept very early on together with the whole Eriol story. (Whether he finally rejected or retained Aelfwine is another can o' worms).

But if Aelfwine's story was kept, than it is desirable to keep the details of his stay at Eressëa - with all the beautiful details and descriptions of the Isle.

If Aelfwine survived past the later 50s, the only element of his frame-story which we know to have survived even that late is Pengolodh- no Cottage of the Play of Sleep, or Olore Malle, or any of the rest of the very, very early conception that seems to have some of the air of Peter Pan. Certainly the Faring Forth and Rekindling of the Magic Sun and Tol Eressea-as-Britain etc etc were all long rejected. It no more belongs in a "Silmarillion Remix" than does Tevildo Prince of Cats.*

Tolkien left us with an unsolvable puzzle- one which he couldn't solve for himself - as to the provenance of the Legendarium. The earliest was the Eriol/Aelfwine tale, the English or proto-English mariner who finds Tol Eressea and learns True History there. But then there are also (b) the Bilbo vector, his Translations From the Elvish -> Red Book rendering True History learned from books and living witnesses in Rivendell, and then (c) the "Mannish tradition" vector, garbled distortions of True History as passed down by the Dunedain and (apparently) to the present. The three can't really coexist, except by unconvincing ret-con.

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*There exists a wonderfully-illustrated but otherwise foolish Fall of Gondolin which grafts the early 50's "Long Tuor" onto the old 1917 Tale- the effect is not unlike concatenating the 1925 and 1959 "Ben-Hur."

You even left one Tradition out: (d) Lost Raod/Notion Club tradition of history recived trough dream journeys.

Respectfuly
Findegil

I think B and C can work together convincingly. Unless I missed something (always possible) the published account (second edition anyway) merely vaguely relates that Bilbo used sources, both living and written, in Imladris. But to my mind, that much need not mean that Bilbo is delivering "true" history. When he translates Mannish works written in Elvish, actually I feel it makes more sense that he would not substantially alter works of antiquity, even if certain living sources knew better.

The sources are historical, yes, but art as well I would say. And I have a hard time imagining that Glorfindel, for example, would instruct Bilbo to revise a major notion found in the Mannish Silmarillion -- say, that the Sun and Moon hailed from two trees, and Men awoke with the rising of the sun -- simply because he knew that it wasn't really true.

Moreover this wouldn't be necessary I think, as certain specifically Elvish accounts (like The Awakening of the Quendi, if itself an Elven-child's tale filled with counting lore) could illustrate the Sun existing before the Elves awoke.

Translate those faithfully and let the reader read all, compare and decide.

And it seems an open option to imagine that much of the living aid concerned the languages or difficult texts of a linguistic nature, perhaps the translation of any works by Pengolodh. These too could contain "hints" of "truer" traditions, for comparison to arguably garbled Mannish works.

That's my opinion anyway, although I think I've chatted with WCH, at least, about this before?

Probably :)

I did have the notion that (b) and (c) could perhaps be reconciled by, as you say, having Bilbo translate specifically Dunedainic works originally composed in Sindarin; my conceit was that the Elves don't write "history" as a mortal mind would understand it (however, the existence of the Annals makes this idea problematical, unless those too are explained as Numenorean retro-chronicles like much of the ASC.)

However, that leaves no room for (a), the Eriol/Aelfwine vector. I suppose it's worth noting that the passages in the Prologue concerning Translations From the Elvish were added in the Revised Edition (1965), and might therefore be considered to represent Tolkien's latest written thought on the matter.