I don't know if this is ever so slightly off-topic, but reading the following passage from Osanwe Kenta:
Quote:
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Yet we may mark also how the "affine'' may more quickly understand the lambe* that they use between them, and indeed all that they would say is not put into words. With fewer words they come swifter to a better understanding. There can be no doubt that here osanwe is also often taking place; for the will to converse in lambe is a will to communicate thought, and lays the minds open. It may be, of course, that the two that converse know already part of the matter and the thought of the other upon it, so that only allusions dark to the stranger need be made; but this is not always so. The affine will reach an understanding more swiftly than strangers upon matters that neither have before discussed, and they will more quickly perceive the import of words that, however numerous, well-chosen, and precise, must remain inadequate.
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I couldn't help but be reminded of Tolkien's own close friendships, starting with the TCBS: (Rob Gilson, GB Smith & Christopher Wiseman), through the Coalbiters & culminating with the Inklings & with Lewis in particular.
Was this aspect of
Osanwe someting that Tolkien had had personal experience of? Did he gift the inhabitants of his creation something that he had known personally , & valued so highly?
* lambe: 'tongue-movement', (way of) using the tongue'; in non-technical use, 'language'; 'a way of talking; dialect', applied to the separate languages of any people or region (Wl:394). In linguistic theory, a tengwesta (q.v.) employing phonetic signs; also 'the way of speaking', i.e. phonetics and phonology (WJ:39S). Cf. also WJ:416 n. 33; LAB- 'lick' (LR:367).