Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Two late essays state that A) Thranduil's household spoke Sindarin but not his Silvan-speaking people, and B) Silvan was no longer spoken in Mirkwood/Lorien by the late Third Age. Pick one.
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There is no need to pick only one of these two possibilities as there is no contradiction between them. They speak of different times and different places.
In
The War of the Jewels (HoME 11) in the article “Quendi and Eldar”, which Christopher Tolkien dates to 1959–60, there are some mentions of hair colour which you have not quoted though they tend to support you.
The first is from page 382 with bold italics and material in square brackets added by me:
The name [Vanyar] referred to the hair of the Minyar, which was in nearly all members of the clan yellow or deep golden. This was regarded as a beautiful feature by the Ñoldor (who loved gold), though they were themselves mostly dark-haired. Owing to intermarriage the golden hair of the Vanyar sometimes later appeared among the Ñoldor: notably in the case of Finarfin, and in his children Finrod and Galadriel, in whom it came from King Finwë’s second wife, Indis of the Vanyar.
The second is from page 384, again with bold italics added by me:
Elwe himself had indeed long and beautiful hair of silver hue, but this does not seem or have been a common feature of the Sindar, though it was found among them occasionally, especially in the nearer or remoter kin of Elwe (as in the case of Cirdan). In general the Sindar appear to have closely resembled the Exiles, being dark-haired, strong and tall, but lithe.
These quotations support your idea that the Vanyar were only mostly fair-haired and that the other kindreds were only mostly dark-haired.