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Late Istar
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
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<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Moderator
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On the seven names of Gondolin
First, I'll deal strictly with updating the old names:
Gondobar, Loth, and, of course, Gondolin can stay. 'Gondothlimbar' is merely the class plural for the dwellers in Gondolin + _bar_; I believe the later class plural was _Gondolidrim_, so I used *Gondolidrimbar, as awkward as it sounds. There might be better suggestions there. The question mark is for Gwarestrin, where we have a bit more of a problem: this is said in II to mean 'tower of guard'; a literal rendering of this in later Sindarin would be Minas Tirith, which I don't think we can use in light of the Minas Tirith that already exists in the 1st age. A look at the etymological notes in II reveals that 'Gwarestrin' means more literally 'guard pinnacle'; we could represent 'pinnacle' with Sindarin _amon_ or _ered_, 'hill' and 'mountain', respectively. 'Amon Gwareth', of course, already refers to the hill on which the city is built. But I think for 'guard' the best to use is _tir_ as in _tirith_ and _tirion_. Then we might have _Amon Tirith_ or something like that, or we could make an actual compound, _Tiramon_. The last name, 'Lothengriol' presents less of a problem. It is said here to mean 'flower that blooms on the plain', but since 1. I could find no later Sindarin (or Quenya) word for 'plain' and 2. the etymological notes give _engriol_ not as 'plain' but as 'valley', I changed it here to 'valley', using _nan_ for plain. This gives us *Lothnan, which (I think) would become *Lothinan.
On top of these concerns, however, we have several later names for Gondolin that appear in the Etymologies. These are 'Gondost', 'Ardholen', and 'Garthoren'. These names are not mentioned in direct connection with the 7 names of the city; we therefore might assume that they are not among the 7 names. However, as the 7 names already include some that are clearly more colloquial nick-names, and as we never again find any other names for Gondolin, I think we should probably include these three.
That means, of course, that three of the original names must be replaced. 'Gondost' is given as 'stone city'; at first glance, then, it would appear to best replace 'Gondobar', translated 'stone city' by the guard and more literally meaning 'stone dwelling'. However, this is a problem, as we find 'Gondobar' in the etymologies as well. Clearly the two names existed side by side. This leads us to a further problem: if we use both 'Gondost' and 'Gondobar', we'll have basically the same translations used by the guard: 'Gondobar, city of stone, and Gondost, city of stone'. The best solution I can say would be to use something like: 'Gondobar, stone-dwelling, and Gondost, city of stone.'
What, then, should 'Gondost' replace? My inclination would be 'Gondothlimbar' - this is awkward when we update it to _Gondolidrimbar_, and I think the conjunction of 'Gondobar' and 'Gondost' makes the most sense if they appear next to each other. However, beyond these practical concerns, there is nothing particularly to indicate that 'Gondost' would have replaced 'Gondothlimbar'.
The names 'Ardholen' and 'Garthoren' seem to be related. The etymolgies are very confusing on these. Under the stem
GAT(H)-, we are given: "Another name is Garthurian = Fenced Realm = N Ardholen (which was also applied to Gondolin)."
'Another name', I think, refers to Doriath; there is a discussion of Doriath's names a few sentences earlier, and later, _Garthurian_ again appears as a name for Doriath. Here, however, it is equated with _Ardholen_. I'm not sure what we are to understand the relationship to be; perhaps _Garthurian_ is Dorathrin and _Ardholen_ is Noldorin?
Under the stem 3AR- (3 representing the back-spirant), we have: "Dor. garth realm, Garthurian (Fenced Realm = Doriath)" This at least seems to make it clear that _Garthurian_ is Doriathrin, and refers to Doriath.
Later under the same stem (though the stem GARAT- was later inserted for this section), we are given: 'Q arta fort, fortress. N garth: cf. Garth(th)oren 'Fenced Fort' = Gondolin-distinguish Ardh-thoren = Garthurian."
From all this, the only conclusion I can draw is that we are dealing with two separate, though similar, names. One is Doriathrin 'Garthurian', meaning Doriath, the Noldorin form of which, 'Ardholen', refers to Gondolin (a situation that would get confusing if a Noldo wanted to refer to Doriath). The second is 'Garthoren', a a Noldorin name referring only to Gondolin. The first name means 'Fenced Realm', the second means 'Fenced Fort'.
Under the stem THUR- we are given _thuru_ = fence (Noldorin). So 'Garthoren' at least makes sense etymologically. For 'Ardholen' to work, though, we'd need some kind of word *olen meaning 'fence'. This is, I suppose, possible, since 'Ardholen' is JRRT's Noldorin translation of 'Garthurian', which means 'Fenced Realm'.
'Garthoren' looks quite a bit like 'Gar Thurion', one of the original names for Gondolin. Its meaning, however, is completely different: 'Fenced Fort' vs. 'Secret Place'. We could, though, replace 'Gar Thurion' with 'Garthoren' fairly reasonably.
'Ardholen', though, looks very little like any of the original names, in spelling or meaning. If we are to use it as one of the seven names, the best replacement I could come up with would be to use it for the problematic 'Gwarestrin', though there is no real basis for this.
Sorry for the length and tedium of this discussion, but I think it's an important one. The 7 names of Gondolin should definitely be preserved (they are mentioned in TO); and, of course, we have to do our best to make them work etymologically.
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