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Re: More comments
Tar-Elenion,
I also have some such vague recollection as you describe about Turor's height in Gondolin or maybe something about Túrin. Wherever the passage exists, if it does, it is not in the obvious places in the commentary on either of the full tales of Tuor.
Aiwendil:
<u>
On the names of Gondolin.</u>
If will try to summarize the current state of discussion and add what I can.
Acceptable:
Gondolin,
Gondobar, and [/i]Loth[/i] are fine as they stand, being excellent Sindarin and having the same meanings as their Gnomish originals.
Later
Gondothrimbar can replace early
Gondothlimbar. It is a form found in the "Etymologies" and is good Sindarin. True,
Gondothlim is replaced by a very different form
Gondolindrim. However
Gondothrim also appears in "Etymologies" and it doesn't matter whether it should be considered an alternate form existing alongside
Gondolindrim or a form (almost?) only used as part of
Gondothrimbar.
Small difficulty:
Gar Thurian 'Place-Secret' does not work properly in later Sindarin, however the "Etymologies" gives a name of Gondolin
Garth(th)oren 'Fort-Frenced', which is almost certainly Tolkien's replacement form. Since both form and meaning can stand, I believe it should be used. I would keep the meaning 'fenced', rather than imagine it being interpreted as an Ilkorin (= Northern Sindarin) form as this involves less supposition and no difficulties. Tolkien gives us both the new form and the new meaning, and we might as well use them.
Major problems:
Gwarestrin is almost valid (which is something like being almost pregnant).
Gwar appears nowhere else but in
Amon Gwareth/Gwared, but that is enough. It stands.
Estrin is explained clearly under
Gwarestrin in
BoLT 2, Appendix:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> A late entry in GL gives
estirin,
estirion,
estrin 'pinnacle', beside
esc 'sharp point, sharp edge'. The second element of this word is
tiri(o)n see I.238 (
Kortirion).<hr></blockquote>The entry
Kortirion in
Bolt 1, Appendix, gives:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> The word
tirion 'a mighty tower, a city on a hill' is given in QL under root TIRI 'stick up', with
tinda 'spike',
tirin 'tall tower',
tirios 'a town with walls and towers'. There is also another root TIRI, differing in the nature of the medial consonant, with meaning 'watch, guard, keep; look at, observice', whence
tiris 'watch, vigil', etc. In GL are
tir- 'look out for, await',
tirin (poetic form
tirion) 'watch-tower, turret',
Tirimbrithla 'the Tower of Pearl' (see
Silmarilli).<hr></blockquote>In both "Etymologies" and in
Road Goes Ever On the Quenya form
Tirion is cited as deriving from the stem
TIR- and meaning "great watch-tower". This is actually better for meaning. The Noldorin (= Sindarin) counterpart given in "Etymologies" is
tirith, but that is obviously not the exact cognate. So
-tirion,
-tirin,
-trin can stand either as a true exact cognate (used poetically?), or a borrowing from Quenya. Its use here is well explained in
QS77 "Of the Noldor in Beleriand":<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> ... so that Gondolin upon Amon Gwareth became fair indeed and fit to compare even with Elven Tirion beyond the Sea.<hr></blockquote>Instead of
Kortirion we now have
Gwar-tirion or
Gwar-trin.
But what of the element
esc- 'sharp point, edge'. I find it nowhere later. It does seem to have been replaced by
EK-, EKTE- 'spear', found in Tolkien final etymologies of
Ecthelion and
Egamloth in
The War of the Jewels for example. So what would the form be? In "Etymologies" from
EKTE- Tolkien gives the nouns Q
ehte 'spear' and N
aith spear-point. So either
ek or original
ekt- +
tirion worn down to
trin ought to give
eithrin.
(The correspondence of
ai] in monosyllables or final syllables to
ei elsewhere is normal Sindarin. Compare Q
tehta with S
andaith 'long mark' from
ann + *
taith to the same element in
teithant 'he drew' on the Moria Gate inscription.)
So a postulated Sindarin form for early Gnomish
Gwarestrin is
Gwareithrin. Another prossibility is to make it a recent compilation from
aeg which Tolkien refers to in
Ecthelion and
Egamloth and so the form become
Gwaraegdrin with lenition of
t to
d. I believe both are valid forms. So, three choices are to keep the
Gwarestrin as possibly valid, replace it by
Gwareithrin, or replace it by
Gwaraegdrin. I set these forms here for further discussion.
A fourth possibility is to replace
Gwarestrin by another name altogother, one we know is valid.
Loth-a-ladwen is early Gnomish. The form
ladwen ends like
uthwen 'escape' and
faidwen 'release, freedom'; so
-wen may be a normal genundative or abstract ending of some sort. But do such ending
-wen appears in later Sindarin to our knowledge.
One might take
ladwen as an early compound from the stems
LAT- 'lie open' (which is found in
Tumladen and almost certainly in
imlad 'valley' and
Lithlad 'Ashen Plain') +
GWEN 'greenness, freshness' and understand a basic meaning something like 'meadow'. If an early compound the
gw would have changed to simple
w (
latgwen to
ladwen) and not be affected by the later change of
gw to
b found normally with earlier initial
gw in Sindarin. I don't at all
believe this etymology, but it is one I think acceptable and would probably be one theorized if
ladwen did appear in a later text. Another possibility is to use the adjectival form
laden (use normal correction from the Noldorin
lhaden in the "Etymologies"
as a noun.
For the preposition
a which disappears after
BoLT we could substitute Sindarin
na which seems to have the same meaning. So possible forms are
Loth-na-ladwen,
Loth-na-laden,
Loth-a-laden or the original
Loth-a-ladwen.
We can also replace one or both of these forms by ones totally different. We have three correct names referencing Gondolin not appearing among the seven:
Gond-dolen 'Hidden Rock',
Ardholen 'Realm-Hidden', and
Gondoth 'Stone-fort'
The last of these may not have been intended as a true use-name, but rather an intermediate name to explain the etymology of
Gondothrim and
Gondothrimbar. In
BoLT Gondothlim is
gond 'stone' +
hoth 'folk' +
lim 'many' whereas the later form is
gond 'stone' +
ost 'fortress' +
rim 'host'.
Ardholen is almost certainly
ardh 'realm, kingdom' +
dolen 'hidden'. See the index to
QS77:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr>
Hidden Kingdom** Name given to both Doriath ..., and to Gondolin, ...<hr></blockquote>In
Tuor "Hidden Kingdom" is always capitalized but "hidden city" is not. Tolkien introduces the form
Ardholen in a discussion of by-names used for Doriath 'Land of the Fence', and then mentions parenthetically "(which was also applied to Gondolin)". It is likely that it would have been more accurate to write "(which was also applied to Turgon's secret realm)", since its meaning is unsuitable to refer to the city of Gondolin alone. The Hidden Kingdom contained other guardian fortresses (of which we see seven in the Way of Escape), mines hidden in the mountains, almost certainly farms and orchards, and so forth. Tolkein avoids calling Gondolin a kingdom, I believe, but does refer to the Hidden Kingdom and Turgon as the Hidden King, and his people as the Hidden People.
But Gondost and Gond-dolen are available as names of the city.
I'm not recommending anything here for these two last city names. Just laying forth the data and pushing it around and seeing what can be done. Of the these major problems nothing seems
right to me yet, or I guess I would not classify them as major problems.
Elemmacil/Ecthelion
On "chief of the guard", "captain of the guard", "Warden of the Great Gate" there is no certainty it seems. I would assume "chief" and "captain" are equivalent terms, and "captain" takes priority with us. Elemmacil reports to no-one at any of the other gates save the last, so is
perhaps chief of the guards for all seven gates. Yet though Ecthelion is "Warden of the Great Gate" not Warden of the Gates, he appears to be Elemmacil's superior.
Of course there is only one gate in
FG. In
Tuor the "chief of the guard" has been broken into two persons, and one of them identified with Echthelion. Probably each of the other six gates had its own warden, all reporting to the "Warden of the Great Gate". The charge of the wardens would be normal maintainance and providing support for the guards. And the guards would report to Elemmacil who also reports to the "Warden of the Great Gate". There's no definite answer though as to who says what in
FG other than whether words seem to better fit Elemmacil or Ecthelion.
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