[Galin]

Originally Posted by Findegil

(...) Galin, if I understand you rightly, you think that after Tolkien saw that the elegant solution of the problem of ROS that was supposed in that essay failed due to Cair Andros, he solved the problem by altering the other stem ROS, beeing 'a colour word, referring to the red, red-brown hair of the first, sixth, and seventh sons of Feanor' to RUN 'red, glowing' with the word urun meaning 'copper'. In that way you think 'Maitimo *Runnandol' sindarized his name to 'Maedron'. Therefore and since Tolkien did not provide a fitting sindarization you supposd '*Ambarunna' to become '*Amron'.

That is also a very elagant solution, but I am not so sure Tolkien did think about it in the way you do.

I don't think Tolkien himself necessarily thought of it this way either

I would stress that my theories concerning RUN in a previous post were for fun speculation.

Let's talk about the Quenya names first: I agree that the later mentioning of the stem RUN and word urun would replace ROS and would make the names Rusco, Russandol and Ambarussa unusable. For Rusco 'fox' as an eppesse of Nerdanels father we have the replacement Urundil 'copper-lover'. That said the new form for older Russandol 'copper-top' should be *Urundol, I think.

The name *Runnandol is based on an adjectival *runná (I'm not positive but I think russa hails from older adjectival *rusná). *Urundol also seems an arguable construction to me, I was just echoing the existing name.

And for old Ambarussa I would think we should get *Ambarun

That echoes my hypothetical *Ambarunna, cut shorter of course

Again I was trying to echo Ambarussa. And just to note it, the shorter version alters the primary stress.

Now lets go to Sindarin: What I miss is a prove that Maedron still had the same meaning as Maedros. Okay, Maedros might have had no proper meaning because it is an sindarized mix of Maitimo and Russandol. But it would still mean somthing like 'well-shaped copper' or less litarily 'well-shaped red one'. Does Maedron mean the same? I don't think so. I would rather think that it is a translation of Maitimo thus meaning 'well-shaped one' as in (...)

Yes, it could certainly mean that. Roman Rausch suggested this to me last year, but in any case I certainly have no proof whatsover that Maedron still carries a 'copper related' sense. Again that was pure speculation. The problem is the brevity of this late note.

Thus Aiwendil is in a sense right: If we change Maedros to Maedron but keep Russandol, Ambarussa and Amros we do not solve the problem of ROS at all. But I do not see how we can do better, without violating our rules.

It still seems possible, at least, that Maedros becomes Maedron and all the other 'ros' related names (Quenya and Sindarin) remain unchanged -- in other words, it's possible that Tolkien was not here thinking of solving his problem, but simply liked Maedron better and desired it to mean basically the same as Maitimo.


The speculation goes on!

The simple question is then: Do we consider the Maedron note to be Tolkiens last idea? (It is clearly not a case of an idea that can not be integrate, since it is easy to make and even so it does not effectly amend the problem of ROS, it does also not make it worth.)

As for the question of dating...

2 [Added in the Margin: 'Though Maedros is now so long established that it would be difficult to alter'. In a later note, however, my father declared that he would change Maedros to Maedron.'] JRRT, CJRT The Problem of ROS

For myself, I find it unlikely -- or less likely at least -- that CJRT is here simply explaining that the 'Maedron note' is another later note in general; that is, not necessarily later than the note he quotes here, which appears to date at the time of the essay proper.

The early forms have -ros going way back, and Tolkien seems to think a name with -ros has been too established at this point. I think that CJRT would have noted something like: 'In another late note, however...' if he was uncertain as to which statement followed the other.

So I read it as: a 'later' note than even the late note to the Shibboleth.