Lord of.... Moria?

[Kyranger]

So, the inscription on the doors of Khazad-dum say, " The doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak friend, and enter. I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs." Right? But, in the time that they made the doors was before the balrog showed up, and before Khazad-dum got its name, " The black pit " which in the elven tongue is " Moria ". So how could they of called it that? Do you think that maybe Gandalf just translated 'Khazad-dum' as 'Moria' or was that what the doors actually said?

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Kyranger

Do you think that maybe Gandalf just translated 'Khazad-dum' as 'Moria' or was that what the doors actually said?

It could have been Gandalf translating on the spot and substituting the name that would have been more familiar to most of the Fellowship, if Tolkien hadn't bothered to give us that drawing of the doors with the elvish inscription clearly saying Ennyn Durin Aran Moria.

We briefly discussed this a while ago in the Inconsistencies thread, where Galin pointed out that the inscription also includes the Dwarf names Durin and Narvi, which can't have been on the 'real' door either, as Tolkien nicked them both from the Voluspa.

The same problem occurs with the epitaph on Balin's tomb, which even provides an English (instead of Westron) version written in Angerthas runes (although the use of Moria is in this case historically justified). I guess we'll have to assume that in both cases what we see in the book isn't a facsimile of the 'real' inscriptions (or their representations in the original Red Book) but something tinkered with by the 'translator' who inserted the Old Norse names instead of their 'actual' Mannish names (in the language of Dale or something of the like).

This doesn't, however, solve the problem of Moria, as this is not a 'translation' but a 'real' Elvish Middle-earth name - only one that wasn't used at the time the inscription was made. My best guess is that the Prof originally thought that Khazad-dûm had been called Moria by the Elves all along, and when he later decided that it had been renamed after the waking of the Balrog it just never occurred to him to change the inscription accordingly.

[Kyranger]

But the original elvish name for Khazad-dum was Hadhodrond.

[Pitchwife]

So it was, and that's probably what the 'original' inscription should have said, but I don't think Tolkien had invented that name yet when he wrote LotR.
(Or if you prefer an immanent explanation, maybe some elvish graffiti sprayer changed the inscription after Durin's Bane had awoken?)

[Galin]

How about: Gandalf said Moria and the translator followed this for readers, with his inscription in the modern book. So the real inscription might read Hadhodrond instead of Moria (despite both being Elvish), just as the real inscription did not have Durin and Narvi.

The picture of the door in the modern book is still effective enough, giving an idea of what it might have looked like in general, including a general representation of some internal language and script. The runes in The Hobbit are Anglo-Saxon based, but since the actual runes as used by the Elves and Dwarves are 'similar enough' in design (at least), they lend an effective element visually, to the story.

Of course Tolkien may have just made a mistake with Moria, but if one is looking for an answer beyond that, for myself, since the Dwarf-names appear in the written example in the book, and must be translations, Moria can also be a 'stand in' -- even for another Elvish word -- given that Moria is the name the Reader knows.

Or something

Edit: I didn't see Pitchwife's recent response when I posted this, by the way.

[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

(Or if you prefer an immanent explanation, maybe some elvish graffiti sprayer changed the inscription after Durin's Bane had awoken?)

While it probably is just a mistake on Tolkien's part the idea of an elvish graffiti sprayer are hilarious to imagine.

Galadriel: Celeborn....

C: Yes, dear?

G: Would you care to explain why my Mirror just showed you and Haldir carving Moria into the dwarves doors?

C: Oh, that. Well, you see it is a warning to anybody who enters that there is a balrog in there.

Cue Galadriel throwing Celeborn out of the talan for the night.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Kyranger

But the original elvish name for Khazad-dum was Hadhodrond.

I have an elvish dictionary in my book's appendix, and it says that Hadhodrond was how Elves pronounced Khazad Dum.

[Selmo]

Our knowledge of the inscriptions on the West Door of Moria and on Balin's tomb comes from that part of The Red Book written by Frodo several years after he saw them.

A lot had happened to Frodo during the time between his visit to Moria and his drawing and writing about it. His body, his mind and his very soul had been damaged, so it's not suprising that his memory was a bit vague. He had no camera to record the details.

He could remember what the inscriptions meant but perhaps not the exact words. He used the name "Moria" because that was the name he was most familiar with.
.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Selmo

Our knowledge of the inscriptions on the West Door of Moria and on Balin's tomb comes from that part of The Red Book written by Frodo several years after he saw them (...) He could remember what the inscriptions meant but perhaps not the exact words. He used the name "Moria" because that was the name he was most familiar with.

That might explain Moria, but no one but a modern man using Old Norse (a language that did not exist in Frodo's day of course) could have written the 'translated' Dwarf-names on the picture in the book published in the last century...

... thus for myself I find it simpler to attribute all three 'problematic' names to the modern translator.

JRRT