A word by any other name ...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

That doesn't seem that striking a similarity to me, Beth. Unlike Winston Churchill, who insisted on 'narzy', Tolkien could pronounce 'nazi' properly, which makes it sound completely different from nazgûl. A closer real-world connection is that between the Gaelic word nasc, 'ring', and Black Speech nazg, 'ring', on which connection I posted some time ago.

Of course, in terms of the narrative setting, nazgûl is simply Black Speech for 'Ring-wraiths'. I'm very sceptical of any reference to the National Socialist German Workers' Party, even though Tolkien did express a profound dislike of several senior Nazi figures. When I get back home tonight, I'll try to find out when the term nazgûl emerged, and see if it corresponds to political events in contemporary Germany. I have a feeling that it won't.

Thanks for the great link, Squatter on the Gaelic sources for the word. Winnie was just playing dismissive word games; he knew better I betcha.

I'm quite sure that Tolkien the philologist would have an impeccable derivation for his word that has nothing to do with the name of the German political party. Still, I'm less sanguine than you that some won't see a superficial similarity between the pronunciation of Nazi and Nazgûl even with a correctly employed t, particularly with the short, plosive double syllabic. They sound so much like nasty, you see, that some are bound to make the association, correct or not.
nasty has been posited as a Middle English derivation of the Old French villenastre (not originally a villain as in the baddie, but uncouth, a rough sort of fellow). There's also the Dutch nesti meaning "dirty," lit. "like a bird's nest" and the Swedish dialect naskug "dirty, nasty". In fact, the word Nazi itself has an interesting history and isn't a name that the German political party willingly took up.

Of course, I'm using dic.com here as I don't have time for an OED followup. My point is simply that the words can be confused. Such confusions occur often in linguistic history. Completely unscholarly associations take root and voila a word assumes a new direction.

I suppose that Tolkien was scholar enough to insist upon his derivations rather than bow down to such linguistic slovenliness. Still, it does provide a bit of grist to the mill, eh.