Linguistic puns, riddles, and jokes in LotR, etc. - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

06-22-2003, 01:02 AM

Yes, you can certainly haev some fun with names as a linguist. Of course he ahs used his knowledge in nordic languages. Look at the map at southwest Gondor. There you will find adn area with the name 'Langstrand' which in Swedish (the fair lagnuage [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]), Danish and Norwegian means: Long beach or shore. There is, of course more examples liek this. Isengard is one example. ISen is both the river, but also the word for ice in definite form, gard means anything from a farm to a house in the countyrside. Moreover, the word Took is very similar to the word "tok" which indicates a person that is a little nuts! You could certainly say that about teh Tooks, as they are described in the Hobbit, and the Tookish partof the Baggins's minds is a little nuts too.

The thing that to me represents the linguistic beauty in anything is the order of words. You can use the same words as in a beautiful texts in anotehr terxt, that's the point of them, yet you cannot guarantee that the beauty is maintained. The position fo commas and order of the words adn "satser" (grammatical parts of a sentence). This is what he is best at and what you can see has been lost a little in Silmarillion from HoME and LoTR.

My humble opinion.

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06-22-2003, 01:02 AM	#11
Albert Speer Guest Posts: n/a	Yes, you can certainly haev some fun with names as a linguist. Of course he ahs used his knowledge in nordic languages. Look at the map at southwest Gondor. There you will find adn area with the name 'Langstrand' which in Swedish (the fair lagnuage [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]), Danish and Norwegian means: Long beach or shore. There is, of course more examples liek this. Isengard is one example. ISen is both the river, but also the word for ice in definite form, gard means anything from a farm to a house in the countyrside. Moreover, the word Took is very similar to the word "tok" which indicates a person that is a little nuts! You could certainly say that about teh Tooks, as they are described in the Hobbit, and the Tookish partof the Baggins's minds is a little nuts too. The thing that to me represents the linguistic beauty in anything is the order of words. You can use the same words as in a beautiful texts in anotehr terxt, that's the point of them, yet you cannot guarantee that the beauty is maintained. The position fo commas and order of the words adn "satser" (grammatical parts of a sentence). This is what he is best at and what you can see has been lost a little in Silmarillion from HoME and LoTR. My humble opinion.