Staff

[Galin]

I looked through a few threads on Gandalf's staff and I noticed a couple of references to the linguistic roots of Tolkien's names. Any related to staffs or wandering?

Noting Silmarllion, we have 'ran- 'wander, stray' Rána (a name of the Moon), or in Mithrandir with -randir meaning 'wander-man, pilgrim' (incidentally note Tolkien on the name Gandalf: '... to contain gandr, a staff, especially one used in magic' from UT, the Istari).

For 'staff' early Qenya has vandl, if you wanted to accept such a word anyway. It is Tolkien-made Qenya at least (some have simply taken this word and 'updated' it, so to speak, as *vandil, but this is not attested as far as I know).

I haven't checked PE17 as to whether or not there is something attested for 'staff' in any Quenya stage dating from the 1950s or later.