how durin founded the longbeards

[mhagain]

The Gundabad history comes from Of Dwarves and Men, section titled "Relations of the Longbeard Dwarves and Men".

This opens with a discussion of the awakening places of the Dwarves, and Tolkien just drops it in like a bombshell:

...the second had been Mount Gundabad (in origin a Khuzdul name), which was therefore revered by the Dwarves, and its occupation in the Third Age by the Orks of Sauron was one of the chief reasons for their great hatred of the Orks.

Gundabad was also a meeting place for Dwarf assemblies (same source):

Though these four points were far sundered the Dwarves of different kindreds were in communication, and in the early ages often held assemblies of delegates at Mount Gundabad.

Gundabad as an Orc stronghold seems to have only occurred during Sauron's invasion of Eriador in mid-SA:

The Second Age had reached only the middle of its course (c. Second Age 1695) when he invaded Eriador and destroyed Eregion, a small realm established by the Eldar migrating from the ruin of Beleriand that had formed an alliance also with the Longbeards of Moria. This marked the end of the Alliance of the Longbeards with Men of the North. For though Moria remained impregnable for many centuries, the Orks reinforced and commanded by servants of Sauron invaded the mountains again. Gundabad was re-taken, the Ered Mithrin infested and the communication between Moria and the Iron Hills for a time cut off.

(Use of the phrase "re-taken" is curious here but I don't believe it's significant; this was a late essay from a time when Tolkien himself was admitting that his memory was failing.)

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by mhagain

This opens with a discussion of the awakening places of the Dwarves, and Tolkien just drops it in like a bombshell:

The fact that it was a "Dwarven name" surprised me when I first read that essay a few years ago, but we can of course see a similarity between "Gundabad" and Finrod's epithet "Felagund", Hewer of Caves. Presumably "Gundabad" meant "cave of <something>" in Khuzdul. I have seen somewhere an association of the "-bad" element with the word "uzbad", Lord, so it could mean something like "Cave of the Lord/Lords" (Durin, perhaps? or representative of it being a meeting place) but that's highly conjectural.

I've for a long time thought that the addition of Gundaband as this especially primeval Dwarven site which predates even Khazad-dûm to be an excellent narrative flourish on the part of Professor Tolkien to give Dwarven history that extra touch of historical depth. It's also nice to have a Dwarven Cuiviénen or Hildórien, as it were, for Durin's Folk at least.

Regarding the Khuzdul-Adûnaic connection, incidentally, it's interesting to observe that the Adûnaic word for the number seven, "hazid," bears similarities to the Khuzdul consonant cluster "kh-z-d" which of course is used for words relating to the Dwarves themselves, who are very closely associated with the number seven. Working forwards, "hazid" might have come to mean "seven" based on its association with the word the Dwarves used for themselves, the "Dwarf-number" as it were. Working backwards, perhaps the Dwarves though of themselves as something like "the seven-part people" or something to that effect, assuming that element was also used for the number seven. Pure speculation on my part but it does make one wonder.
The pages found here are very interesting summations of a lot of the information sourced from The History of Middle-earth regarding languages:
http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/
The site's very "web 1.0" though.

I might also just throw this tidbit in about Dwarf writing, from Volume 12 of the History. Despite using the cirth publicly after they were introduced to it:
"They had, it is said, a complex pictographic or ideographic writing or carving of their own. But this they kept resolutely secret."

[mhagain]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

<snip>

Pretty awesome analysis, sir.

It just occurs to me that I've read HoME so much that I'm finding myself starting to type "my father" when I really want to type "Tolkien" or "JRRT".

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Regarding the Khuzdul-Adûnaic connection, incidentally, it's interesting to observe that the Adûnaic word for the number seven, "hazid," bears similarities to the Khuzdul consonant cluster "kh-z-d" which of course is used for words relating to the Dwarves themselves, who are very closely associated with the number seven. Working forwards, "hazid" might have come to mean "seven" based on its association with the word the Dwarves used for themselves, the "Dwarf-number" as it were. Working backwards, perhaps the Dwarves though of themselves as something like "the seven-part people" or something to that effect, assuming that element was also used for the number seven. Pure speculation on my part but it does make one wonder.

The correlation with Seven is interesting, but I don't think it's confined to the Dwarves. There were seven Lords and Queens of the Valar, and with the Dúnedain we have "seven stars and seven Stones". Perhaps the number seven was something in Arda which was an "Easter Egg" reminder of the ultimate purpose of all things under the One.