Question for the Sindarin experts: is Meril still valid?

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

But if their etymology is obscure or nonexistent I would still like (since you appear to know much about the linguistic material) to have your advice on what names could be kept from Tolkien's early writings that do not contradict the later development of Sindarin or Quenya.

None of the names you list cause any phonetic difficulties in either later Quenya or Sindarin, including Tavrobel. That does not mean that Tolkien would have considered the names valid in later Quenya or Sindarin for other reasons, or would not have.

For example Tolkien says of the name Glorfindel on page 379 of The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12), bolding mine:

The name is in fact derived from the earliest work on the mythology: The Fall of Gondolin, composed in 1916-17, in which the Elvish language that ultimately became that of the type called Sindarin was in a primitive and unorganized form, and its relation with the High-elven type (itself very primitive) was still haphazard. It was intended to mean ‘Golden-tressed’,⁴ and was the name given to the heroic ‘Gnome’ (Ñoldo), a chieftain of Gondolin, who in the pass of Cristhorn (‘Eagle-cleft’) fought with a Balrog [> Demon], whom he slew at the cost of his own life.

Its use in The Lord of the Rings is one of the cases of the somewhat random use of the names found in the older legends now referred to as The Silmarillion, which escaped reconsideration in the final published form of The Lord of the Rings. This is unfortunate, since the name is now difficult to fit into Sindarin, and cannot possibly be Quenyarin.

⁴ [For the original etymology of Glorfindel, and the etymological connections of the elements of the name, see II.341.]

Helge Fauskanger at http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/ndnn.htm speculates on why Tolkien later saw the name Glorfindel to be problematical:

We are not told precisely what was "wrong" with the name Glorfindel (that is, why it did not fit Tolkien's late vision of Sindarin very well), but part of the problem may well have been that a name of this shape ought to have become *Glorfinnel by the late Third Age. The simplest solution would seem to be that it was simply an archaic First Age form, preserved or revived by its reincarnated owner (since Tolkien did decide that Glorfindel of Rivendell was the same person as Glorfindel of Gondolin way back in the First Age).

Note that Fauskangar admits this is only speculation.

All comments so far on your posts indicate that you have set yourself a task that those who have commented, and whom you recognize as more knowledgeable in Elvish linguistics than yourself, consider impossible.

P.S. Could Voronwë in the later texts still have a son? It seems to me unlikely, but it might be possible (somehow).

This is typical of your questions. What has Tolkien written that indicates that he ever necessarily thought Voronwë didn’t have a son, or a daughter, or many children? We are told nothing of any wife of Voronwë before his return to Gondolin, but that is also the case in the Book of Lost Tales. All we know is that in the later Silmarillion Littleheart was not one of Eärendil’s campanions on his final voyage in Vingilot or that Littleheart was a companion, but is named as Falathar, or Aerandil (Airandil), or Erellont, not as Ilfiniol, or Ilverin, or Elfrith, or Elbenil as in the Lost Tales. It is not definitely written by Tolkien that any of Eärendil’s mariner companions were not Elves.

I am a loss as to why you are updating “The Cottage of Lost Play” at all when apparently in Tolkien’s latest thought Eriol has no part in this, whether of Eriol’s “former names the story nowhere tells”, whether Eriol was Ottor Wǽfre the father of Hengest and Horsa who traditionally first settled the English in England, or whether Eriol was Æscwine, an 11th century Englishman.

Tolkien’s latest thought is that Silmarillion is a translation made by Bilbo Baggins in Rivendell into Westron of a traditional summary of old tales written in Gondor.