<BR><br><br> Tír na nÓg (Tír = country, Óg = young) is the "Land of Youth" in Irish. This refers to a mythical place where the Sidhe reside, and where death, disease and aging are not present. It is described as being beyond the confines of our world. There is the story of the man Oisín who was a member of the famed Fianna warriors, who was allowed to reside in Tír na nÓg, where he remained the same while centuries passed in the world at large.<br> <br> c = k reminds me of the old saying, "mind your P's and Q's". This may refer to the time when the Brythonic and Goidelic (Gaelic) split into their respective branches from the Old Celtic language, and where the British (now Welsh) changed the Q (hard K sound) to the P sound, i.e. "mac", son in Irish, becomes "map", son in Welsh. (Incidently, "welsh" means foreigner or outsider in Anglo-Saxon, and Wales in the Welsh tounge is called Cymru).<br> <br> Do we see the same sort of developmental story with the Elvish languages? I'm supposing that the whole story of the Indo-European language group had more of an influence on Tolkien's languages of Middle Earth than any single language, though he obviously drew more from some than from others.<br> <br> Hmm, this is quite a digression from "Elrond the Vampire"... <p></p>
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02-12-2001, 12:55 PM
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