why middle earth

[Alcarillo]

Originally Posted by Frodo Baggins

The term came from the concept of having Heaven above, Hell below and Earth in the middle.

Norse mythology had something like that. The separate worlds hung on the great tree Yggdrasil, so that Middle-earth, Midgård, was litterally in the middle, between all the other worlds, progressively getting worse on the way down the tree and better on the way up. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Nordic members of the Downs. The worlds were on a tree, no?

Originally Posted by Frodo Baggins

In fact, the Mediterranian sea still preserves this name: Medi-terra-nea "Sea of Middle-Earth".

I always considered Mediterranean to rather mean "the sea in the middle of the land", with medi=middle, terra=land, meaning surrounded by land, as opposed to the oceans that encircled the land (these would be the Atlantic, Pacific, etc., surrounding the Europe/Africa/Asia world of the Romans and other peoples before America's discovery).

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Alcarillo

Norse mythology had something like that. The separate worlds hung on the great tree Yggdrasil, so that Middle-earth, Midgård, was litterally in the middle, between all the other worlds, progressively getting worse on the way down the tree and better on the way up. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Nordic members of the Downs. The worlds were on a tree, no?

Thats correct all nine worlds was on Yggdrasi.

In old english Middel-Earth was called middanġeard, later midden-erd or middel-erd
These are the same word as Midgard.

The word Mediterranean comes from two Latin stems, medi, middle, and terra, earth.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Gothmog

But this does not stay in the nordic countries. The vikings raids through Europe left traces. For example are the scottish clans half irish, half vikings roughly expressed. When traveling in Scotland you recognize a lot of the old place names (for example I heard of a place called Kallwik or something like that and Kallvik=Cold Bay). Of course the myths, stories and language spread with the people.

What's interesting is the extent of the similarities between old English and for example old Swedish. If a swede reads a text in old english nowadays, he would understand a lot of words and probably the context. This is at least according to my father who has studied English and always been fond of both Celtic languages and Old English.

What I find interesting is to take British maps and look at place names, as they reveal a great deal about the older inhabitants of that place. If you look at maps of Northern England you will see a lot of Norse/Danish influence in the names. I say Norse/Danish as the Norse Vikings primarily went to Dublin and Scotland (and the Isle of Man, which still has its ancient Viking Tynwald government) and only later came to the North west coast of England; the more widespread Viking influence on England was from the Danes.

[Gothmog]

We have concluded that Tolkien got his name from the old Nordic/Old English word for the world-Midgård/Midgard/Middanġeard etc. But the original question was: why middle-earth. This is only one half of the explanation, we still haven't discussed why he used the old Norse word for the world. One reason may be that he simply liked the old Norse tales and the mythology, but I don't find it very likely that he used that word out of coincidence. Simply taking a word he liked seems to simple.

Considering his skills in language and his interest in Norse myth's, we can assume that he knew the original meaning of the word and Middle-Eart implies that it's in the middle of something. So what is it in the middle of?

- Heaven (Valinor) and hell (the Void) as Kath proposed? (This is also close to the Norse meaning of the word) I dont' know about that one. The Void doesn't have that hellish look in my imagination, it's just the empty space outside the world.

- In the geographic middle? Maybe, the landmass surrounded by oceans, in the middle of the world.

- Middle=centre? Meaning in the centre of the world. Middle earth shows a geocentric conception to the world, as opposed to our own heliocentric picture of the world. And besides, this is the centre of the creation; this is where the Valar lives and this is what Eru created with the help of the song of Ainur. The view of the world in centre of everything, both in space and in the creation, was the dominating view in the "real" world for a long time, until science was evolved to the point when we realized this was in fact wrong (at least the geocentric picture). Could that be the solution, to name this pre-advanced-science world Middle Earth because the inhabitants believed that they were in the middle? And maybe thery were?

- Or, this was a word Tolkien liked without deeper meaning?

I don't know. But whatever the answer is, the fact that the concept Middle Earth already existed can't be neglected and of course played a role when Tolkien selected the name.

[feonor]

well well well. thanks everyone who spent their time for discussing this topic and thanks for your opinions.i learned a lot of things that i had'nt know .yes gothmog, the real question was why middle earth. maybe this was a word Tolkien liked but it is worth for discussing i think. i don't think it is a geographic middle but it could be the centre of the creation because long long time ago for about 2000 thousand years before people in our world believed in that our world was in the middle of emptiness(space). they believed this because it maked human special in all space. also it is aristotales theory until kepler and galileo ,people in the earth believed in it. so, maybe tolkien's world is the one special thing in the emptiness. why not?

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by feanor

]years before people in our world believed in that our world was in the middle of emptiness(space). they believed this because it maked human special in all space

You are both right and not. For one, since Ptolemaic times it was known that Earth is not the center of the Universe. For two, from Tolkien's point of view, it is Men (and Elves) - Children of Ilúvatar that make World special, not vice versa - not World's spatial location within whole of the Arda that makes Children special. Indeed, it is never said the World is central (spatially) in Arda, to the contrary:

Now the Children of Ilúvatar are Elves and Men, the Firstborn and the Followers. And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as who should take the whole field of Arda for the foundation of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle; or who consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein. But when the Ainur had beheld this habitation in a vision and had seen the Children of Ilúvatar arise therein, then many of the most mighty among them bent all their thought and their desire towards that place

Emphasis mine.

But it is central because of the strife of Good and Evil that it is a place, a focus of.

And inside the World (which, though they are now 'outside circles of the World', still counts Aman and Valinor as its parts) Middle Earth is habitation of Men for reasons provided above.

(By the way, the idea of 'Middleness' is paralleled in many cultures, not in Norse only. For Georgian, it is Qvesknely, Shuasknely, Zetsa - roughly, Lowerworld, Middle-Earth, Heaven - habitations, correspondingly, of devils, men and angels - vestige of heathen times incorporated into Christianity)

[Glofin]

Well, HerenIstarion beat me to it. I agree with him. I know for certain in Western culture, not only just Norse, but in others, including Celtic cultures our world was called Middle Earth or something to that effect. The world of mortals was always seen as a world between worlds. We were not in the golden realms of the Gods, nor in the world of the dead, therefore we were in the middle. It is simply something all European peoples have in common. So to sum it up in two words I would say, Cultural Expression. It is the way we saw (or how some of us still do ) the world. It's that simple.

~ Glofin