Carl wrote:

> [...We know that he avoided _dh_ for this reason; and there is no reason to
> think he would not avoid _lh_, which looks extremely similar to _dh_, for
> precisely the same reason. CFH]

Also lh in Portuguese, like ll in Castilian, has the value of l mouillé. Hence
it is unclear (as indeed any Latin spelling of any non-Latin sound, except for
those familiar with the conventions: sh is a Schin in English but an h in
Gaelic, th Thorn or Edh in English but h in Gaelic, final a is Latin a in
Castilian but Sch'wa in Catalan, sz is Schin in Polish but s in Hungarian - were
Schin is spelled s! - and so on). No doubt Tolkien used Tengwar to circumvent
the difficulty, and he specifically states that the Tengwa alda - ld in Quenya -
is used for voiceless l (whatever be the Welsh name for that sound) in Sindarin.

> [...These assumptions are made for the sake of argument, which is fair enough
> -- Helge himself points the uncertainties he is navigating with the _LotR_
forms;
> but you can't treat these assumptions as fact and then use them to "prove"
that
> Tolkien was making a contradictory statement. In fact, when contradictions are
> arrived at, it is the _assumptions_ that must be discarded. CFH]

A good point in _any_ branch of science, whether grammar (Tolkienian or
non-Tolkienian) or astronomy or whatever.

Hans Georg Lundahl


Höstrusk och grå moln - köp en resa till solen på Yahoo! Resor

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]