Christopher Gilson wrote:

> This rather nicely illustrates just a few of the multiple layers of
> inspiration that were integrated in Qenya already when it was
> documented in QL.  It is fascinating to peel back some of those
> layers and possibly glimpse what affected Tolkien during the years
> before this, when we know he was already continually inventing based
> on the many languages he encountered.

Indeed it is. Relating to this issue, I think it would be interesting
to find out all possible Finnish lexical influences on Qenya
from the _Qenya Lexicon_. Here is what I could find (numbers refer to
pages of _Parma Eldalamberon_ 12):

AFA 'open, begin' (29) | stem _ava_ 'open'
_anta-_ 'gives' (31) | _anta-_ 'give'
_aurinka_ 'sunlit, sunny' (33) | _aurinko_ 'Sun'
_kantl_ 'a large harp', _kantele_ 'harping' (45) | kantele 'harp'
_kava-_ 'dig' (45) | _kaiva-_ 'dig'
_kólema_ 'hardship', _kuo_ 'pain' (47) | _kuolema_ 'death'
_kulu_ 'gold' (49) | _kulta_ 'gold'
KUPU 'hump' > _kumpo_ 'pile' (49) | _kumpu_ 'hillock, hump'
_kú_ 'Crescent Moon' | _kuu_ 'moon'
Ó 'be, exist' (69) | stem _o_ 'be, exist'
_pelto_ 'hedge, hedged field' (73) | _pelto_ 'field'
_pínea_ 'small' (73] | _pieni_ 'small'
_qualme_ 'death', _qualma_ 'deadly' (76) | _kalma_ 'death, dead person'
_táma_ 'this' (87) | _tämä_ 'this'
_tie_ 'line, direction, route, road' (90) | _tie_ 'route, road'
_tereva_ 'piercing, acute, shrill, sharp' (91) | _terävä_ 'acute, sharp'
_tulu-_ 'move, come' (95) | _tul-_ 'come'
_tunto_ 'notice, regard, perception' (95) | _tunto_ 'perception'
_vene_ 'small boat, vessel, dish' (100) | _vene_ 'small boat'
_ya(n)_ 'and' (104) | _ja_ 'and'

There are some more possible pairs that are rather doubtful, since
the semantic closeness is thin, e.g. Qenya _kolme_ 'tip, point'
(47) and Finnish _kolme_ 'three'. But these twenty examples can
hardly be reduced to conicidences, since most of them are both
phonologically and semantically nearly identical.

Petri Samuel Tikka

On Samstag, Juli 12, 2003, at 06:07  Uhr, Patrick H. Wynne wrote:

> That Tolkien envisioned irregularities
> in the Elvish languages is well attested, whether it be the
> "irregular vocalism" of Q. _málo_ 'friend' < base MEL- (V:372),
> the "irreg. pret." _(e)halle_ of Q _halta-_ 'to leap' (PE12:39), the
> "quite irregular" Gn. verb _na-_ 'is', or the "irregular pret."
> _tîli_ of Gn. _teltha-_ 'cover in' (PE11:70), to cite but a few
> examples.

In full knowledge that such 'irregularities' derive from earlier
regularities (a point not in dispute, I know), which only reinforces
the point made on _mudas_, namely to take the form seriously.

A few comments on the above forms:
1) Q. _málo_ may well be a Telerin form, from MEL- with 'a'- infixion
cf. VT39:10.
2) Q. _halta_, pret. _(e)halle_. Leaving aside the anlauting 'e',
_halle_ is a regular past tense form, but not for a _-ta_ verb (be it <
sundóme+t or _-tâ_). Possibly a new present stem was formed in _-t_ but
the old past tense retained. It would seem harder to explain it the
other way round. Maybe the present was reformed to avoid homophony with
Q. _halla_ 'tall' [LR3:507].
3) The 'irregularity' of _na_ is, of course, in line with what is known
from many real languages. In the case of Q(u)enya, we're dealing mostly
with suppletivism.
4) The preterite of Gn. _teltha_ seems to be in the same line as #2.

Example 2 and 4 apparently show that past tense forms could end up 'in
the wrong category' or rather, that present tense stems exhibit a
tendency to 'renovate' (something which is beautifully mirrored by
Indo-European languages, especially at earlier stages, abounding in
(often concurrent) present stem formations)(1).
So maybe the pa.t. _mudas_ was actually formed from an (earlier)
present stem
_mó-_. Thus the 'd' could be interpreted as corresponding to the 'th'
seen in Early
Noldorin verbs (cf., e.g. PE13:131).
Neither th > s nor th > d are trivial in Sindarin/Noldorin be it
internally or externally. So, the interpretation of pa.t. mudas <
mú-da-s as a gender specific past tense form like N. _madathas_
(PE13:131) is just an alternative hypothesis.
We may still be dealing with a writing error, as the forms _mudo-_ and
_mudas_ [V:373] seem to lack the vowel length seen in N. _mûl_
(<_*mól-_) [ibidem] but this is always an awkward assumption.
Lastly it might be considered that we have here a transitory concept
(externally) for a Noldorin/Sindarin past tense, as the _-(a)th_ was
taken by the future/prospective at the time of the Lord of the Rings
(cf. _linnathon [LR1:114]).

David Kiltz

(1) Innovation in the field of the present stem/tense can also be seen
in other language families, e.g. Uralic, Altaic etc.)

Once again, I'd like to set out and give a few comments on Arden R.
Smith's excellent and interesting column in VT, "Transitions in
Translations".

In numbers 36 and 37 in particular A. R. Smith looks at the German
translation of names in Tolkien's works. Please refer to the respective
issues of Vinyar Tengwar for the original comments by A. R. Smith.

*Brandywine*: Translating this word simply as German _Branntwein_ would
have sounded as if the name was just _Brandy_ or indeed _Firewater_ in
English. That's why, I think, Ms Carroux didn't opt for it.
_Brandywine_ isn't a bad adaption, I'd say, because E. _brandy_ is
widely known in German.

*Isenmouthe*: _Isenmünde_. The element corresponding to English
_-mouthe_ is not just _-munde_ but also _-münde_ in place names, cf.
_Penemünde_ et al..

*Shire*: As A.R. Smith notes,  _Gau_ is indeed completely impossible in
modern German due to its association with Nazi rule. Moreover, _GAU_
means 'größter anzunehmender Unfall' ('maximum credible accident' or
'worst case scenario') something that is evoked, too (and often is,
deliberately, alluded to in reference to Nazi-Germany). In my eyes,
_Das Ländle_ wouldn't have been too bad but that's associated with
Baden-Würtemberg in particular in Germany.

*Snowbourn*: _Schneeborn_ is perfect (with an alternative
_Schneebrun(n)_ also quite possible). _Schneebrunnen_ as suggested by
Tolkien simply means 'well of snow' and doesn't sound very
place-name-like.

*Elves*: A. R. Smith gives a very good overview over the problem of
_Elb/Alb_ in German. Still, I think the back-formation (from the
plural), namely _Elb_ is preferable to _Alb_ as the latter evokes
_Alptraum_ 'nightmare' and other unpleasant things. Alas, the word
_Alb_ has darkened in German meaning rather 'bogey' or similar
creatures. Still, as noted in the article, _Elf_, _Elfen_ wouldn't have
been right, as that gives the impression of little figures with
firefly-like wings swirling around. _Elb, pl. Elben_ is both a strong
and condign word.

Best regards,

David Kiltz

David Kiltz <dkiltz@...> wrote:

> *Shire*: As A.R. Smith notes,  _Gau_ is indeed completely impossible in
> modern German due to its association with Nazi rule. Moreover, _GAU_
> means 'größter anzunehmender Unfall' ('maximum credible accident' or
> 'worst case scenario') something that is evoked, too (and often is,
> deliberately, alluded to in reference to Nazi-Germany).

In 1938 some German censors were asking Tolkien if he were _Arisch_ and
Tolkien ridiculed the idea of asking it by _regretting_ to admit he had no
Jewish ancestry. Now German editors are asking whether a Tolkien
translation is completely _entnazifiziert_ - now, the _Gau_ would have
been right, not just because the identic historic meaning is _shire_, but
also because the reason _the Shire_ was called so was the military
organisation of Arthedain. Something which is _not_ quite
_entnazifiziert_, or at least not quite _demilitariziert_.

> In my eyes, _Das Ländle_ wouldn't have been too bad but that's
> associated with Baden-Würtemberg in particular in Germany.

Well, Baden-Würtemberg is rather though not quite flat (=not in Alps
or Riesengebirge), as well as fertile and (like all Germany, excepting
Ruhrgebiet) fairly rural ... so though a Bavarian association (considering
what hobbits and Bavarians are like) would have been better, _das Ländle_
or for that matter _'s Landerl_ would be beautiful - though it means
something else than Shire.

Would someone use my adress to inform me (who have not read VT)
how _the Shire_ actually _was_ translated into German? Unless our
moderator Ælfwine is gentle enough to put that into an editorial
comment, of course!

[Arden writes that "the Shire appears with the curious name _das
Auenland_ (_passim_), which means something like ‘riverside land’
or ‘meadow-land' (VT36:32). CFH]

Hans Georg Lundahl

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

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

Petri Tikka wrote the following, to which I would like to add some
further notes on the occurrence of these forms in the Kalevala
excerpts in C. N. E. Eliot's _Finnish Grammar_.  Translations
(Runo#.line#) and annotations in double quote marks are Eliot's:

> [...] I think it would be interesting to find out all possible
Finnish lexical influences on Qenya from the _Qenya Lexicon_. Here is
what I could find (numbers refer pages of _Parma Eldalamberon_ 12):

> AFA 'open, begin' (29) | stem _ava_ 'open'
> _anta-_ 'gives' (31) | _anta-_ 'give'

Ei Tuoni sanoja anna 'Tuoni does not give words' (16.323)  "3rd.
sing. pres. neg. of _antaa_ 'to give'."

> _aurinka_ 'sunlit, sunny' (33) | _aurinko_ 'Sun'
> _kantl_ 'a large harp', _kantele_ 'harping' (45) | kantele 'harp'

Kalanluinen kanteloinen 'a fish-bone harp' (40.224)  "Dimin. of
_kantelo_ = _kantele_, 'a kind of harp with five strings'."
Kust' on koppa kanteletta?  'Of what is the body of the harp?'
(40.235)  "Part. sing. of _kantele_ (stem _-lehe_) 'harp'."

> _kava-_ 'dig' (45) | _kaiva-_ 'dig'
> _kólema_ 'hardship', _kuo_ 'pain' (47) | _kuolema_ 'death'

Kuolo kullervo-urohon 'The death of the hero Kullervo' (36.344)
Kuolema kova-osaista 'The death of the ill-fated one' (36.346)

> _kulu_ 'gold' (49) | _kulta_ 'gold'
> KUPU 'hump' > _kumpo_ 'pile' (49) | _kumpu_ 'hillock, hump'

Tuonen kumpu kuumottavi 'The hill of Tuoni loomed' (16.158)

> _kú_ 'Crescent Moon' | _kuu_ 'moon'

Kuuna kullan valkeana 'While the golden moon shines'
(16.360)  "Essive of _kuu_ 'moon'.  Genitive sing. of _kulta_ 'gold'."

> Ó 'be, exist' (69) | stem _o_ 'be, exist'

Oisi kutrit kärventynnä '(Thy) ringlets would be singed'
(16.235)  "=
_olisi_, here used for _olisivat_."

> _pelto_ 'hedge, hedged field' (73) | _pelto_ 'field'

Pään on peltohon sysäsi 'Drove the hilt into the ground'
(36.337)

> _pínea_ 'small' (73] | _pieni_ 'small'
> _qualme_ 'death', _qualma_ 'deadly' (76) | _kalma_ 'death, dead
person'
> _táma_ 'this' (87) | _tämä_ 'this'

Vene täältä tuotanehe 'The boat will be brought'
(16.175)  "Adv. 'thence'; abl. of _tämä_ 'this';
_täällä_, _täältä_
are written with two _ä_'s when used adverbially."

> _tie_ 'line, direction, route, road' (90) | _tie_ 'route, road'

Akka tieltä kääntyköhön 'Let an old woman turn from the
path'
(16.274)  "Ablative sing. _tie_ 'a way'."

> _tereva_ 'piercing, acute, shrill, sharp' (91) | _terävä_
'acute,
sharp'

Tempasi terävän miekan 'Grasped the sharp sword' (36.220)
"Acc.
sing. of adj. _terävä_ 'sharp', formed from _terä_ 'edge',
with affix
_va_."

> _tulu-_ 'move, come' (95) | _tul-_ 'come'

Tuoni toisi tullessansa 'Tuoni would have brought (thee) in his
coming' (16.191)  "Inessive of 2nd infin. of _tulla_ 'to come' with
pron. affix of 3rd person."

> _tunto_ 'notice, regard, perception' (95) | _tunto_ 'perception'

Tuosta tunnen kielastajan!  'From this I know the liar!'
(16.204)  "1st sing. pres. of _tuntea_."

> _vene_ 'small boat, vessel, dish' (100) | _vene_ 'small boat'

Tuo venettä Tuonen tytti 'Bring a boat, daughter of Tuoni'
(16.163)  "Part. sing. of _vene_ 'a boat'; stem _venehe_ ... obj. of
_tuo_."

> _ya(n)_ 'and' (104) | _ja_ 'and'

Itse lausui ja pakisi 'Herself talked and conversed' (16.174)

I would also add a few items to Petri's list:

HUHU- 'whoop', _húta- 'whoop' (41) | huutaa 'cry out, shout'
Jo huhuta huikahutti 'Now shouting cried loudly' (16.160)

KANGA- 'weave', _kangale_ 'a web' (45) | kangas 'cloth, fabric, web'
Kultakangasta kutovi 'There she wove a golden fabric' (Kirby, 8.7)

karka 'fang, tooth, tusk' (48) | kärki 'point'
Kären käänti rintahansa 'Turned the point to his breast'
(36.339)  "Accusative sing. of stem _kärke_, nom. _kärki_, here
'the
point of the sword'."

lutta-, lutu- 'flow, float' (57) | lautta 'raft, float' (n.)
Lauttoa Manalan lapsi 'A ship, child of Manala' (16.164)  "=
_lauttaa_ ... part. sing. of _lautta_ 'ship'."

SINI ('pale blue' ?), _sine_ 'pale (bluish) green' (83) |
sininen 'blue'
Sinisukka äijön lapsi 'The old man's child with blue stockings'
(36.336)  "'Blue-stockinged', a compd. of _sini_ 'blue', and
_sukka_ 'stocking'."

It should be noted that Eliot's _Finnish Grammar_ also includes an
excerpt from the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, and a Finnish
popular song, with the same sort of detailed annotations.  The latter
has:

Lahella laiva pieni minua outtelee 'A little ship awaits me in the
bay'; with the annotation on _pieni_: "Nominative sing. 'little'."

And of course the grammar itself contains copious example sentences
and forms, so many of the words in the list above occur there
frequently.  But I do think it is significant that most of the
lexical material that Tolkien adapted more or less directly in both
form and meaning from Finnish into the language of QL can be found in
these excerpts from the Kalevala, which we know Tolkien encountered
in 1911.

Christopher Gilson

On Mittwoch, September 24, 2003, at 07:10  Uhr, Hans Georg Lundahl
wrote:

>> *Shire*: As A.R. Smith notes,  _Gau_ is indeed completely impossible
>> in
>> modern German due to its association with Nazi rule. Moreover, _GAU_
>> means 'größter anzunehmender Unfall' ('maximum credible accident' or
>> 'worst case scenario') something that is evoked, too (and often is,
>> deliberately, alluded to in reference to Nazi-Germany).
>
> In 1938 some German censors were asking Tolkien if he were _Arisch_ and
> Tolkien ridiculed the idea of asking it by _regretting_ to admit he
> had no
> Jewish ancestry. Now German editors are asking whether a Tolkien
> translation is completely _entnazifiziert_ - now, the _Gau_ would have
> been right, not just because the identic historic meaning is _shire_,
> but
> also because the reason _the Shire_ was called so was the military
> organisation of Arthedain. Something which is _not_ quite
> _entnazifiziert_, or at least not quite _demilitariziert_.

I don't think German editors are asking that *now*. Indeed, I don't
think this has anything to do with 'Entnazifizierung'. Entnazifizierung
means to get rid of Nazi ideology and supporters. While it is true that
misuse of language should and is being corrected (e.g. _arisch_
'Aryans' is now correctly used for speakers of Indo-Iranian languages),
the use of _Gau_ at that time is a historical and linguistic fact.
Entnazifizierung cannot and indeed should not discount that fact or
forget history (rather on the contrary!). The associations _Gau_ has
are a reality and that is one reason why it can't be used.

_Gau_ originally means 'landscape, region'. At least one etymology
says it is a collective formation (with prefix *_ga-_ i.e. < *ga-awja_)
from the same stem as _Aue_ (<*ahwjô, *awjô). They all refer to
settlement near water (something in line with archaeological data). We
see two things here:

1) _Shire_ ('cut-out part of a territory') and _Gau_ aren't that close
after all. It is true that G. _Gau_ is often used to translate Latin
_pagus_ in reference to ancient Gaul. This is still the case. Other
than that, though, the usage of _Gau_ as an administrative unit is
typical only for the 3rd Reich, contrary to that of 'Shire'. Other than
that, the word is used for landscapes (Landschaften) only, cf. _Das
Allgäu_ (dialectal variant _Gäu_ for _Gau_).

2) If we accept the above etymology (Ms Carroux certainly had)
_Auenland_ is indeed (a) little more than a modernized  way to say
'Gau'.

To sum up, the word Gau is still used when translating, e.g.,  Caesar
or in reference to landscapes (its use before the WWII) but simply
doesn't fit, for all the various reasons, to translate 'Shire'.

Lastly, I might say, that _Auenland_ is not a bad choice at all because
_Aue_ conveys an idea of tranquility and peace (at least to me). Once
again it becomes apparent that Ms Carroux has, for the most part, done
a very good job.

David Kiltz

P.S.: I've been told a newer German translation out now is
catastrophic. I currently don't have the time (or indeed the wish) to
undergo the ordeal of reading it.

David Kiltz <dkiltz@...> wrote:

> We see two things here:
>
> 1) _Shire_ ('cut-out part of a territory') and _Gau_ aren't that close
> after all. It is true that G. _Gau_ is often used to translate Latin
> _pagus_ in reference to ancient Gaul. This is still the case. Other
> than that, though, the usage of _Gau_ as an administrative unit is
> typical only for the 3rd Reich, contrary to that of 'Shire'. Other than
> that, the word is used for landscapes (Landschaften) only, cf. _Das
> Allgäu_ (dialectal variant _Gäu_ for _Gau_).

What about the Shires of the Carolingian Empire encompassing both
France and Germany (contemporary to the Shires in KIng Alfred's
England)? That would be a very close parallel to the Shire in
Arthedain, as well as being the source for the Nazi use of _Gau_.

> Lastly, I might say, that _Auenland_ is not a bad choice at all because
> _Aue_ conveys an idea of tranquility and peace (at least to me). Once
> again it becomes apparent that Ms Carroux has, for the most part, done
> a very good job.

The Shire was tranquil enough after the battle where Golfimbul was
beheaded (by Bandobras Took?), but not when it got its name,
which was a period of war with the Witchking Angmar.

Hans Georg Lundahl

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


[I have allowed this discussion on Lambengolmor because it grew out
of a discussion that began in the pages of _Vinyar Tengwar_, and I
want to encourage the use of this list as a forum for _VT_ readers to
discuss its contents. However, I'm having second thoughts about this
particular topic, as it is removed from issues of Tolkien's invented
languages. It is unfortunately all too often the case that Internet
discussion lists drift far off topic; and the only effective remedy for
this has proven to be strict moderation to keep discussions on point.
I am therefore going to draw this thread to a close, and formulate the
policy that future discussion of Tolkien in translation on this list should
focus on how the elements of Tolkien's invented languages are treated
with in translation. That being said, I _strongly_ encourage someone
to step forward to initiate and moderate a new discussion list devoted
to the broader issues of translating Tolkien's works. CFH]

Naffarin

Thinking about the conceptual stages of Tolkien's private languages
that preceded QL led me to take another look at Naffarin.  All that
remains of this language is a poem or verse of 4 lines, constituting
a single sentence:

O Naffarínos cutá vu navru cangor
luttos ca vúna tiéranar,
dana maga tíer ce vru encá vún' farta
once ya merúta vúna maxt' amámen.

In "A Secret Vice" Tolkien says of the language:  "Etymologically, as
you would see if I bothered to translate, it has no greater interest
than _Nevbosh_; _vrú_ 'ever' -- a curiously predominant association
in my languages, which is always pushing its way in (a case of early
fixation of individual association, I suppose, which cannot now be
got rid of) -- is the only word of interest from this point of
view."  He also says "the influences -- outside English, and beyond a
nascent purely individual element -- are Latin and Spanish, in sound-
choices and combinations, in general word form."  (MC 209.)

Tolkien seems to say that, if his audience were told the meanings of
these Naffarin words, most of their sources (like most of Nevbosh)
would be fairly obvious (and thus relatively uninteresting).  So
perhaps a comparison of the sound combinations and word forms of
Naffarin with identical or similar elements in Latin or Spanish might
provide insight into their intended meanings.

For example _Naffarínos_ in line 1 is clearly related to the language
name _Naffarin_.  Latin has various adjective-forming suffixes,
including _-nus_, _-ánus_, _-ínus_, with the sense 'pertaining to,
belonging to'.  Thus _paternus_ 'belonging to a father',
_dívínus_ 'of a deity, divine', _Latínus_ 'of Latium, Latin',
_húmánus_ 'human', _Rómánus_ 'Roman'.  Latin adjectives have 3
genders (here masc. _-nus_, fem. _-na_, neut. _-num_), 6 cases,
singular and plural, agreeing with the noun they modify, or used
substantively with 'man', 'woman' or 'thing' understood.

In Spanish the variety of cases has been eliminated and there are
only 2 genders, but otherwise the forms are quite similar, e.g.
_latino_, _latina_, pl. _latinos_, _latinas_, adj. 'Latin' and
noun 'Latin speaker, Latin scholar'.  So probably _Naffarínos_
means 'speakers (or students) of Naffarin'.  And the name _Naffarin_
itself may be a reduction of this adjectival form, with loss of the
final vowel, though what the stem _Naffar-_ means is unclear.

The _O_ at the beginning of the sentence might be a preposition
governing _Naffarínos_ (cf. Latin _ob_ 'towards, before, because
of'), but I think it is more likely to reflect the Latin interjection
_ó_ as used with a vocative, i.e. the poem is addressed to
(imaginary) fellow speakers of Naffarin.  And if this is the case,
then it looks like _cutá vu_ is a plural imperative, comparable in
syntax to Spanish _contad vosotros_, but with the pronoun (Latin
_vos_ 'you' pl.) shortened rather than augmented (_vosotros_ is
literally 'you others').  If _vu_ = 'you' then _vúna_, _vún'_ in
lines 2 to 4 could be the adjectival form =  'of yours, your',
derived with an ending _-na_ related to _-ínos_.

The same suffix may explain the relation between _tíer_ in line 3 and
_tiéranar_ in line 2.  These appear to derive from Sp.
_tierra_ 'earth, land, (one's) country', with simplification of the _-
rr-_ and loss of the final _-a_ in the singular noun, perhaps
comparable to that in _Naffarin_.  An adjectival
*_tierana_ 'pertaining to a country' might have extended meanings
like 'national, native, colloquial'.  Perhaps _ca_ is from Span.
_acá_ 'here', and _ca vúna tiéranar_ = 'here in your own land'.

In line 3, _maga_ looks like it is based on the root extracted from
the Latin adj. _magnus_ 'great, large' (& its superlative
_maximus_ 'greatest' < _mag-_ + _-timus_), so that _dana maga tíer_
could mean something like 'that great land'.  In the last line
_maxt'_ is either connected with this _mag-_ or with Lat.
_mactus_ 'glorified, honored', used mostly in the vocative applied to
divinities or in the common Latin expression of congratulations,
_macte virtute_ 'increase in virtue'.  Either way Naf. _maxt'_ would
mean something like 'enlarged' or 'increased'.

The word _amámen_ is modelled on Latin nouns formed from verb-stems
with the suffix _-men_, like _certámen_ 'contest' < _certáre_ 'to
contend', or _vélámen_ 'veil' < _véláre_ 'to cover'.  Thus _amámen_
would be from the verb _amáre_ 'to love', presumably the Naffarin
word for the noun 'love', and _vúna maxt' amámen_ probably
means 'your increased love'.

Identifying the etymologies of the remaining words in the poem is
more speculative because the likelier resemblences are more distant
and there are consequently more possibilities.  Guided primarily by
trying to make sense of the whole sentence, I would suggest the
following:

The stem of _cutá_ may have been inspired by Sp. _contar_ 'to count,
tell, relate' (pres. indic. _cuenta_), perhaps blended with Lat.
_citáre_ 'to move, rouse, excite', _recitáre_ 'to read out'.  That
_navru_ means 'forever' was suggested by Helge Fauskanger (cf.
www.uib.no/People/hnohf/naffarin.htm ).  Perhaps the _na-_ is from
the Latin conjunction _nam_ 'for'.

The word _cangor_ seems likely to derive from the root _can-_ of Lat.
_canere_, _cantáre_ 'to sing, play', Sp. _cantar_, though the motive
for the suffix _-go-_ is unclear.  The _-r_ might be a noun or
adjectival formative; cf. Lat. _canor_ 'melody',
_canórus_ 'melodious', Sp. _canoro_.  Together with _luttos_ this
ought to be the object of _cúta_.  It isn't certain which is the noun
and which the modifier, but _luttos_ might be based on the root _lud-
_ in Lat. _lúdere_ 'to play', which in the context of music or song
also means 'to compose'.

Then the first two lines would mean something like: 'O Naffarines
recite forever poetry composed here in your own land'.

In the third line _ce_ could be from the Sp. rel. pron. _que_ 'which,
who'.  _Once_ in the next line may be a compound of this,
perhaps 'one that, one which'.

_Encá_ might derive from the Lat. verb _inquam_ 'I say',
_inquiunt_ 'they say, it is said', with the same change of _qu_ >
_c_.  The ending parallels that of _cutá_, so _encá_ may have the
same subject, thus 'you say, you claim (that it is)'.

The word _farta_ probably comes from Lat. _ferre_ 'to bear, carry,
support', a derivation that goes back to Nevbosh _far-_ along with
the knowledge of its etymological connection with English _bear_ (MC
205).  The nature of the derivation isn't clear, but I think _vún'
farta_ probably means something like 'your home', either in the sense
of 'where you were born' or 'what supports you'.

In the last line _ya_ could be from Sp. _ya_ 'already, now, soon'.
And _merúta_ is probably derived from Lat. _merére_ 'to earn,
deserve, merit', although again the manner of derivation is unclear.

Then the last two lines would mean something like: 'that great land
which ever you call home and now deserves your increased love.'

Because of the necessarily speculative nature of most of this
analysis, I would not be surprised if alternative proposals for some
of it should lead to an improved interpretation.  But I offer these
comments as a first pass at trying to understand what little we have
of Tolkien's first major effort at a language of his very own.

Christopher Gilson

Christopher Gilson wrote:

> what the stem _Naffar-_ means is unclear.

    It seems to me possible that _-far-_ is inspired by the Latin
defective verb _fari_ 'speak'. If the preceding element reflects
Latin _novus_ and English _new_, then _Naffarin_ may have
essentially the same meaning as _Nevbosh_, sc. 'new speech'.

     Meneg suilaid,

         Beregond

Quoth Beregond:

>    It seems to me possible that _-far-_ is inspired by the Latin
>defective verb _fari_ 'speak'. If the preceding element reflects
>Latin _novus_ and English _new_, then _Naffarin_ may have
>essentially the same meaning as _Nevbosh_, sc. 'new speech'.

But _bosh_ (in English at any rate) means 'nonsense' rather than
'speech'.  In light of that, I wonder whether _Naffarin_ might not be
derived from the English slang adjective _naff_ or some word closely
akin to it.  According to the OED, the adjective _naff_ itself is
apparently not attested before 1969, but related to it are the
northern dialectal forms _naffhead_, _naffin_, _naffy_ 'a simpleton;
a blockhead; an idiot' (cited in the _English Dialect Dictionary_)
and _niffy-naffy_ 'inconsequential, stupid' (with an attestation from
1876).

--
*********************************************************************
          Arden R. Smith                  erilaz@...

              Perilme metto aimaktur perperienta.
                                          --Elvish proverb
*********************************************************************

In a letter to VT (published in #36) Anthony Appleyard looks, inter
alia, at the QL entry _velike_ 'great' [VT36:34]. He notes the obvious
resemblance to Russian and Ukrainian _velikiy_ 'great, mighty'. The
corresponding Gnomish form is _beleg_ both deriving from a root BEL-
(the latter later re-etymologized as deriving from MBEL-).

One thing long noted is that some of Tolkien's words closely resemble
words in other Indo-European languages or could be, virtually, derived
from PIE roots. Strikingly, Tolkien, sort of, provides 'alternative
etymologies' for words found in Indo-European languages (especially
Germanic, but by no means exclusively so). That happens especially
often when an etymology is difficult or not well established (or was at
his time).

The same is true for Russian _velikiy_. Currently, it would be derived
from PIE _*welH-_  'to be powerful, rule'. (Earlier it would have been
_*wel-_ 'to choose, wish' lumped together with the aforementioned root.
Today, rather two roots are assumed: _*welH-_ and _*welh1-_.) The root
meaning 'to be powerful, rule' yields such words as Gothic _waldan 'to
rule', Russian _vlasti_, Tocharian B _walo_ (<*_wlH(o)nt-_) 'ruler',
Latin _valere_ 'be strong' etc.

Briefly, this etymology is difficult because of the quality of the
first vowel in the Russian word, namely 'e'. Deriving _velikiy_ from
_*welh1-_ doesn't really make sense semantically (some people would
still unite both roots, which may be possible. However, they seem to be
differentiated already at the PIE period and thus _velikiy_ would still
have to be derived from the 'to be powerful' root).

So, we see that Tolkien, in  a way, provides an alternative etymology
for _velikiy_, if we take it (or rather _velik-_) to be of Elvish origin. It
would then derive from a root BEL- which is of course, in turn,
Indo-European (_*bel-_ 'to be powerful, have strength', cf. Old Indic
_bali_ 'strong', Greek _beltiôn_ 'better', Latin _de-bilis_ 'weak,
without-strength').

The implications can be pursued further considering Q. _val-_ 'to be
mighty, powerful, rule' etc. but I'll leave it here for the moment.

I tried to illustrate an instance of what I think is etymological
punning, as this kind of witty, knowledgeable playfulness pervades
J.R.R. Tolkien's language creations.
Another case of 'applicability' if you will.

David Kiltz

An authorial note to the c. 1959-60 essay "Quendi and Eldar" describes
what Tolkien calls "a primitive past tense" formation, "marked as such
by the 'augment' or reduplicated base-vowel, and the long stem-vowel".*
He further notes that "Past tenses of this form were usual in Sindarin
'strong' or primary verbs: as *_akâra_ 'made, did' > S _agor_" (XI:415
n.30; the circumflex is here used to denote a macron in the published
text). This supplies a class of Sindarin past-tense formation not
exhibited in either the Noldorin of _The Etymologies_ or the Sindarin
of _The Lord of the Rings_ (see post no. 464 to this list for details
on those formation classes:
<http://http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lambengolmor/message/464>) -- nor
anywhere else in the published corpus.

* It is interesting to note in this connection that the augmented stem
was a feature of the Indo-European verb system, also denoting past
time, surviving into Greek, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian.

In addition to the characteristics of this formation noted by Tolkien
(reduplicated base-vowel and long stem-vowel), we may further note that
in this specific example of *_akâra_ the past-tense formation ends with
_-a_*, and contrast this with the strong Eldarin past-tense formation
exhibited in _The Etymologies_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ (again, see
my post referred to above for details) in which the base-vowel is
lengthened but an *_-ê_ is suffixed. It is probably not a coincidence
that the final vowel is the same as the base-vowel: indeed, it is a
noteworthy feature of the bases given in "Quendi and Eldar" that they,
like the roots of the Qenya Lexicon, often exhibit the pattern CVCV,
where the two vowels are the same: thus *KWENE, *ELE, *DELE, *HEKE
(XI:360-61), *TUJU, *TAJA, *TAWA (VT39:7), etc.; and it seems likely
therefore that *_akâra_ reflects a base *KARA. This fact may explain
why Tolkien characterizes the formation only in terms of reduplication
cum lengthening, since the termination in _akâra_ is not a suffix but
part of the base. This is in contrast to the bases of _Etymologies_, in
which the usual structure is CVC (as for example in the base
corresponding to the verb under discussion, KAR-); so that while a
putative verb *_kar-_ can be called a basic verb in terms of the
structure exhibited in _Etymologies_, the corresponding basic form in
terms of the structure exhibited in "Quendi and Eldar" would appear to
be *_kara_.

* Contrast this fact with Helge Fauskanger's blanket assertion in his
"Reconstructing the Sindarin Verb System"
<http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/sverb-rec.htm#revised> that in
past-tense verbs of this formation, "Before pronominal endings, the
connecting vowel _-e-_ is slipped in". Helge bases this assertion on
the example of the untranslated form _agorech_ from the unpublished
"Túrin Wrapper", but in doing so is simply making another set of
unsupported assertions: 1) that _agorech_ is a specifically past-tense
verb (as opposed to, say, perfect); and 2) that _agor_ of "Quendi and
Eldar" and _agorech_ of the "Túrin Wrapper" were in fact both descended
from *_akâra_, despite being found in unconnected sources written at
different times; and 3) that the formations exhibited by _agor_ and
_agorech_ had any persistence at all in Tolkien's concept of Sindarin
beyond the moments and the sheets of paper on which they were written
-- all of which may be true, but nonetheless cannot be proven and so
cannot be asserted as fact.

The Eldarin past-tense formation exhibited by *_akâra_ may also be
compared with that of the Eldarin perfect tense, as deducible from
various Quenya exemplars, such as _avánie-r_ pl. 'have passed away'
(LR:368, R:66; note that this form entered with the 2nd ed., whereas
the 1st ed. has _vánier_), _utúlie-n_ 'I am come' (LR:946),
_utúvie-nye-s_ 'I have found it' (LR:950), and _iríkie_ 'has twisted'
(VT39:9); which we can see are likewise characterized by "the 'augment'
or reduplicated base-vowel, and the long stem-vowel", but, in contrast,
with the further suffixion of _-ie_ rather than of _-a_/base-vowel as
in S _agor_ < *_akâra_, or of _-e_ as in S _óne-n_ 'I gave' (LR:1036).
Given the semantic relationship between the simple past and the past
perfect tenses, it is not surprising to find formal similarities
between them.


--
=============================================
Carl F. Hostetter   Aelfwine@...   http://www.elvish.org

		    ho bios brachys, he de techne makre.
			        Ars longa, vita brevis.
	         The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
"I wish life was not so short," he thought.  "Languages take such
      a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."

Hello,

Petri Tikka wrote (on the subject of Qenya words similar to Finnish):

> > _kantl_ 'a large harp', _kantele_ 'harping' (45) | kantele 'harp'

And Christopher Gilson supplied the citation:

> Kalanluinen kanteloinen 'a fish-bone harp' (40.224)  "Dimin. of
> _kantelo_ = _kantele_, 'a kind of harp with five strings'."
> Kust' on koppa kanteletta?  'Of what is the body of the harp?'
> (40.235)  "Part. sing. of _kantele_ (stem _-lehe_) 'harp'."

With this, one has to compare Welsh _cathl_ 'hymn, lay, song'. Together
wth [Old] Irish _cétal_ it points to an earlier *_knt-l-_ (syllabic
nasals yield -en- in Goidelic, hence *kentl- > *kétl- > *kédl > kédal
(orthographic _cétal_)). Now these two words [*_kntl_ and _kantele_] do
show a remarkable similarity, both in the form and content (surely the
meanings are akin).

I think it possible to suggest that here we see a reflection of
Tolkien's early conception of the Elvish languages as a sort of
'mediators' between the language of North-Western Europe. The words in
Celtic and Finnish are, to the best of my knowledge, unrelated, but
Tolkien supplies a story-internal explanation for the perceived
similarity.

Or is it just wishful thinking?

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@...

Nid byd, byd heb wybodaeth
                  --Welsh saying

On Donnerstag, Oktober 16, 2003, at 10:49  Uhr, Carl F. Hostetter wrote:

> An authorial note to the c. 1959-60 essay "Quendi and Eldar" describes
> what Tolkien calls "a primitive past tense" formation, "marked as such
> by the 'augment' or reduplicated base-vowel, and the long stem-vowel".
> ... This supplies a class of Sindarin past-tense formation not
> exhibited in either the Noldorin of _The Etymologies_ or the Sindarin of
> _The Lord of the Rings_ ... --  nor anywhere else in the published corpus

I think it's possible to interpret _onen_ (LR:1036) as < *_a-ân-en_
suggesting that _-e_ was at least at home in the 1sg. Perhaps we even
have to posit an *_a-âna-in_ originally. This would mean that we do not
have total parallelism with Quenya _equen_ (XI:415n.29) but still could
account for the long vowel by means of an attested past tense
formation. Obviously, _-en_ for the 1st sg. would have been taken from
other, more profuse past tense forms.

[This is an interesting idea, particularly in light of the "printing
history" of _ónen_/_onen_. The form as published in the first edition,
first printing had an initial long vowel: _ónen_. Over subsequent
reprintings, the acute accent fell away -- so far as Douglas Anderson
knows, probably unintentionally. In any event, the form clearly did
have a long vowel at one time, which _might_ be accounted for as
indicating the presence of a primitive augment. I will note, however,
that my statement stands: the past-tense formation described by
Tolkien for S _agor_ < *_akâra_ is not attested elsewhere in the
published corpus, since even by the interpretation you propose here,
the final _-e_ of _óne-n_ does not fit the pattern Tolkien describes.
Nor would *_a-âna-in_ solve the problem, since *_-a-in_ would
yield S _-aen_. Nonetheless, the essential point remains: _ónen_, our
sole example of a strong past-tense Sindarin verb in _The Lord of the
Rings_, is not necessarily inconsistent with a primitive strong past-
tense formation with augment/reduplication cum lengthening. CFH]

> Given the semantic relationship between the simple past and the past
> perfect tenses, it is not surprising to find formal similarities [i.e.
> the augment] between them.

Yes and no. One has to be careful not to carry the Indo-European
parallel too far. In Indo-European past tense (augmented aorist and
present (=imperfect)) are formally and historically entirely distinct
from the perfect. The latter indicating an accomplished state (in the
present!) or, even earlier, simply a 'state', whereas the 'past'
reference is only very late and secondary.

Still, to interpret the augment in Elvish as indicating 'past' is
certainly a valid point.

The question remains whether that augment in Elvish works quite as in
I.E. In the latter, *_e-_ was a particle indicating 'past'. In Elvish
it seems to be a 'left-branching' _sundóma_ extension, which may
have originally denoted 'totality' aut sim. rather than 'past' in a
strict sense.

David Kiltz

[Regarding the prefixed I.E. particle *_e-_ indicating 'past' -- there
is a striking parallel to this in QL, which lists a prefix _e-_ under the
root E, whose derivatives are primarily demonstrative (_ena_ 'that by
you', _en-, ek-, et-_ 'that (by you)', etc.; PE12:34). The function of
this Qenya prefix _e-_ is not specified, but in the H-entries of QL
there are two examples of _e-_ used as an augment in past tense
forms of verbs (derived from roots in which the root-vowel is not
E but rather A and I respectively): _halta-_ ‘to leap’, irreg. pret.
_halle, ehalle_ (PE12:39 s.v. HALA); and _kitya-_ ‘to tickle’, pa.t.
_ekitsine_ (PE12:47 s.v. KITI-). A relationship between a deictic stem
meaning 'that' and a sense of past time is also found in the _Etymo-
logies_, which states that the base YA- 'there, over there' was also
used of time in the sense 'ago'; hence the derivatives Q _yana_ 'that
(the former)' and _yá_ 'formerly, ago'. -- PHW]

In Elvish theology, it is well known that the current state of Arda,
resulting from its corruption by Melkor is "Arda Marred", _Arda
Sahta_ in one source (X:405, see also VT43:22-23 for a possibly
related word) and _Arda Hastaina_ in another source (X:254).

Both forms are similar to some extent: _Hastaina_ is transparently
a participle (_hasta- + -(i)na_) and _Sahta_ is here used as an
adjective. The English term is simply a direct translation of
these concepts.

The original design of Eru was "Arda Unmarred", _Arda Alahasta_
(X:254), and at the end of the world, it is hoped that Eru will
restore "Arda Healed", _Arda Envinyanta_ or _Vincarna_ (X:408),
participial forms whose literal meanings are evidently "renewed"
and "made anew".

An interesting point in all these forms is that when the Elves
describe the world they live in, they refer to its actual state,
the only state they really know from experience: Arda Marred.
All the other states, either before their times or in a projected
eucatastrophe, are refered comparatively to this corrupted state:
Un-marred, Re-made.

When studying the strange Valarin language, it easy to make
unprovable assertions, because of the scarcity of the sources.
Yet, a close comparison of several forms might show interesting
features that I have not seen discussed until the present day.
I'll therefore present some of my conclusions, for the linguists
of this list to further enlight the discussion.

On one hand we have V. _Mânawenûz_ (Manwë) "Blessed One", which
can also also be related to (V:371) MAN- "holy  spirit". It is
also said elsewhere that Q. _Aman_ and _Manwe_ both contain the
V. element _aman_, _man_ (XII:357). The former word, _a-man_,
cleary shows a reduplication of the root vowel, perhaps as a mark
of emphasis (cf. Q. ithil, estel, indis, etc.). And on the other hand,
(Arda) Unmarred and Unmarred are respectively _Amanaišâl_ and
_Dušamanûdhân_ (XI:401).

In his essay about Valarin, Helge K. Fauskanger notes: "The
word _dušamanûðân_ 'marred' would seem to be a passive
participle by its gloss; if we had known the verb 'to mar',
we could have isolated the morphemes used to derive such
participles." (<http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/valarin.htm>)
This statement, however, assumes that the English gloss
is representative of the Valarin word, i.e. that the
word literally means "marred" and that our only problem
is that we don't know where to break the morphemes.

Breaking these long words into elementary morphemes would
indeed be very hypothetical, but we can nevertheless
notice that both words have a common point: they both seem
to contain the _-man-_ element! However, how can we take
into account this weird fact: that "marred" and "unmarred"
seem, on the surface, to contain the very opposite term as
the one we would expect?

Going further from this point, will all necessary precautions,
we can perhaps account for a different interpretation:

    a[REDUP.]-man(a)["BLESS"]-(i-)šâl[ADJ.]
    duš[NEG.]-a[REDUP]-man(û)["BLESS"]-ðân[ADJ.]

Whether _-(i-)šâl_ and _-ðân_ are actually adjectival or participial
endings is not the important point here. We will hardly know
their exact meaning and nuance.

But what we would have here, if this theory bears any validity,
is a positive form _Amanaišâl_ "Blessed", and a negative form
_Dušamanûdhân_ "Unblessed". That is, exactly the reverse
of the Elvish forms.

Beyond the linguistic interest that one may find in such issues,
it would throw a new light on the way the Valar themselves
conceived their world, the world they saw from the origin, as
opposed to the Elves who only came later when Melkor's evil deeds
where already achieved. The original design of Eru is not "Arda
Unmarred" but "Arda Blessed". The world under Melkor's dominion
is not "Arda Marred" but "Arda Unblessed"... I can't say for sure
that there is any truth in all this demonstration, but I would
not be astonished to discover that Tolkien wove such
theological ideas under linguistic clothes: a pun of some sort,
with an hidden meaning.

Comments are of course welcome.

Didier.

Didier has proposed that Valarin _Amanaišâl_ in _Aþâraphelûn
Amanaišâl_ 'Arda Unmarred' actually means *'blessed' rather
than 'unmarred', and that V. _Dušamanûðân_ in _Aþâraphelûn
Dušamanûðân_ 'Arda Marred' actually means *'unblessed'
rather than 'marred'.

This interpretation seems quite likely, although Didier has
overlooked a piece of evidence which clarifies the probable
meaning of the Valarin element *_aman-_ in these forms.
In "Quendi and Eldar" (XI:399), Tolkien notes that Q. _aman_
'blessed, free from evil' was derived from Valarin, and though
Pengolodh does not give the original Valarin form, it was
said to mean 'at peace, in accord (with Eru)'.

So the literal meaning of _Aþâraphelûn Amanaišâl_ is
probably *'Arda at Peace' or *'Arda in Accord (with Eru)',
while _Aþâraphelûn Dušamanûðân_ means *'Arda not
at Peace' or *'Arda not in Accord (with Eru)'.

The apparent negative prefix *_duš-_ in _Dušamanûðân_
'marred', *'not in accord with Eru' seems deliberately
intended to recall in both form and function the Greek prefix
_dys-_, which according to Liddell and Scott's "An Inter-
mediate Greek-English Lexicon" is a prefix "like _un-_ or
_mis-_ (in _un-lucky_, _mis-chance_), _destroying the good
sense_ of a word, or _increasing its bad sense_."

Another Valarin word that appears to have clear but
hitherto unnoted cognates in the languages of Middle-earth
is _Phanaikelûth_, Valarin name for the Moon said to literally
mean 'bright mirror' (XI:401).

The element meaning 'bright' is probably *_phanai-_, which
closely resembles Q. _fana_ 'veil, raiment' (RGEO:74),
applied to "the radiant and majestic figure of one of the
great _Valar_" -- for "The High-Elves said that these forms
were always in some degree radiant, as if suffused with a
light from within" (ibid.). Compare also Q. _faina-_ 'emit
light', < base PHAY- 'radiate, send out rays of light' (V:381).

This leaves *_kelûth_ to mean 'mirror', and this Valarin
form closely resembles Khuzdul _kheled_ 'glass' in
_Kheled-zâram_ 'Mirrormere', lit. 'glass-pool' (VI:466 n.39).
Kh. _kheled_ was borrowed into Sindarin as _heleð_
'glass', which appears in the lake-name _Hele(ð)vorn_
'black glass' (ibid.)

-- Patrick H. Wynne

On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:00:16 -0000 "Patrick H. Wynne" <pwynne@...>
writes:

> This leaves *_kelûth_ to mean 'mirror', and this Valarin
> form closely resembles Khuzdul _kheled_ 'glass' in
> _Kheled-zâram_ 'Mirrormere', lit. 'glass-pool' (VI:466 n.39).
> Kh. _kheled_ was borrowed into Sindarin as _heleð_
> 'glass', which appears in the lake-name _Hele(ð)vorn_
> 'black glass' (ibid.)

I have noted this resemblance, and several others between Khuzdul and
Valarin:

Valarin _ašata_/_šata_ "hair of head" (XI:399) and Khuzdul _shathûr_
"cloud(s)" (LR, VII:174)

Valarin _machallâm_ "one of the seats of the Valar in the Ring of Doom"
(XI:399), and _mâchan_ "authority, authoritative decision" (XI:399) and
Khuzdul _Mahal_ (S:44)

Ardalambion also lists Valarin _mâchanâz_, pl. _mâchanumâz_
""Authorities", used of the greatest Valar, called _Aratar_ in Quenya",
but without a citation...

[These forms appear in XI:402. -- PHW]

Valarin _ulu_/_ullu_ "water" (XI:400,401) and Khuzdul _ûl_ "streams"
(VI:466)

Also, black speech _ghâsh_ "fire" (LR) seems like it could be related to
valarin *_igas_ "heat" (isolated from _Aþâraigas_ "appointed heat" (XI:401).

--
Robert Wilson

A reminder to all members to please post messages to this list in
either ISO Latin 1 or UTF-8 encoding. Otherwise, any non-ASCII
characters in your messages may not appear on a reader's screen
properly.

Patrick H. Wynne wrote:

> This interpretation seems quite likely, although Didier has
> overlooked a piece of evidence which clarifies the probable
> meaning of the Valarin element *_aman-_ in these forms.
> In "Quendi and Eldar" (XI:399), Tolkien notes that Q. _aman_
> 'blessed, free from evil' was derived from Valarin, and though
> Pengolodh does not give the original Valarin form, it was
> said to mean 'at peace, in accord (with Eru)'.

In XII:357 (n.18) Tolkien gives the meaning in Valarin of _aman,
man_ as :"The Valarin element _aman, man_ 'blessed, holy'
learned from Oromë".

[Interesting, but not germaine to the current discussion. The
note you cite is from "The Shibboleth of Feanor",which was
written c. 1968 or later, some eight or nine years _later_ than
"Quendi and Eldar", which dates to 1959-60. I have been lim-
iting the discussion to only those Valarin forms cited in Q&E,
which presumably form a relatively self-consistent linguistic
construct. -- PHW]

It is the Valarin name of Aman which means 'at peace, in accord
(with Eru)', not "Aman" as such in Quenya. It could be argued
that what the Elves translated as "blessed" in Quenya was
literally in Valarin 'at peace, in accord (with Eru)'.

[This mostly repeats what I have already said in the passage
you cited above: that Q. _aman_ meant 'blessed, free from evil',
and that according to Pengolodh the "original Valarin form" from
which this Q. _aman_ was derived "was said to mean 'at peace,
in accord (with Eru)'". So I don't understand what your point of
disagreement is, unless you are assuming that Q&E says that
the Q. name _Aman_ applied to the land of the Valar was
derived from a Valarin name for their land meaning 'at peace,
in accord (with Eru)'. But this is certainly _not_ the case! Q&E
does _not_ say that it is "the Valarin name of Aman" which
means 'at peace, in accord (with Eru)'" -- Q&E states that the
Q. word _aman_ 'blessed, free from evil' was chiefly used
as the name of the land of the Valar, presumably _in Quenya_.
Note that Q. _aman_ is given uncapitalized and that Tolkien says
that it was "chiefly" used to refer to the land of the Valar, not
that it was _only_ so used; the clear implication is that Q. _aman_
was also used as a common adjective. And this Quenya adj. was
borrowed from a Valarin form (presumably also an adj.) meaning
'at peace' etc., -- but _nothing_ is said of the particular application
of this original Valarin form _in Valarin_. We do not know what
the Valar named their own country in their own language. -- PHW]

> So the literal meaning of _Aþâraphelûn Amanaisâl_ is
> probably *'Arda at Peace' or *'Arda in Accord (with Eru)',
> while _Aþâraphelûn Dusamanûðân_ means *'Arda not
> at Peace' or *'Arda not in Accord (with Eru)'.

Then Amanaisâl would be the same name as the place-name "Aman"
in Valarin, which it isn't. The meaning was close for sure, but it is
probabaly not that of 'at Peace' or 'in Accord (with Eru)' then.

[No, because as shown above, Tolkien does NOT say in Q&E that the
Valarin element from which Q. _aman_ was derived was used by the
Valar themselves to form their own name in Valarin for the land in
which they dwelt. -- PHW]

<snip>

> Another Valarin word that appears to have clear but
> hitherto unnoted cognates in the languages of Middle-earth
> is _Phanaikelûth_, Valarin name for the Moon said to literally
> mean 'bright mirror' (XI:401).

I have in my dictionnary of Valarin, in "Dictionnaire des langues ds
Hobbits, etc". p. 27, pointed to the same direction, so to speak.

[Again, my lack of French defeats me! :-) -- PHW]

> This leaves *_kelûth_ to mean 'mirror', and this Valarin
> form closely resembles Khuzdul _kheled_ 'glass' in
> _Kheled-zâram_ 'Mirrormere', lit. 'glass-pool' (VI:466 n.39).
> Kh. _kheled_ was borrowed into Sindarin as _heleð_
> 'glass', which appears in the lake-name _Hele(ð)vorn_
> 'black glass' (ibid.)

At that goes here too, see my book on see p. 26. ;-)

Other cognates I have proposed in my book are:

- Kh. root *SH-TH-R (> _shathur_, 'cloud') and Val. _shebeth_ 'air' (XI:401).

- Val. *_ubôz_ '? lord', < _Ul(l)ubôz_, which could mean 'Lord of Waters' --
one of the titles of Ulmo in 'The Silmarillion' -- and Kh. root *Z-B-D seen in
_uzbad_ 'lord'.

- Val. _ul(l)u_ 'water' and Khuzdul _ûl_ 'rivers' (< ? 'weak' root *W-L), is
obvious.


Edouard Kloczko

I wrote :

> In XII:357 (n.18) Tolkien gives the meaning in Valarin of _aman,
> man_ as :"The Valarin element _aman, man_ 'blessed, holy'
> learned from Oromë".

To which Patrick H. Wynne responded:

> Interesting, but not germaine to the current discussion. The
> note you cite is from "The Shibboleth of Feanor",which was
> written c. 1968 or later, some eight or nine years _later_ than
> "Quendi and Eldar", which dates to 1959-60. I have been lim-
> iting the discussion to only those Valarin forms cited in Q&E,
> which presumably form a relatively self-consistent linguistic
> construct.

Tolkien's remark is quite relevant to my scheme.
It was written a few years after "Quendi and Eldar", that much is true,
but it does not contradict the Valarin language presented. And even
if Tolkien used to change his mind often, that does imply that he changed
his mind about the structure or meaning of the word _a-man_ in Valarin,
or that it did not exist or it existed with another meaning than 'blessed,
holy' when "Quendi and Eldar" was written.

And that meaning given to V._ a-man_ clearly supports my theory
(see below) that Q. _aman_ comes from the Valarin word 'a-man' and
not from an unknown Valarin word meaning ‘at peace, in accord (with Eru)’,
which itself looks very close (in meaning) to a name such as _Mânawenûz_.

I also wrote:

> It is the Valarin name of Aman which means 'at peace, in accord
> (with Eru)', not "Aman" as such in Quenya. It could be argued
> that what the Elves translated as "blessed" in Quenya was
> literally in Valarin 'at peace, in accord (with Eru)'.

To which PHW responded:

> ... So I don't understand what your point of
> disagreement is, unless you are assuming that Q&E says that
> the Q. name _Aman_ applied to the land of the Valar was
> derived from a Valarin name for their land meaning 'at peace,
> in accord (with Eru)'. But this is certainly _not_ the case! Q&E
> does _not_ say that it is "the Valarin name of Aman" which
> means 'at peace, in accord (with Eru)'" ...

Yes, this is how I read it :

_aman_ ‘blessed, free from evil’. Chiefly used as the name of the land
in which the Valar dwelt. V form not given; said to mean ‘at peace, in
accord (with Eru)’. See Manwe.

  as :

"... Chiefly used as the name of the land in which the Valar dwelt. V form [of
the place-name of the land] not given..."

So, I wonder. Am I alone in reading the above : ‘at peace, in accord (with Eru)’
meaning the unknown form given the Land of the Valar in Valarin?

The V word 'in accord (with Eru)' appears inside the Valarin _Mânawenûz_,
said to mean ‘One (closest) in accord with Eru’, so it could hardly be said
as "not given".

Or does everybody agree with PHW, e.g. Q. _aman_ < from a Valarin word
not given by Pengolodh/Tolkien but meaning ‘at peace, in accord (with Eru)’.
(I hope not. :-) )

Edouard Kloczko

[I had to edit out of this current post a fair amount of unnecessary
citation of Edouard's previous post and my comments added to same --
a gentle reminder to our contributors to please cite only the bare
minimum necessary, and feel free to paraphrase or summarize. Thanks!
-- PHW]

I would like to discuss a phonetic problem raised by the well-known Sindarin
word _certh_ "rune". Its presumed etymology is given in XI/396 : "The Sindarin
_certh_ is probably from _*kirtê_ "cutting", a verbal derivative of a type
not used in Quenya". However the e is problematic.

A lowering from i to e can indeed be caused by a following a (earlier â) :
this A-metaphony is attested in Noldorin as well as in the later Sindarin, as
the following examples show:
Primitive _*kirkâ_  (my reconstruction by comparison with the Quenya _kirka_,
from the base KIRIK, V/365) > Noldorin _cerch_ "sickle"
Primitive _ *rimbâ_ > Old Noldorin _rimba_ > Noldorin _rhemb, rhem_
"frequent, numerous" (V/383)
_*ekla-rista_  > Sindarin _Eglarest_ (XI/365)

But it does not seem to be triggered by e (earlier ê):
Primitive _*kirissê_ (my reconstruction by comparison with the Quenya
_kirisse_ "slash, gash", from the base KIRIS) > Noldorin _criss_ "cleft, cut"
(V/365)
Old Noldorin _litse_ > _litthe_ > Noldorin _lith_ "sand", attested in
Sindarin with the meaning "ash" (V/369, S/434)
Primitive _*rimbê >Old Noldorin _rimbe_ > Noldorin _rhimb, rhim_ "crowd,
host", attested in Sindarin as _rim_ (V/383, S/436)

Hence it is dubious that the e of _certh_ is purely phonetic in origin. It
must come from some analogical process, and I think that a clue is given in
V/381: in the entry PHILIK a Quenya word _filit, pl. filiki_ is listed, and the
Noldorin cognate is "_filig_ pl., analogical singular _fileg_ or _filigod_". The
e of the singular _fileg_ was presumably modelled on the frequent alternation
sg. E / pl. I  in final syllable.

I think the same occurred with _certh_, pl. _cirth_: _*kirtê_ "cutting"
regularly produced _cirth_ which was taken as a plural "runes" and given a
analogical singular _certh_ "rune". This is semantically quite plausible:
"cutting"
probably first drifted towards "engraved inscription" and then "arrangement of
runes", "runes". This agrees well with the frequent use of collectives as
plurals in Sindarin.

Bertrand Bellet

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Language has both strengthened imagination and been freed by it. Who shall
say whether the free adjective has created images bizarre and beautiful, or the
adjective been freed by strange and beautiful pictures in the mind ?

J. R. R. Tolkien, A Secret Vice


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

On 17.10.2003, at 11:44, David Kiltz wrote:

> [Carl Hostetter wrote:]
>
> the past-tense formation described by Tolkien for S _agor_ < *_akâra_
> is not attested elsewhere in the published corpus, since even by the
> interpretation you propose here, the final _-e_ of _óne-n_ does not
> fit the pattern Tolkien describes. Nor would *_a-âna-in_ solve the
> problem, since *_-a-in_ would yield S _-aen_.

The question is whether the 1. sg. of S. _agor_ could have been _*agoren_.

[I don't think that was the question, really; the question was whether
S _ónen_ fits the pattern exhibited by S _agor_ < *_akâra_, which strictly
speaking it does not, at least not demonstrably so. But since you raise
the question, I'd say: yes, sure, it's _possible_ that the 1 sg. of S _agor_
(sc., at the point at which Tolkie wrote that form and figure in _Quendi
and Eldar_ -- at any other time, all bets are off) could have been
*_agoren_. But I would say it could also have been *_agoran_. CFH]

As for _*-ain_ > _aen_, i.e. in closed, post-tonic syllable, I'm not so
sure. Do you have an example handy? Of course, _*ai_ > _*ae_ in
stressed syllables.

[Good point; in that specific environment, no, I can't bring any example
to mind (though its prominent presence in other environments is surely
suggestive). On the other hand, can you provide any support for supposing
that it would yield _-en_ in that environment? CFH]

> Patrick Wynne wrote:
>
> [Regarding the prefixed I.E. particle *_e-_ indicating 'past' -- there
> is a striking parallel to this in QL, which lists a prefix _e-_ under
> the root E, whose derivatives are primarily demonstrative ...]

Very interesting. I thought about it along the lines of _*aquâ_ being
an 'intensified' form of _*quâ_ [XI:415] (or even _Isil_ from SIL- 'the
Sheen', _Anar_ from NAR- 'the Burning, Hot, Fire'). The apparent early
conception of the QL makes it indeed more like Indo-European.

David Kiltz


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

On Oct 28, 2003, at 7:02 AM, Carl Hostetter wrote:

> it's _possible_ that the 1 sg. of S _agor_ (sc., at the point at which
> Tolkie[n] wrote that form and figure in _Quendi and Eldar_ -- at any
> other time, all bets are off) could have been *_agoren_. But I would
> say it could also have been *_agoran_.

Or even *_agoron_, of course (depending on whether the stem-vowel *_-a_
was or was not lengthened before the 1 sg. ending).


--
=============================================
Carl F. Hostetter   Aelfwine@...   http://www.elvish.org

		    ho bios brachys, he de techne makre.
			        Ars longa, vita brevis.
	         The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
"I wish life was not so short," he thought.  "Languages take such
      a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."

On 28.10.2003, at 13:02, David Kiltz wrote:

> The question is whether the 1. sg. of S. _agor_ could have been
> _*agoren_.
>
> [I don't think that was the question, really; the question was whether
> S _ónen_ fits the pattern exhibited by S _agor_ < *_akâra_, which
> strictly speaking it does not, at least not demonstrably so.

Well, a little misunderstanding then. That was really the question for
me. As, apart from the ending _-en_ which isn't clear, S. _ón-_ may
just as well be < _*a-ân-_ as _*ân-_. So, at the moment, this is a 'non
licet', i.e. __ónen_ might well exhibit the _agor_ pattern, and may
not. For now, the case remains inconclusive and it would, in my
opinion, be wrong to assert either the uniqueness of _agor_ or its
not-uniqueness.

So, strictly speaking, I would personally simply rephrase your
"...formation not exhibited..." into "...not securely attested..." as
no one analysis can be ruled out.

> As for _*-ain_ > _aen_, i.e. in closed, post-tonic syllable, I'm not so
> sure. Do you have an example handy? Of course, _*ai_ > _*ae_ in
> stressed syllables.
>
> [Good point; in that specific environment, no, I can't bring any
> example to mind (though its prominent presence in other
> environments is surely suggestive). On the other hand, can you
> provide any support for supposing that it would yield _-en_ in that
> environment? CFH]

I cannot. A very speculative case might be S. _Glinnel_, pl. _Glinnil_.
Tolkien writes: " The old clan name _*Lindâi_ survived in the compound
_Glinnel_ ..." [XI:378]. One might analyse this as _*Lindâi + la/o_ as
_*Lindâ_+_El_ > _*Glenn_+_el_ or _*Lindâ+la/o_ cannot account for the
'i' of the root. At least one problem here is that Tolkien speaks
clearly of a 'compound' which points to an analysis of _-el_ < _El_
'Elf' for the second element.

Maybe a form like _Abonnen_ 'After-born' (=Q: _Apanóna_) [XI:386] could
be interpreted as < _*Ap(a)onna-inâ_ as we have Noldorin _ed-onna_
'beget' but that could, of course, be _*ap(a)onn-inâ_ as well and
remains inconclusive too. Generally, a monophthongisation doesn't seem
unlikely for phonotactic reasons given that Sindarin looses all final
vowels (even _-*yâ_). But no, I cannot but speculate.

David Kiltz

[cross-posted to elfling, lambengolmor and tolklang]

I would like to inform you that I have revised my analysis
of the  so-called _Atalante_ fragments. There were some
things to be corrected, I tried to weed out all typos and
the like. The analysis itself was not drastically changed.
Most changes can be found in the _nahamna_ entry. There
was a discussion on the form on the lambengolmor list soon
after the analysis was published. I tried to work out the
listmembers' comments.

I would like to thank to Helge Fauskanger who sent me comments
to the analysis. I found them interesting and important, so I
tried to incorporate them as well. One of his comments was a
suggestion that there might be a color reproduction of the
Lowdham's fragment in the hardback edition of _Sauron Defeated_
-- the paperback edition that I and Helge possess contains only
a black-and-white photocopy. For that reason I would also like
to thank to Carl Hostetter who sent me a description of the
color reproduction.

For more details on the revised version see my note at the
end of the Preface of the analysis.
http://www.elvish.org/elm/atalante.zip [*]

[*] This time I was almost literally forced to pack the file.
The original .doc document had cca. 600 kB. I wanted to save
it as .rtf using ms word 2002 (interestingly enough, this did
not happen on my old computer where I used an older version of
ms word) but I was surprised to see the output file being twice
as big as the original (ca. 1200 kb), which was rather a big
file to download. I decided to zip it up and now the packed
file has ca. 130 kB. Nevertheless, I would prefer an .rtf file
instead. If one can give me advise, I would be thankful. Let
me know offlist: ales dot bican at softhome dot net


Ales Bican

ps. Let me say that there are other updates on the elm
(http://www.elvish.org/elm) site, such as a few new names
added to the Lapseparma or new additions to the list of
Elvish compositions all around the web (my thanks to
Earráme).

Helge Fauskanger has incorporated rejoinders to various posts I have
made on this list (and others) into revisions to his article,
"Reconstructing the Sindarin Verb System"
(<http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/sverb-rec.htm>) on his Ardalambion
web-site.* Here is a list of all the relevant posts of mine to which
Helge has responded:

1) "Some notes on Noldorin and Sindarin past-tense verbs" (Lambengolmor
list, message 464, July 11, 2003:
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lambengolmor/message/464>)

2) "Sindarin past-tense from TIR-" (Elfscript list, message 2783, Oct.
15, 2003: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elfscript/message/2783>)

3) NOTE the corrections I made to this post in my immediate follow-up,
message 2785, of the same date
(<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elfscript/message/2785>)

4) "S. _agor_ 'made, did' and the Sindarin past tense" (Lambengolmor
list, message 496, Oct. 16, 2003:
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lambengolmor/message/496>)

5) "Re: Sindarin past-tense from TIR-" (Elfscript list, message 2794,
Oct. 18, 2003: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elfscript/message/2794>)

I'd like to offer my own responses to these rejoinders here, to record
both the rejoinders and my responses, and to further dialogue on the
subject. Since Helge can change his web page at any time, and without
record, I quote his rejoinders here in full, with my own responses
interspersed.

* For the record, Helge has been issued but thus far not accepted
numerous invitations to discuss this and other topics in Tolkienian
linguistics on this list -- where, unlike Elfling, no one is or need
fear being banned for disagreeing with the list administrator --
instead preferring to conduct his side of the discussion on his web
site or in forums where such discussion is off-topic or which are not
open to all.

===========================

In reply to my comments on the Noldorin pa.t. verb _tiriant_ (items 2,
3, and 5 above), Helge writes:

> Regarding the verb "watch", the entry TIR- in the Etymologies reads,
> in part: "N tiri or tirio, pa.t. tiriant." Here, tiri would seem to be
> the infinitive form of a consonant stem tir-, whereas tirio is the
> infinitive of an A-stem *tiria-. It is my opinion that tiriant is
> intended as the past tense of tirio only, whereas the past tense of
> tiri is simply not stated. It could thus be *tirn, as theorized above.
> Carl F. Hostetter argues that tiriant is intended as the past tense of
> both tir- and the synonymous A-stem tiri[a]-, but it is safe to say
> that if tiriant is to be the past tense of a primary verb like tir-,
> such a preterite could not be a historically justified form.

Since about half of the attested Noldorin and Sindarin past-tense verbs
in _-ant_ likewise "cannot be historically justified forms" (see my
post to Lambengolmor, no. 464), this last sentence of Helge's isn't
saying much! Furthermore, the idea that _tiriant_ is the pa.t. only of
_tirio_ becomes much less tenable when the citation is given and
considered in its full context, where it forms the second part of a
parallel construction with the Qenya forms: "Q _tirin_ I watch, pa.t.
_tirne_; N _tiri_ or _tirio_, pa.t. _tiriant_." (Indeed, this template
is repeated throughout the T-section (one of the more cohesive and
internally consistent sections of _Etymologies_): Q present aorist, [Q
pa.t.]; N present infinitive, [alternative form], [N pa.t.]] E.g., "Q
_turin_ wield, control, govern, pa.t. _turne_; N _ortheri_, 3 sg.
_orthor_ (*_ortur-_) master, conquer" (TUR-); "[Q] _tyalin_ I play. N
_telio_, _teilio_ (*_tyaliâ-_) to play" (TYAL-); etc.)

----

In reply to my comments on the Noldorin/Sindarin past-participial
ending _-en_ (item 5 above), Helge writes:

> On October 19th, 2003, in a letter to the Elfscript list, Carl F.
> Hostetter writes regarding this explanation of the origin of the
> Noldorin/Sindarin past participles: "I disagree with this unqualified
> assertion. This -en may also have arisen from *-inâ, and thus be
> cognate with the Quenya past participial ending -ina exhibited by such
> relatively late Quenya forms as rákina 'broken', etc" (MC:223).

I must note at the start that Helge has misrepresented the context and
misunderstood the meaning of my statement, in that it was _not_ made in
reply to his "explanation of the origin of the Noldorin/Sindarin past
participles" as presented on his web page, as Helge claims. Instead, it
was made in reply to this statement of his from a post he made to the
Elfscript mailing list (message 2793, Oct. 18, 2003:
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elfscript/message/2793>):

		 The past participle marker _-en_ historically evolves from _-e_
		 (the vowel all past tense-forms originally seem to have ended in,
		 still so in Quenya) + the participial ending _-nâ_, worn down to
		 _-n_ in Noldorin/Sindarin.

As my response to this statement indicates quite clearly, I was
disagreeing with this statement as a blanket assertion concerning the
origin and derivation of the Noldorin/Sindarin past-participial ending
_-en_; hence my saying that "This _-en_ may _also_ have arisen from
*_-inâ_" (emphasis mine).

> However, the Quenya past passive participles are quite different in
> form. If we assume that, say, the verb *dag- "slay" (inf. degi from
> root NDAK, LR:375) had the Old Noldorin past participle **ndákina to
> go with a Quenya form like rákina, then the later form of the past
> participle would have been (**daugen >) **dogen, but the attested form
> is dangen!

Again, Helge has misrepresented and/or misunderstood my claim, which
was _not_ that the Noldorin or Sindarin past participle formation _as a
whole_ was cognate with the Q(u)enya formation, but only that the
past-participial _ending_, _-en_, _may_ have been cognate with the
Q(u)enya _ending_ in at least some forms, in contrast with Helge's
blanket assertion to the contrary. Thus, contrary to Helge's
implication, I never proposed that any such formation as *_ndâkinâ_
underlay any Noldorin or Sindarin past participle, _only_ that the
Noldorin and Sindarin past-participial ending _-en_ may, in some cases
at least, have been cognate with the ending _-ina_ exhibited in
Q(u)enya past participles.

> Moreover, in Quenya the ending -ina is also added to A-stem verbs,
> resulting in a diphthong ai as in hastaina "marred" (MR:254). If we
> tried to apply this system to a verb like prest[a]- "to affect", so
> that the Old Noldorin passive participle had been **prestaina, then
> the later form would have been either **prestoen (in Etym-style
> Noldorin) or **prestaen (in Sindarin). The attested form is
> prestannen!

Since I never claimed that the Noldorin/Sindarin ending under
discussion was added to the present-tense verb stem as in Q(u)enya,
Helge is here drifting far off the point. But I will take this
opportunity to note that, in a language very much affected by
analogical levelling, and in particular in a past-tense system
_characterized_ by the same, if any such form as *_prestoen_ ever
existed, it would not be at all surprising for them to be levelled out
of the system.

> Presumably Hostetter will have to agree that the Noldorin/Sindarin
> passive participles cannot possibly be direct cognates of the Quenya
> formations; the N/S forms are unquestionably formed from past-tense
> verbs.

Since I never made any claim to the contrary, despite Helge's portrait,
my agreement is not at issue.

> But if I understand him correctly, he argues that the very ending -en
> may well be a direct cognate of the Quenya ending -ina. However, the
> form thoren, which Tolkien explicitly calls a "pp." (past/passive
> participle), he equally explicitly derived from tháurênâ (Etym, entry
> THUR). This indicates that in this case at least, the ending -en
> descends from -ê (old past tense ending) + nâ (basically an old
> adjectival ending).

Once again, despite Helge's implication, I never claimed that N/S _-en_
was cognate with Q _-ina_ _in every case_, only that N/S _-en_ _may_
have arisen from a cognate form in some cases. Again, as I made quite
plain, my disagreement was with Helge's blanket assertion, which
despite being based on just a _single_ form did not allow for any other
possibilities.

> As far as I can see, all attested Noldorin/Sindarin past passive
> participles can be successfully explained as being formed by the same
> pattern: we are dealing with old past tense forms to which the ending
> -nâ was added. The consonant of the ending -en is what remains of -nâ
> after the loss of final vowels, whereas the vowel of -en is the vowel
> all past tense forms formerly ended in (in Quenya, all preterites
> still end in -e). While it is true that *-inâ would also produce
> Noldorin/Sindarin -en (the final âumlauting the i to e before it was
> lost), I do not see the need to arbitrarily assume that this ending
> was formerly present when we have an attested pattern which is equally
> capable of explaining all known Noldorin/Sindarin past participles.

In fact, it is Helge that "arbitrarily assumed", and flatly asserted,
in the Elfscript post to which my own statement was a response, that
the N/S past-participial ending _-en_ "historically evolves from _-e_ +
the participial ending _-nâ_" in every case.

----

In reply to my comments regarding the Sindarin past-tense formation
exhibited by _agor_ (items 2 and 4 above), Helge writes:

> Carl F. Hostetter argues that the final vowel should remain long in
> the Sindarin words, since it was long at an older stage (e.g. *onúr
> rather than *onur, because the older form would be *onôr-).

Yet again, Helge has misrepresented what I actually argued, which was
1) that if the pattern exhibited by S _agor_ < *_akâra_ is to be
applied to a hypothetical past-tense verb from TIR-, then it is _not_
the case that, as Helge claims in his Ardalambion article, the result
would be *_idiren_, since as I have already discussed (item 4 above),
that makes assumptions not in evidence; and 2) that Helge has an
insufficient basis on which to assert that S _agor_ < *_akâra_ shows
shortening of the vowel, especially as it seems evident that the actual
process was one of monophthongization (which is _not_ the same as
shortening) from earlier *_au_, itself arising by diphthongization of
original long *_â_;* and 3) that since the base vowel of the putative
*_itîri_ (formed on the pattern of *_akâra_) would not diphthongize as
long *_â_ did, the example of _agor_ provides insufficient basis upon
which to assert that the vowel would shorten. Note that, therefore,
contrary to Helge's claim, I did _not_ argue that the vowel should
remain long in the final, unstressed syllable** of such hypothetical
personless preterite verbs as Helge proposes ("*_onur_", etc.); only
that it _might_ remain long in the _stressed_ _root_ syllable of
_stems_ of such verbs, e.g. *_idíri-_; and, more to the point, that
there is no basis upon which to assert that it would shorten in that
position in such forms as Helge's *_idiren_.

* The canonical example of this in Sindarin (proper) is the development
of S _Araw_ (= Q _Orome_) given in _Quendi and Eldar_ (XI:400).

** If that is indeed what we have in S _agor_ < *_akâra_. By the usual
rules, we would expect the stress in _agor_ to be on the initial
syllable: *_Agor_. But consider that in the Germanic languages, where
by the "usual rules" the stress lies on the first syllable of (native)
words, there is an exception where that syllable is, or is felt to be,
a verbal prefix; thus such verbal prefixes as German and Old English
_ge-_, Middle English _y-_, etc., are _never_ stressed initially. It
seems possible that Sindarin might make the same kind of morphemic
distinction with respect to stress, so that the stress would instead be
on the second syllable: *_aGOR_. Examples of the blocking of
monopthongization in stressed/lengthened environments (see below),
however, argue against this, since we don't have S *_agaur_.

> The attested example agor (instead of *agór) he dismisses because we
> would here see au at an intermediate stage between the original long â
> and the later o: akâra > *agaur > agor.

And still again, Helge has misrepresented my position. I never
"dismissed" _agor_ -- rather, I explained its actual course of
development -- nor ever proposed anything like *_agór_. See the
preceding for what my actual argument and position is.

> Personally I would expect o monophthongized from an older diphthong au
> to be especially prone to remain a long ó if that were possible,
> maintaining the prosodic length of the older diphthong.

I see no reason to _expect_ any such thing. What we see from actual
evidence is that this monophthongization is often "blocked" when the
diphthong remains in a stressed/lengthened environment, as in
monosyllables, which are typically stressed/lengthened: thus we see
_glaur_ but _Maglor_ (VT41:10).

> Yet we see agor rather than *agór, and then we can probably conclude
> that other vowels would also become short in the final syllable of
> this kind of past tense.

No, we cannot conclude such a thing, at least not on the basis of
_agor_. Where monophthongization does not apply, as in the case of the
putative *_itîri_, its results do not constitute evidence for the
outcome. Nor is the (probably) unstressed root syllable of _agor_ a
parallel case to the stressed root syllable of the proposed stem
*_idíri-_ under discussion.

> In the final syllable of a Noldorin/Sindarin word, a formerly long
> vowel may very well be shortened.

Indeed; but since I never proposed that the personless sg. form would
be *_idír_, Helge is again straying far from the point. What I _did_
propose was that the _stem_ arising from such a form as *_itîri_ would
be *_idíri-_ (my first proposal was *_idîra-_, corrected by implication
to *_idíri-_ in my item 4); I made no claim whatsoever regarding the
endingless form.

>  Compare a Noldorin word like lhasbelin "autumn", which Tolkien
> derived from older lassekwelêne (Etym, entry LAS1). The original long
> ê must at one point have become a long î, such changes only affecting
> long vowels. But in later Noldorin this vowel, though maintaining its
> new quality, has been shortened (hence the form lhasbelin instead of
> **lhasbelín). I would likewise expect a formerly long vowel to have
> become short in the final syllable of agor-type preterites.

Again, this sort of unstressed environment was not under discussion.

----

In reply to my comments regarding personless sg. vs. 3rd sg. in the
Eldarin verb (item 1 above), Helge adds a new appendix:

> Appendix D: "3rd Person" or "Personless" Forms: a Question of
> Terminology
>
> Carl F. Hostetter, this ever-diligent critic of this article, has
> questioned the terminology here used. He presented the following
> comments on the Lambengolmor list:
>
> Fauskanger repeatedly refers to past-tense verbs in -nt as "3rd pers.
> sg." (in some cases "transparently" so). In light of this, it is
> noteworthy that none of the Noldorin verbs of this form found in
> Etymologies is translated with specifically 3rd-person sg. glosses;
> short of an explicit statement by Tolkien that all Noldorin past-tense
> verbs in -nt are specifically 3rd pers. sg., there is in fact no way
> to prove what Fauskanger silently asserts. In fact, given what we know
> about personless verb forms in the Eldarin tongues [...] and based on
> the evidence we actually have, it is far more likely that these forms
> are singular personless forms, and therefore would be used in any case
> where an explicit, singular subject precedes the verb. Indeed, the
> same holds true of the Sindarin past-tense verbs in -nt, for although
> teithant is indeed used by Tolkien with a 3rd pers. sg. subject
> (Celebrimbor ... teithant 'Celebrimbor ... drew'), this does not in
> itself necessarily preclude its possible usage as a personless verb
> with 1st and 2nd person subjects, any more than the use of endingless
> present-tense verbs in Quenya with 3rd pers. sg. subjects precludes
> their use with other singular persons, such as in elye hiruva 'thou
> shalt find" (where the subject is 2nd sg.). Indeed, another such verb,
> echant, is used by Tolkien with a 1st pers. sg. subject, and
> translated as such: Im, Narvi, ... echant'I, Narvi, ... made'.
>
> First of all, it should be noted that this "controversy" only has to
> do with what terminology it is best to use when describing the
> Sindarin verb system; there is not (in this case) any disagreement
> about how the verb system actually works.

First, note that the it is Helge who refers to this as a "controversy"
(with quotes that give the false impression that he is quoting me in
that term, and thus that I used it). Second, it is _not_ true that my
criticism "only has to do with what terminology it is best to use";
rather, it is about the basis upon which claims are made about the
evidence for Tolkien's languages. Moreover, Helge's labeling of all
endingless forms of the Sindarin preterite as specifically "3rd sg."
masks a notable and characteristic feature of the Eldarin verbal
system, and makes such authentic examples of Sindarin as "_Im, Narvi,
... echant_" puzzling. I am certainly not opposed to using "3rd sg." as
a shorthand way of saying "3rd person and/or personless singular" (as,
I suspect, Tolkien was doing in such cases in _Etymologies_) -- my
point was not that 3rd sg. forms should always be described instead as
personless, but rather that personless forms are not always 3rd sg. --
but this usage should be noted upfront, and explicitly, to avoid giving
the wrong impression about the actual nature of these forms, or at any
rate about what is actually known about that nature vs. what is merely
surmised. Reading on, it becomes apparent that Helge and I are in fact
largely in agreement about the nature of these personless forms; all
the more reason, I submit, that he should make it clear just what he
means when he uses the "3rd sg." shorthand, and be somewhat more
judicious in its application -- as it seems he now is in his revised
article.

>          Hostetter is undoubtedly right that an Eldarin verb, where it
> occurs without pronominal endings, is strictly speaking "personless"
> rather than belonging specifically to the 3rd person. We are dealing
> with the "basic" finite form of the verb. Where the subject is a
> pronoun and this pronoun is not added directly to the verb as a
> suffix, but appears as an independent word, then the "personless" form
> is used - no matter what "person" the pronoun belongs to. If the
> pronoun is singular, the verb receives no ending at all (as in the
> example Hostetter refers to:Im ... echant "I...made"). If the pronoun
> is plural, then the verb would probably receive the plural marker -r;
> this system is attested in Quenya (as in emme avatyarir "we forgive",
> VT43:8, 20).
>           Yet such verbs may conveniently be referred to as "3rd
> person" verbs, since they typically would occur with a noun as their
> subject, and this noun is thought of as "3rd person" because it could
> be replaced by a 3rd person pronoun. This is Tolkien's own
> terminology: A verb-form like tôg (Etym, entry TUK) would
> typically translate into English as "leads", an English 3rd person sg.
> form. One could say, for instance, *Narvi tôg (and/or maybe *tôg
> Narvi) for "Narvi leads". Yet this verb is by Hostetter's terminology
> surely a "personless" form since it has no pronominal markers, and
> indeed it could probably be combined with any independent (sg.)
> pronoun regardless of what "person" the pronoun belongs to (e.g. the
> first person if we rewrite the Moria Gate inscription as *im, Narvi,
> tôg "I, Narvi, lead"). I do not disagree with any of this - there is
> just one detail which Hostetter should notice: Tolkien himself called
> tôg a "3 sg." form in the Etymologies, entry TUK.
>           So what I have done, really only amounts to applying
> Tolkien's own terminology to the past tense as well as the present (or
> aorist?) tense. I, like Tolkien, find this a convenient way of
> referring to the forms in question, though as pointed out by
> Hostetter, these forms as such do not belong specifically to the 3rd
> person: When the subject is an independent pronoun, this pronoun shows
> what "person" we are dealing with, whereas the verb is simply unmarked
> in this regard. In general, we can still call these verb forms "3rd
> person" forms. Calling them "personless forms" because in certain
> contexts they can do service for any "person" is like calling the
> Quenya nominative case an "indefinite case" because the "nominative"
> forms can sometimes do service for any case: In a genitive phrase like
> Elendil Vorondo "of Elendil the Faithful" (UT:305) it is only the last
> word that receives the genitive ending -o, whereas the word Elendil
> appears in a form that looks like the nominative. The point is that
> the explicit case marker is added to another word (vorondo as the
> genitive of voronda "faithful"), but applies to the entire phrase.
> Similarly, in im...echant "I...made" it is another word - the
> independent pronoun - which shows what "person" we are dealing with,
> though the verb echant looks like a 3rd person sg. form. This does not
> mean that terms like "nominative" and "3rd person verb" must be
> scrapped as useless and inadequate, to be replaced by something like
> "indefinite/unmarked case" or Hostetter's "personless form". Tolkien's
> terms describe the typical function of the relevant forms well enough.



--
=============================================
Carl F. Hostetter   Aelfwine@...   http://www.elvish.org

		    ho bios brachys, he de techne makre.
			        Ars longa, vita brevis.
	         The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
"I wish life was not so short," he thought.  "Languages take such
      a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."

I'm coming back to a question already discussed earlier.
In his article on the Sindarin verb, H. Fauskanger notes:

> "garo "[to] have, hold" is said to have the 1st person present tense
> gerin".

I cannot find this attested, as the entry in The Etymologies [V:360]
sub 3AR- simply translates _gerin_ 'I hold, have' but doesn't qualify
it further. Now, the few Late Noldorin and Sindarin forms in 1st sg.
_-in_ are mostly interpreted as present tense and likened to Quenya
aorist forms in _-in_. While an ON 3rd sg. present _trenare_ 'he
recounts, tells to an end' [V:374] sub NAR2- is actually attested,
_gerin_ and _ú-chebin_ [LRIII:423] may both be interpreted as perfects.
_ú-chebin_ is translated 'I have kept no' and this fits (resultative
state) perfectly (no pun). As for _gerin_, it has to be said that verbs
of the meaning 'to have, hold' often (in I.-E.) derive from 'perfects'
or, in Germanic, so called preterito-presents. Cf. Goth., ONorse,
OEnglish _áih, á, ág_ 'I have' (<_*Heik'-h2a_) with perfect morphology,
or indeed Modern English 'I have got'. The 'i' in the ending would then
< _*ie_ found also in Quenya perfects.

Note that _gerir_ (_cerir_) in line 8 of the Sindarin 'Pater Noster'
[VT44:21] may well mean 'have done [sins]', 'have sinned' rather than
simply '[who] sin'.

Comments are welcome.

David Kiltz

[I'm inclined to interpret N. _gerin_ 'I hold, have' as an aorist, since
this fits both the gloss and the apparent derivation < aorist stem
*_kari- + 1 sg. _-n_. Likewise I would stick with Bill Welden's interpre-
tation of _gerir_ (lenited < *_cerir_) in the Sindarin Paternoster as the
"third person plural aorist form of the verb _caro_ 'to do', seen also in
line 4" (VT44:30). Note that S. _gerir_ is apparently the direct cognate
of Q. aorist _karir_ in _i karir quettar ómainen_ 'those who form words
with voices' (XI:391. Interpretation of _ú-chebin_ 'I have kept no' as
an aorist 'I do not keep' in Gilraen's _linnod_ might also be a viable
interpretation, since this verb describes Gilraen's habitual or ongoing
state of hopelessness (past, present, and future). -- PHW]

In #3 of Hiswelóke (http://move.to/hisweloke) Didier Willis published
an analysis of a Noldorin sentence found on an early sketch of Thror's
Map.

The phrase runs:

_Lheben teil brann i·annon ar  neledh neledhi gar godrebh_.

(For the analysis please check the URL, the articles are freely
available).

As an output of his analysis, Didier Willis gives: _Leben teil brann
i·annon ar neledh neledhi [gar] godrebh_ "Cinq pieds de haut la porte,
et trois entrent à travers ensemble". I agree with Didier Willis' analysis
in all but two points. 1) His translation seems to take _neledhi_ as an
inflected verb rather than an infinitive and 2) seems to dispense of
_gar_. So, the crux of the matter seems to be _gar_ on which Didier
says: "On le retrouve dans un autre texte de J.R.R.Tolkien, sans qu'il
soit réellement possible d'en analyser la fonction" ('It [the word _gar_]
can also be in one other text by J.R.R.Tolkien but it isn't really
possible to analyse its function').

I beg to differ here. Indeed, I think it is quite possible to analyse
its function, although the from is much harder.

_Neledhi_ can hardly be an inflected verb, we would expect _*neledhir_.
   A 3rd sg. present in _-i_ is nowhere attested. Moreover if one takes
forms like _gerin_ [V:360] as (aorist?) present the problem of ON
_trenare_ [V:374] remains as that should give _*trenar_. Sure, a sort
of 'restitution' of the ''thematic vowel' 'i' could be posited but that
seems very far fetched. The most obvious interpretation to me is that
as an infinitive in _-i_ amply attested in the corpus. That leaves us
with _gar_ as the only inflected verb.

This is found in "Damrod ... ven Sirion gar meilien ... 'Damrod ...
towards [the river] Sirion went smiling ...' [MC:217]. In this context,
only _gar_ or _meilien_ can mean 'went'. Apart from the similarity with
PIE _*smei-_ 'to laugh, smile' _meilien_ looks more like an adjective.
So _gar_ would here, as on Thror's Map, mean something like 'to go'.
What about the form then? Well, to make a long story short, in the MC
sentence I would view _gar_ as either a historical present (with ending
-r for 3rd sg. as, e.g. in Quenya _lútier_ (though not a present
itself) [MC:216]) or an 'endingless' past tense _gar-0_ (cf. _dir_
'saw' in the same poem?).

On Thror's Map that would have been reinterpreted as _ga-r_ with _-r_
indicating plurality this time (cf. the same development in Quenya).
Such a word for 'to go' is not attested elsewhere but note that verbs
for 'to go' tend to be highly suppletive (cf. ModernEnglish _go -
went_, Spanish _andar - va -  fue_ etc.).

H. Fauskanger's _gar-_ 'be able' is entirely ad hoc and has, in my
opinion, nothing to recommend itself.

Literally, thus, I would translate _Leben teil brann i·annon ar neledh
neledhi gar godrebh_ 'Five feet high the door and three entering go
abreast'.

David Kiltz

[If David is correct in interpreting _gar_ as 'go, went', there may be
a conceptual connection with _gwara-_ (pa.t. _gwarathi_) 'wander,
roam, travel (far)' cited in GL (PE11:43) -- though this verb was sub-
sequently emended to _gwada-_. -- PHW]

In regard to the "'controversy'" whether Sindarin verbs with no person marker
present should better be called "3rd.sg." forms or "personless" forms, I'd like
to question the relevance of both terms.

As examples like _Im ... echant_ (Moria Inscription) and _Ónen ..._ (Gilraen's
linnod) makes clear, in at least LotR-style Sindarin, the ending _-n_ is only
used when no independent pronoun is present (or at least is not compulsory when
one is present - only a direct statement by Tolkien could rule out absolutely
the grammaticallity of *_Im echannen_, assuming that's indeed what _-ant +en_
would give - I am aware of no Tolkienian example). This would seem to suggest
that it is better thought of as a cliticized pronoun than a person agreement
marker.

I would thus suggest that to minimize the potential for confusion, we should
refer to Sindarin's suffixed pronominal markers simply as suffixed pronouns,
and, when necessary to single them out, to forms without a suffixed pronoun
simply as without a suffixed pronoun. While this would clash with Tolkien's
characterization of _tôg_ as "3 sg.", it would be in agreement with how the
pronominal system of Q is frequently described (for instance in Mr Fauskanger's
Ardalambion article on Q), and, IMHO, less prone to cause confusion.

                                                          Andreas

[I appreciate Andreas's point, but my own "vote" remains for "personless",
because it is more precise: the point of these forms is not just that they
are unsuffixed, but that what they are lacking is, specifically, any
indication of the person of their subject. Also, if we adopt the suffixed vs.
unsuffixed terminology, won't that be confusing in the plural, where
there is a suffixed number marker (but, again, no marker for person)?

I would also point out that there is indirect evidence, from Quenya, that
prefixed subjects can nonetheless have personal endings: _elle hiruvalle_
occurs in one of the typescript drafts of Galadriel's Lament (cf. VT41:4). CFH]

To all those interested in JRRT's tengwar usage when writing in
English (_not_ OE), I have put up an analysis at my Gondolin website
(www.geocities.com/otsoandor/ -- or shortcut: gondolin.net.ms).
You may find the analysis itself at .../otsoandor/FTMME.htm with a
PDF file comparing modes at .../otsoandor/FTMME.pdf

To all Lambengolmor: Keep up the good work!

Ronald Kyrmse / Certur Harmatir     8^)