Part of the confusion here, for me at least,
Child, is that you first raised your point on the thread about the Shire, where the question of an English geographical idyll was being developed, particularly when you raised letter no. 19 about Bombadil representing the disappearing Oxfordshire countryside.
Your first post here on this thread, although it does mention the word 'language', also is devoted mainly to your experience of the English landscape (with a few other points I grant, such as their wonderful heating systems [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]).
I was immediately put in mind of a particular literary tradition, best known probably through Shakespeare's green and blessed isle and of Blake's holy Jerusalem being replanted in England's green realm (sorry I can't get my hands on the exact quotations right now and must shortly ferry daughter off to skating) but I decided not to mention those associations because they are
non-Tolkien. This I cannot see in The Silm.
Quote:
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(I have other concerns about Tolkien's desire to create an English mythology for his Legendarium--for the "Englishness" of the LOTR I do not see in The Silm--but this is not the place to present them.)
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Consequently, when I made the above quotation, I was referring to this geographical idyll. What those concerns were that I had but did not think belonged are related to the linguistic issues which you are just now bringing to the fore of the discussion.
It seems to me that behind that great yarn or great story which
Mithadan proclaims (and I don't mean to discount his claims here) was Tolkien's languages. Having created his languages, he invented characters to speak them. That Letter No. 19 which I quoted on the other thread identifies mythology and languages almost simultaneously in the same sentence.
Oh, and BTW, while I am not an Old English scholar, I studied Old English at the graduate level under scholars who were taught by Tolkien. Had you chosen Toronto,
Child, you would have, too. And we would likely have met. I think it is fair to say of them that the appropriate epitaph for 1066 is
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Bethberry
[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]