[lindil]

Worse, it would be fan fiction to claim that his name was lost - and an unlikely fan fiction at that.

IMO,this is not the case.
If [ and I am not saying anyone else does]we agree w/ CJRT that Rog can not as a name exist in the canononical legendarium, then we really have lost the name, in the same spirit as JRRT writes the 1st chapter of the Hobbit [ as real beings still in our world today, but rare and hiding] and the prolouge of the LotR, that this the LotR translated history. So from this pov if you accept that Rog is almost certainly outdated Sindarin/gnomish then his name being lost to time, archaic alphabets, changing dialects, poor manuscripts, etc seems a possible if not perfect alternative to postulate in a footnote. meaning we can say in our footnote that " alone of the captains of Gondolin the name of the captain of the hammer of Wrath' has been lost to time, whether through archaic alphabets, changing dialects, poor manuscripts or someother reason, we can not longer say...but had the primary translator of theses tales lived to complete the Fall of Gondolin he may well have been able to fill in this lost bit of Lore from the Elder Days'."

So yes we have invented a scenario of exscuses for a real lacuna, not claimed anything happened in M-E other than what did happen, the 'real name' of the captain of the hammer of Wrath is lost.

I do not find using a footnote to explain a lost name any differet [in essence] from our decision to change Legolas --> Laegolas.

Fronm CJRT's pov the evolution of the Legendarium rendered Rog's name unusable in the Silm, just as Legolas in the LotR rendered Legolas' name unusable in the FOG.

If you would not mind clarifying or correcting the following:

Regarding Rog: The problem isn't that 'Rog' is unsuitable in later Quenya or Sindarin; on the contrary, it's found in the Sindarin compound 'balrog'. The problem is that it has a fairly clear meaning in modern Sindarin - 'Demon'. The Etymologies give RUK- as the root, with Q ranko and N rhaug. I think we can all agree such a name is unsuitable for an elf. The Gnomish lexicon gives 'rog' as 'doughty, strong', though CRT notes in BolT that it probably also meant 'fleet, swift'. Since 'strong' is the gloss that JRRT gives, however, I'd be inclined to think that Rog in FoG means 'strong'. Later Quenya for 'strong' might be ...

In the above, I am cheifly confused by the -rog [cognate - is it? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]] being called modern Sindarin, and the later -rhaug.


Jallanite said:

We know Rog is probably wrong, that Tolkien would probably have changed it, but can we change it?

I would rephrase it to say 'can we keep it?'

If -rog means demon, then can not have an elf named such in Gondolin ?

I do not wish to excise any part of the battle [or story] that can stay, but better to loose a large chunk, than keep it with it's central character's name being to my mind clearly uncanonical. Yes the choices all have problems, but I would hate to see us keep Rog, just because we reached agreement on how to deal with his Balrog. I being the laziest amongst us hate wasted effort the most!

Again my apology for delay on the many other points pending. Hopefully in the next couple of days...