"Philological Inquiries"

[Sharkû]

<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hungry Ghoul
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Considering the philologist's background of JRRT, there are two things in his fiction which I find peculiar.
I noticed the first one earlier today when I read the question about the names of Turin in the Quiz Room, and immediately afterwards the random quote by Gwindor: &quot;The doom lies in yourself, not in your name.&quot;
Many examples in Middle-Earth show us the opposite, that doom does lie in one's name, be it as unchangeable fate which hits the likewise named person, or be it that the name given to a person was chosen out of a premonition of things to come. The fate of name-giving all the while lay of course in the hands of JRRT, but in the context of his myth it did not. Examples are easy to find for both cases, seeming coincidence and premonition: Èarendil, the Sea-lover, most famous of all mariners; Arvedui, the Last King, Malbeth chose this name for him with hindsight; Melkor, the mighty Rebel; Tar-Palantír, who proved his name right with his prophecy; Féanor, restless fire-spirit; the kings of Rohan, whose are Anglo-Saxon expressions for rulers and kings. Doom clearly lay in their names, and there are many more.
Yet what is it with Túrin? The argument would be that fate is unchangeable, be it tied to a name or not. Changing the name cannot change fate. This is it what Gwindor means anway I presume. Still I believe that another reason was more important to JRRT personally: that one cannot choose his own name; that language, and philology, are much higher to be estimated than as a mere instrument of the speaking peoples. Names are fate-bearing marks which cannot be removed, but more can be added by those conscious of fate.

Nothing new as this may have been, I still have pondered over another peculiarity for a while: languages and their creation. Normally one would argue that a philologist such as JRRT would despise unnatural languages which did not grow in time in connection to a people, their history, stories, and fate. I have a strong suspicion that JRRT disliked the idea of Esperanto which cannot be a language for anyone who connects things such as menories, tales, and a certain (national) identity with a language. For the books, however, a compromise had to be made: the peoples of Middle-Earth got their full-wrought languages, and those even have origin and development. Undoubtedly, there must be a philogist figure in The Lord of the Rings? Frodo and especially Bilbo Baggins would be good examples.
But, what now really matters is: the only person in the books who comes close to the author in the regard that he invented a language all by himself is the person the author despied most, and his language was made to be an anti-language of linguistically disgusting appearance and sound: Sauron and the Black Speech. I could easily accept this as being rooted in the philological dislike, maybe even hatred, of inventing languages. One who breaks the rules of philology by making a tongue up without history, cannot do good in this, and cannot be good himself. This would sound logic to me. Yet it is not so when looking to JRRT who invented the languages himself.
What can we take as the absolute truth here, if there is one? That inventing names and languages is alright as long as it is bound to certain rules? Then which rules did Sauron, and did Túrin break?


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