Question for the Sindarin experts: is Meril still valid?

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Thanks for the input - but what, for example, would be an "updated" version of, say, "Tavrobel" (I have been tempted to replace with "Taurobel"), or Gereth and Evranin (and Evromord), and such from the "Lost Tales"?

Where will you replace Tolkien’s forms, and why do you call it “updating”? How does what appears to me to only be random, and somewhat ignorant, changes, now valid? The only person who has the legal right to make such changes is the author, Tolkien, and his son Christopher, to whom he gave the right in his will.

In The Lost Road and Other Writings (HoME 5), in the section “The Etymologies”, Christopher Tolkien gives in part his father’s comments under the entry PELL(ES)-:

Q peler; opele walled house or village, ‘town’; N gobel, cf. Tavrobel (village of Túrin in the forest of Brethil, and name of village in Tol Eressea) [ᴛᴀᴍ];

Under the entry TAM- Christopher Tolkien writes in part:

(cf. ɴᴅᴀᴍ) knock. *tamrō ‘woodpecker’ (= knocker): Q tambaro; N tafr (= tavr), tavor, cf. Tavr-obel [ᴘᴇʟʟ(ᴇꜱ)].

Christopher Tolkien on pages 412-3 discusses Tavrobel further, pointing out that in accounts written following The Lord of the Rings in his father’s writing on Túrin this Tavrobel in Brethil is replaced by Ephel Brandir on Amon Obel. He also notes that in writings of this period the town on Tol Eressea where Ælfwine visits Pengolodh is sometimes named by his father as Tathrobel.

One more question - what would be a Quenya translation of "Queen of Roses" (like, for example, Elentári translates as "Queen of Stars")

We have probably no extant Quenya translation of ‘rose’ in Tolkien’s writing following his writing of The Book of Lost Tales. If indeed Tolkien had decided that the form Qenya Meril still existed in Quenya and Tolkien now intended it to mean ‘rose’ in Quenya as it did in Sindarin, then the obvious translation would be Meriltári.

[Arvegil145]

What I was talking about is the etymology of names, not the names themselves - for example, in Croatian prozor means window - I was thinking of taking the etymology of, say, a certain Qenya name and see how would it be translated into Quenya or Sindarin.

[jallanite]

I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by jallanite

I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.

Edain is the Sindarin equivalent of Quenya Atani.

What would be the Sindarin and Quenya equivalents to the names (not all of them) found in the "Lost Tales"?

[Arvegil145]

I also ask because I am revising The Cottage of Lost Play (for my own mirth) and The Ruin of Doriath (actually, revisiting it).

Thank you.


P.S. I don't know much about languages, so please forgive me for my ignorance. Also, for what reason is Littleheart (son of Bronweg) named in that manner?

[jallanite]

You are quite at liberty to revise “The Cottage of Lost Play” for non-commercial reasons, as far as I am concerned.

But basically trying to ‘update’ Tolkien’s Qenya and Gnomish appears to me to be futile. We do not even know what Tolkien intended most of the names to mean and therefore have no way of deciding whether those names even need translating. If by “updating” you mean, what would Tolkien have updated these names to if he were updating them in 1971 and wished them to appear in 1971 Quenya and 1971 Sindarin, then the answers you have been given seem to me to be all you will get: nobody no matter how great their linguistic knowledge knows or could reasonably guess how Tolkien would have updated the names, save for the Tolkien of 1971.

As Orphalesion has indicated (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...46&postcount=8) Tolkien would probably have replaced the name of Lindo’s wife Vairë by some other name, because giving her the same name as one of the Valier would have seemed disrespectful. Which other name? I don’t know, nor does anyone I believe.

Tolkien writes in “The Cottage of Lost Play” that Littleheart “sailed in Wingilot with Eärendel in that last voyage wherein they sought for Kôr.”

Yet in Tolkien’s last-written full account of Eärendil’s voyage to Tirion his mariner companions in Vingilot are named as Falathar, Airandir, and Erellont and it is implied that all three are Men, not Elves.

Tolkien writes in The Book of Lost Tales Part II (HoME 2), page 148:

Here is set forth by Eriol at the teaching of Bronweg’s son Elfrith [emended from Elfrinniel] or Littleheart (and he was so named for the youth and wonder of his heart) ….

Christopher Tolkien writes on page 201, “this is the only place where the meaning of the name ‘Littleheart’ is explained.”

[Arvegil145]

Thank you for your substantial answer.

I DO realize that many of the names in the Lost Tales did not bear any meaning, or if they did little is known about it.

But if their etymology is obscure or nonexistent I would still like (since you appear to know much about the linguistic material) to have your advice on what names could be kept from Tolkien's early writings that do not contradict the later development of Sindarin or Quenya. For example (as I have written before):

- Gereth
- Evranin
- Nielthi
- Ilfiniol
- Tavrobel (studying its etymology, I have somewhat naively rendered it to "Taurobel")
- Bodruith
- Valwë
- Tulkastor
- Fankil
- Naimi

What do you make of these?

P.S. Could Voronwë in the later texts still have a son? It seems to me unlikely, but it might be possible (somehow).