LotR --- Appendix E -- Writing and Spelling

[davem]

I think that for many of us the pronunciation guide in the first part of this Appendix is in the wrong place. How many of us got the pronunciation of names wrong on our first reading & struggled on subsequent readings to forget our mistaken readings (I still have to stop myself saying My-nas Tirith, Seleborn, ‘Is’-engard, etc).

I can only speculate on Tolkien’s reasons for his use of C instead of K: probably because ‘Celeborn’, as written looks better than Keleborn: ‘K’ looks too sharp & angullar. ‘Celeborn’ looks more beautiful than ‘Keleborn’ (or ‘Seleborn’). In a written narrative the shape of the word as well as the sound plays a part: ‘Celeborn’ is a more attractive collection of letter shapes than, say ‘Ugluk’.

I have to say, though, I find this the least interesting, or useful, of the Appendices. Most of it, sadly, is beyond me. I wish I could read & write (& speak) an Elvish language, but can’t face the effort of learning it. I do find myself fascinated & impressed by the effort put in by Tolkien, not just in creating these languages, but in inventing such a complext structure & history for them. That said, this is one part of LotR I usually skip. However, there is an occasional ‘gem’ to be found:

The Cirth in their older and simpler form spread eastward in the Second Age and became known to many peoples, to Men and Dwarves, and even to Orcs, all of whom altered them to suit their purposes and according to their skill or lack of it. One such simple form was still used by the Men of Dale, and a similar one by the Rohirrim.

We tend to think of the Rohirrim as ‘illiterate’, but clearly they were not: they used a simple form of the Cirth. If nothing else this shows that writing was not beyond their wit, so they must have had some other reason for not developing a literature. It was clearly a cultural thing - they didn’t write down their history, tales or lore out of choice. The extent of their use of the Cirth is open to specullation. I’d guess it included grave markers & probably inscriptions of names on swords/weapons. Named items have a ‘personality’ in a way - if you give something a name you think of it diifferently. A sword with a name is not just a sword. If it has a name, it has a story: certainly with Tolkien a name is significant.

The use of writing is a way of making things permanent - especially if that ‘writing’ is carved into stone or wood. The fact that this is a rrare thing means that objects which are inscribed have a general importance to the folk, & I’m not just referring to weapons here. We tend to think that the lore & history of Rohan depends for its survival on poets & loremasters learning & memorising it, so that anything that is forgotten is lost forever & cannot be rediscovered. The Rohirrim would have been well aware of this, so that anything that was committed to writing, & particularly to inscriiption would be considered of vital importance, something which they could not afford to risk losing. More importantly, perhaps, it was something which they wished to leave to posterity.

Of course, if you write something down you don’t need to remember it, so in a cullture which places such emphasis on oral transmission writing anything down is almost an admission of ‘defeat’ - if you could depend on something being remembered you wouldn’t bother writing it down. But this inscribing of ‘markers’ (either funeral or territorial) tells us something else about Rohirric cullture: they no longer think of themselves as a nomadic folk. They are bound to their land, they have out down roots. It is a highly significant thing, this change from inscribing names only on portable things like weapons to inscribing them on parts of the landscape.

WE actually see the same thing in the history of written language in Middle-earth itself - the tengwar, designed to be written with ‘brush or pen’ comes first, & is then followed by the invention of the cirth. Things written on with brush or pen (books, scrolls) are portable, & tend to reflect an attitude of not being bound to a particular place. The move to inscribing on metal &, finally, on stone, reflects a new stage: putting down roots. Especially carving on stone. In the first instance you’re saying ‘I’m here, & I’m staying’, but by extension you’re also saying ‘I was here, once. Remember me, I don’t want to be forgotten.’

The very existence of written language reflects a sense of impermanence. Things are written down so that they will be remembered - & so we have the Red Book itself. It is written to preserve the memory of the events which ended the Third Age - more: to ‘keep alive the memory of those events.