Lord of.... Moria?

[Galadriel55]

Gandalf could read Old Norse, but he's the only one in the Fellowship who does. I don't recall him going to the Shire and helping Frodo with his book, though.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Gandalf could read Old Norse, but he's the only one in the Fellowship who does. I don't recall him going to the Shire and helping Frodo with his book, though.

Technically Gandalf could not read Old Norse (as it wasn't yet a language at this point in time). Old Norse, Old English, Modern English all represent actual languages (like Westron) that were spoken or written way back in 'those ancient days'.

As noted we have Old Norse names in the picture in the book, yet no one but a modern translator could have put them there in translation -- which connects to the argument that 'Moria', despite being a word actually spoken in Frodo's day, also need not have been written on the actual doors, even though this too is written in the picture in the book.

[Galadriel55]

I completely don't get this. I'm so confused! What does a translation have to do with anything?

[Mnemosyne]

Take a look at the prologue to LotR and Appendix F, specifically the part that's called "On Translation". Bilbo, Frodo*, et al. didn't speak English. They spoke Westron,** which Tolkien translated from copies of the Red Book of Westmarch. Languages that were truly foreign to the hobbits were retained in their untranslated form (i.e., Quenya, Sindarin, Entish, Black Speech), but those that were related enough to feel akin to Westron were translated into whatever their equivalent relationship to modern English would be. Hence the Rohirrim speaking Anglo-Saxon in LotR, even though in the Red Book they spoke Rohirric.

And of course I should add that as we know the original Red Book did not survive to Tolkien, it is quite likely that any illustrative drawings like the Moria sketch were either corrupted or (more likely) lost, as many Greek texts that had illustrations lost them during the medieval period.

So in response to your question, Galadriel55, a translation had to do with EVERYTHING as this is how we received LotR from the source material.

*And those weren't even their actual names, but also translations of the Westron.
**Yes, I know, they didn't speak anything because they didn't exist, but within the secondary world this is what was supposed to happen.

[Galin]

Just to add as an example: 'Gandalf' is an Old Norse name, but nobody in Middle-earth would have spoken this name or written it anywhere... it is a translation of something, like 'Sam' (another translation) was really called Ban (short version) according to Appendix F.

Old Norse was still a language of the future in Frodo's day -- or that person the translator has named 'Frodo' actually.

[Mister Underhill]

I'm not sure that I'd go along with the notion that "Moria" is a name which was applied only after the coming of the Balrog. Moria, indeed, is applied very freely throughout the LotR as a synonym for Khazad-dûm, even when relating information about the place which clearly pre-dates the Balrog (e.g., "Moria-silver" for mithril).

I presume this position derives primarily from the line in the Sil ("Greatest of all the mansions of the Dwarves was Khazâd-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, Hadhodrond in the Elvish tongue, that was afterwards in the days of its darkness called Moria"), which also seems to have some implicit support from Gimli's line in "The Ring Goes South" ("...under them lies Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, that is now called the Black Pit, Moria in the Elvish tongue").

But I think the Sil line must give way to the greater authority of the LotR. The notes in Appendix F strongly imply that the name was given with, I daresay, characteristic Elvish contempt that had nothing to do with the Balrog:

"But Moria is an Elvish name, and given without love; for the Eldar, though they might at need, in their bitter wars with the Dark Power and his servants, contrive fortresses underground, were not dwellers in such places of choice. They were lovers of the green earth and the lights of heaven; and Moria in their tongue means the Black Chasm. But the Dwarves themselves, and this name at least was never kept secret, called it Khazad-dûm, the Mansion of the Khazâd..."

Gimli's line may be read in the spirit of "now widely known as the Black Pit, Moria...", or even, "now called, even by the dwarves, the Black Pit, Moria..."

My (admittedly cursory) reading of the notes on "Hadhodrond" in HoME XI is that that name was a "straight" translation of Khazad-dûm applied by the Elves when that place was known to them only at second-hand, and that "Moria" was what they named it when they came and saw it for themselves (but presumably before their fast friendship with the Dwarves of that place blossomed). The inscription on the door might even be a winking nod to the bumpy origins of that friendship.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

But I think the Sil line must give way to the greater authority of the LotR. (...) "But Moria is an Elvish name, and given without love; for the Eldar, though they might at need, in their bitter wars with the Dark Power and his servants, contrive fortresses underground, were not dwellers in such places of choice."

I've no problem with this approach in general, but considering what The Lord of the Rings notes above...

(...) The inscription on the door might even be a winking nod to the bumpy origins of that friendship.

... this much still seems a bit problematic to my mind. It's still the door to a Dwarvish realm, and this explanation, while possible, doesn't seem all that compelling in my opinion.