Tolkien posts, April (Tumblr)
May. 30th, 2019 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineI wrote a bit more in April! I'm sure this was unrelated to finishing up the last of my coursework for my PhD. Well, almost the last of it.
Anyway.
On the 1st, diocletianscabbagefarm said:
So apparently the Amazon LotR series will be - at least in part - about the downfall of Numenor
I replied:
Really? I only saw the “welcome to the Second Age” thing—has there been an update?
If so, I die.
(tags: #my brain: AHHHHHHH #also my brain: BUT WHAT IF AGHHHHHHHHHHHH #BUT WHAT IF GOOD??? #it's honestly a little weird to me to start there #so much of the story of númenor is driven (meta-wise) by lotr and narratively by the silm #númenor is a gift for the edain and a legacy for the dúnedain #not that it isn't powerful in its own right but... hm #also i'm really worried that they'll just ignore the transformation of the edain à la the movies #though so much of the fall is tied up in lifespans that it's hard to see how #ARGH)
April 2nd:
Faramir is my fave, but I’m also really fond of Denethor and Boromir. Sometimes fandom makes this … difficult.
(This was spawned by a post making Faramir's rejection of the Ring out to be a bad thing by contrast to Boromir's superior virtue, while I'm sitting there like ... they're not enemies! You can stan one of them without dismissing the others! God.)
April 13th:
I still wonder about Elrohir’s name.
Like … okay, as I have mentioned maybe once or twice, Tolkien translates Elladan and Elrohir as, respectively, Elf-Númenórean (T_T) and Elf-knight. He says each name essentially refers to their mixed Elvish/human heritage.
So: in whatever dialect Elrond is using, adan at least sometimes indicates a Númenórean/Dúnadan rather than any descendant of the Edain (or any human). This is presumably an evolution from First or Second Age usage, perhaps via Númenor’s or Arnor’s/Gondor’s dominance.
Also: rohir/knight must specifically refer to human knights/riders/horse-lords for Elrohir to indicate Elf+man, as Tolkien says it does. Moreover, rohir is a Gondorian variant on the word for knight in classic Sindarin, rochir, under the influence of Westron.
I’ve said before that I think it’s charming that Elrond would use a Númenórean form rather than the Elvish. I do!
…but, um, I have questions.
Maybe he didn’t have as many issues with Gondor back then as he does in LOTR (sidenote: I love Elrond, but that moment is … bad). Still, his ties are very much more with Isildur’s house and Arnor than with Gondor. It seems a bit odd that he’d choose the Gondorian dialect over the Arnorian, when he’s so attached to the Dúnedain of the North.
Of course, it’s possible that rochir -> rohir occurred in Arnorian Sindarin, too. That would probably make the most sense.
Maybe it evolved independently, since they would also be influenced by Westron; its spread was due to Arnor/Arthedain as well as Gondor, so it must have been widely spoken among them.
Or maybe the Gondorian dialect influenced Arnor’s early on, when the nations had closer ties.
Or maybe the change actually occurred in Númenórean Sindarin and carried over into both Gondorian and Arnorian Sindarin, though it’s odd that it would be so persistently associated with Gondor if that were the case.
And, okay, this is one word. But … assuming there is a Númenórean Sindarin dialect used among the Northern Dúnedain that Elrond named his children in, it’s like …
Is it closer to Elvish Sindarin through actual contact with the Elves? Is it more influenced by Westron, à la Gondor? Was it influenced by Gondor?
Would the Gondorians who call out to each other in Sindarin easily do the same with Northern Dúnedain? Would there be communication gaps?
Would Elladan and Elrohir themselves, and Arwen, use the dialect they (or at least Elrohir) are named in? Wait, are there significant variances in the Sindarin of Rivendell and of the Northern Dúnedain? Maybe they’d know both?? Would they witness whatever linguistic evolution it had and keep up with it? Would they be like the uncle who still uses decades-old slang?
(Elrohir to Estel: whoa, tubular.)
What about Aragorn? He managed to conceal where he was from in Gondor. Does that suggest that Arnorian and Gondorian Sindarin are fairly similar, or that he quickly picked up the southern dialect, or avoided using Sindarin at all back then? When he uses Sindarin as king, is it—
Um. Anyway. I’m 90% about Gondor but still. Arnorian Sindarin!!
April 17th:
Faramir is not immune to the temptation of the Ring 2k19
To be more specific: Faramir feels the temptation and overcomes it, which is a different and vastly cooler thing.
(Yes, yes, coolness is subjective. But Faramir very obviously had his moment of temptation in which he was strengthened by multiple factors—very much including iron-willed virtue, but also things like having already given his word and only being around it for a short period of time. The Ithilien interlude is just this sparkling moment where everything that can go right does—for Faramir as well as because of Faramir. But at the end of the day, he /did/ feel the temptation—and powered through it anyway.)
Anyway.
On the 1st, diocletianscabbagefarm said:
So apparently the Amazon LotR series will be - at least in part - about the downfall of Numenor
I replied:
Really? I only saw the “welcome to the Second Age” thing—has there been an update?
If so, I die.
(tags: #my brain: AHHHHHHH #also my brain: BUT WHAT IF AGHHHHHHHHHHHH #BUT WHAT IF GOOD??? #it's honestly a little weird to me to start there #so much of the story of númenor is driven (meta-wise) by lotr and narratively by the silm #númenor is a gift for the edain and a legacy for the dúnedain #not that it isn't powerful in its own right but... hm #also i'm really worried that they'll just ignore the transformation of the edain à la the movies #though so much of the fall is tied up in lifespans that it's hard to see how #ARGH)
April 2nd:
Faramir is my fave, but I’m also really fond of Denethor and Boromir. Sometimes fandom makes this … difficult.
(This was spawned by a post making Faramir's rejection of the Ring out to be a bad thing by contrast to Boromir's superior virtue, while I'm sitting there like ... they're not enemies! You can stan one of them without dismissing the others! God.)
April 13th:
I still wonder about Elrohir’s name.
Like … okay, as I have mentioned maybe once or twice, Tolkien translates Elladan and Elrohir as, respectively, Elf-Númenórean (T_T) and Elf-knight. He says each name essentially refers to their mixed Elvish/human heritage.
So: in whatever dialect Elrond is using, adan at least sometimes indicates a Númenórean/Dúnadan rather than any descendant of the Edain (or any human). This is presumably an evolution from First or Second Age usage, perhaps via Númenor’s or Arnor’s/Gondor’s dominance.
Also: rohir/knight must specifically refer to human knights/riders/horse-lords for Elrohir to indicate Elf+man, as Tolkien says it does. Moreover, rohir is a Gondorian variant on the word for knight in classic Sindarin, rochir, under the influence of Westron.
I’ve said before that I think it’s charming that Elrond would use a Númenórean form rather than the Elvish. I do!
…but, um, I have questions.
Maybe he didn’t have as many issues with Gondor back then as he does in LOTR (sidenote: I love Elrond, but that moment is … bad). Still, his ties are very much more with Isildur’s house and Arnor than with Gondor. It seems a bit odd that he’d choose the Gondorian dialect over the Arnorian, when he’s so attached to the Dúnedain of the North.
Of course, it’s possible that rochir -> rohir occurred in Arnorian Sindarin, too. That would probably make the most sense.
Maybe it evolved independently, since they would also be influenced by Westron; its spread was due to Arnor/Arthedain as well as Gondor, so it must have been widely spoken among them.
Or maybe the Gondorian dialect influenced Arnor’s early on, when the nations had closer ties.
Or maybe the change actually occurred in Númenórean Sindarin and carried over into both Gondorian and Arnorian Sindarin, though it’s odd that it would be so persistently associated with Gondor if that were the case.
And, okay, this is one word. But … assuming there is a Númenórean Sindarin dialect used among the Northern Dúnedain that Elrond named his children in, it’s like …
Is it closer to Elvish Sindarin through actual contact with the Elves? Is it more influenced by Westron, à la Gondor? Was it influenced by Gondor?
Would the Gondorians who call out to each other in Sindarin easily do the same with Northern Dúnedain? Would there be communication gaps?
Would Elladan and Elrohir themselves, and Arwen, use the dialect they (or at least Elrohir) are named in? Wait, are there significant variances in the Sindarin of Rivendell and of the Northern Dúnedain? Maybe they’d know both?? Would they witness whatever linguistic evolution it had and keep up with it? Would they be like the uncle who still uses decades-old slang?
(Elrohir to Estel: whoa, tubular.)
What about Aragorn? He managed to conceal where he was from in Gondor. Does that suggest that Arnorian and Gondorian Sindarin are fairly similar, or that he quickly picked up the southern dialect, or avoided using Sindarin at all back then? When he uses Sindarin as king, is it—
Um. Anyway. I’m 90% about Gondor but still. Arnorian Sindarin!!
April 17th:
Faramir is not immune to the temptation of the Ring 2k19
To be more specific: Faramir feels the temptation and overcomes it, which is a different and vastly cooler thing.
(Yes, yes, coolness is subjective. But Faramir very obviously had his moment of temptation in which he was strengthened by multiple factors—very much including iron-willed virtue, but also things like having already given his word and only being around it for a short period of time. The Ithilien interlude is just this sparkling moment where everything that can go right does—for Faramir as well as because of Faramir. But at the end of the day, he /did/ feel the temptation—and powered through it anyway.)