Vinyar Tengwar 50

[Tinfang]

So so, liebe Lambengolmor, gibt mal wieder Neuigkeiten, da ist mir doch glatt die Butter in Schoß gefallen, als ich die Mail gelesen hab.

"Thanks to a long year-end break and the easing up of professional obligations, I
am pleased to announce that the long-awaited 50th issue of _Vinyar Tengwar_ is
nearing completion. _VT_ 50 contains my presentation and analysis of the "Túrin
Wrapper", featuring a set of three untranslated Sindarin texts from the
(probably early) 1950s pertaining to the "Túrinssaga".

I hope to have the issue completed, printed, and mailed off by March 1.

Please note that henceforth issues of _Vinyar Tengwar_ will be available only
through the online, print-on-demand publisher Lulu.com, which currently also
publishes the various volumes of "The Collected _Vinyar Tengwar_":
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/elf . Once _VT_ 50 has been mailed, I will be
adding it to, and thus completing, volume 5 of "The Collected _Vinyar Tengwar_".

Current subscribers to _VT_ please note: if you have moved in the years since
_VT_ 49 was published, please email me (directly: Aelfwine@...) as soon
as possible with you current mailing address. And thank you very much for your
long patience!


Carl F. Hostetter"

Interessant dabei ist, dass es sich anscheinend um den Text handelt den der unsägliche Salo einst in "Inside Information" (http://tolklang.quettar.org/messages/Vol21/21.05 ->http://tolklang.quettar.org/messages/Vol21/21.09) erwähnte:

" There also was a small scrap of narrative, starting 'A Rian pent', this
crossed out, and then 'Arphent Rian Tuorna "man agorech?",' clearly meaning
"Rian said to Tuor, "What did you do?"..."

Kann es sein, dass nach so langer Zeit... Seit langem mal wieder gespannt wie ein Flitzebogen

[Roman]

Bei dieser Gelegenheit kann ich mal meine Vermutung wiederholen, dass agorech eine mediale Form ist, wie etwa das russische делаться "sich machen = geschehen, werden", oder das griechische γίγνομαι "sich gebären = geschehen, werden", oder auch das deutsche "sich tun".

Die Bedeutung könnte auch "vollbringen, erreichen" oder so etwas sein, das ist schwer zu erahnen. Also "Was ist geschehen?", "Was ist [aus ihm] geworden?", "Was ist vollbracht worden?". Mal sehen. *fingers crossed*

[Tyrhael]

Sadly, I still can't read or write German; I hope English is permissible. As I didn't know who has received their issue already, I figured I would post a bit of a teaser to whet the appetite, if you will.

How about the Noldorin/Beleriandic/Sindarin pronominal paradigms which appear, then? 8) I'll white out the contents for those who would rather not see the paradigms until the full issue in context is at their doorstep.


p.10 "Finally, if the surmise below concerning the meaning of the pronominal ending -ch of agorech in Area IV – sc., that it is first-person plural inclusive 'we' – is correct, then the text most likely dates from before c. 1955, since it appears that by and after that time -ch is confined to the second-person plural and/or dual."
p.13-4 #16 "It should be noted that given 3rd sg. ed *'it' below, it is possible to interpret en here as instead a 3rd pl. pronoun 'they', in which case -r of estar is simply a third-person (or possibly impersonal) plural ending, with en estar then literally translated as *'they call.' However, where en appears in papers from the 1950s as an independent pronoun it is 1st sg., while the 3rd pl. is variously est, ent, ith (sg. eth), or idi/idir (sg. is), and the (specifically) impersonal plural is î/îr. Moreover [...]"
p.15 "If [...], then ed is most readily interpreted as a third-person singular pronoun *'it' [...] If this surmise is correct, then ed *'it' can be compared with the -d of third-person singular possessive lammed 'his/her/its tongue' (PE17:46), which with ed may ultimately be cognate with Q. ta 'that, it' (V:389 s.v TA-)."
p.21-2 "A survey of pronominal endings in Tolkien's unpublished linguistic writings from the 1950s shows that in this period he alternated among using -ch as first-person plural and/or dual inclusive, and as second-person plural and/or dual familiar.31 Of these possible meanings of -[/i]ch[/i], the most suitable here is 1st pl. incl. 'we,' with man agorech *'what did we do? (or perhaps less literally *'what have we done?')32 representing a rhetorical question, since as noted Tuor was still an infant when Rían gave him into the care of the Elves shortly before her death. This usage of -ch is exemplified in a conjugation of the verb car- [...] dating from the early 1950s, in which we find: S[g].1a cerin, 2a cerig, 2b cerith, 3 câr; P[l.]1a cerim(ir), [1b] cerich(ir), 2a cerinc/t 2b †cerint, cerithir, 3 cerir; D[u.]1a cerim, [1b] cerich, 2a [?cerith], 2b cerist, 3 cerid (where apparently 1a and 1b are exclusive and inclusive, and 2a and 2b are polite and familiar, respectively).33"
#31 "Cf. the previously attested 2nd dual familiar cerich (PE17:132). Nowhere is -ch employed as 2nd sg. 'you' (of any variety), and in any event Rían can hardly be asking the infant Tuor to account for deeds with (judging from the rest of this text) momentous consequence, in which he can have had no part."
#33 "The same usage is found in a similar conjugation that apparently dates to around 1949 (and thus possibly Noldorin, strictly speaking), which has: [Sg.1] cerin, [2a] cerith, [2b] ceris, 3 câr; [Pl.1a] cerim, [1b] cerich, [2a] cerith(ir) [2b] cerint, [3] cerir; [Du.1a] cerim, [1b] cerich, [2a] cerith(ir), [2b] cerist, 3 cerid."

[Roman]

Hi, nice to see you again!

So I take it that man agorech is not translated? Is a medial/reflexive interpretation 'what has done itself? = what happened?' possible? This is how -ch appears in early Noldorin.
Of course, a 1st person inclusive interpretation also became a possibility since the publication of PE17, based on kkhā (PE17:14).

[Tyrhael]

Hi Roman; likewise!

No, none of it has a translation provided by Tolkien; speculation and glosses (some tentative, some quite solid) are editorial. I wondered whether -ch might turn out to be related to -kse, but given the nature of the sentence which follows (which seems to have a 'because of what happened/what we have done, these things will happen') I don't think a reflexive interpretation would be appropriate given the context. Incidentally, what publication is early Noldorin medial/reflexive -ch found in? I'm still getting back into rereading the texts—and Noldorin from PE13's to that of the 40s is particularly appealing to me—so I don't quite yet recall where many references are to be found.

Carl notes that "certain forms and grammatical constructions were, and are, neither unambiguous nor readily analyzed. These texts thus required much time, thought, and repeated examination of Tolkien's linguistic papers, and careful research within his published writings of the period, to find such evidence as could be brought to bear on the likely meaning and potential derivation of various previously unattested forms and constructions in these texts — and even so, several cruxes remain for which I can offer only very tentative and not-entirely-satisfying proposals" (2). Therefore this issue should foment discussion and speculation rather than being a trove people will mine for neo-Elvish ... そうかも知れない･･･

Indeed, I think much of the discussion of VT50 will center on those cruxes and new forms, rather than man agorech; I think Carl lays out a convincing argument for his interpretation (of that clause, at least - other parts of the wrapper are more prone to alternate interpretations). Discussion of some parts have already started (on Atwe's Google+ group).

[Roman]

My issue has finally arrived and after a read-through it looks more than ever like a そうかもしれないし,そうじゃないかもしれない kind of thing.

what publication is early Noldorin medial/reflexive -ch found in?

In the Noldorin Dicitonary: quite strikingly carach 'to make oneself, become' with the same verb, but also gonebadach 'refl. to approach one another, to become like, resemble' (PE13:164). The latter can be analyzed as go-neb-ad-ach 'together-near-VERBALIZER-REFLEXIVE'. As I wrote above in German, it looks like this was inspired by the Ancient Greek medial, cf. γίγνομαι 'to beget oneself -> become, happen'. Similar derivations from 'do' or 'make' are found in German and Russian (and probably other languages) as well.
But apparently, -ch does not appear as a reflexive form in tables roughly contemporary with the wrapper. Oh well…