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Posted: Mon Jul 21 2014 12:34
by Roman
Ist wohl alles noch im Aufbau, hier ist schonmal die Liste für Quenya (noch unvollständig).

Posted: Sat Jul 26 2014 10:36
by Roman
Ein Originalbrief von Tolkien aus dem Jahr 1961 ist auf Ebay erschienen, unter anderem mit einer Erklärung der Etymologie von Númenor, für schlappe 15000 (fünfzehn tausend) Pfund.
Ein Ausschnitt wurde schon in Letters#227 veröffentlicht, aber da fälschlicherweise **numē-n statt nūme-n (Lambengolmor#1144).

Posted: Thu Dec 11 2014 10:56
by Roman
Anlässlich des 100-jährigen Jubiläums des 1. Weltkriegs kann der halbstündige Dokumentarfilm Tolkien's Great War hier angesehen werden. Der Inhalt ist aus der Carpenter-Biographie wohlbekannt und scheint hier einfach nur mit Bildern und Interviews untermalt zu sein.

Posted: Fri Dec 12 2014 5:41
by Tyrhael
There's been a new publication (in French, edited by Michael Devaux with assistance from CT and Carl Hostetter) of some "unpublished or partially published" manuscripts which, among other things, have some Elvish terms within them. See Morgan Thomson's blogpost summary here for more details.

There has been some discussion of it on Facebook's Tolkien Society page. Because Carl's "English glossary of various Elvish terms that appear in Tolkien's (not-insubstantial, and highly interesting) text" is only presented in French, he posted that he plans to publish his glossary on Lambengolmor once his copy of the book arrives and he has some time.

We have something to look forward to! I'm planning on getting a copy of the book as well, even though I can't read the French parts.

Posted: Wed Dec 31 2014 4:40
by Tyrhael
Regarding the book mentioned in my previous post: the Elvish terms (all Quenya) appearing in the texts and discussed in CH's glossary are mostly already attested.

We have:
erma, Ermenië, estel, fëa/fëar, hröa/hröar, Imbar, nassë/nassi, and únehtar.

Since the glosses are in French I don't know if any of the meanings of the familiar are different.

Posted: Wed Dec 31 2014 11:26
by Roman
Could you post the French glosses as well? The characters got mangled, is it erma, Ermenië, estel, fëa/fëar, hröa/hröar, Imbar, nassë/nassi, únehtar?
I'm curious about the meaning of únehtar..

Posted: Wed Dec 31 2014 21:58
by Tyrhael
Yes, those are the correct character readings. With "mangled", here's the thing: when I'm logged out, my browser displays the page with Western encoding, causing your characters to look correct and mine mangled. When I login, it switches to displaying the page in Unicode, causing mine to show up as correct and yours mangled. I'll look into changing browser settings once I get back.

I'm about to leave for a New Year's party and will therefore be offline for a few days, but here's something for the meantime:

While waxing metaphysical on the nature of primary substance (erma) and secondary materials (nassi), Tolkien writes "[...] yet it can thus happen that in comparing a quantity of one nasse with another equal quantity of the same nasse the subtle in skill may find that the one quantity contains uunehtar (the smallest quantities possible in which the interior pattern that distinguishes it from other nassi is exhibited) varying somewhat from the norm. [...]"

In his English glossary (translated into French), Carl refers to uunat, uuqueetima, uunootima when explaining uu-, NEK from VT47:16, theorizing that *nehta- is a verbal element, -r is plural, and mentioning 'atom' and Greek atom-os 'indivisible'.

Edit: Welp. Gonna take more time to fix encoding troubles; for now I've switched to older character-representation conventions.

Posted: Mon Jan 05 2015 1:28
by Roman
Beinahe übersehen: Es gibt ein Kickstarter-Projekt für ein Sindarin-Lerntool inklusive Wörterbuch und der Möglichkeit, weitere Sprachen hinzuzufügen.

Außerdem: Die 6. Konferenz für konstruierte Sprachen findet wieder in Europa statt, 25-26.4.2015, nahe London.

Posted: Wed Jan 07 2015 22:23
by Tyrhael
A followup:

"Now some hold that as the matters of Ea proceed from a single erma (if this indeed be true), so the life of living things comes from one beginning or Ermenie" (128).

"... But the loremasters tell us that they may be in themselves not wholly and exactly equivalent. Some of the loremasters hold that the substance of Arda (or indeed all of Ea) was in the beginning one thing, the erma; but not since the beginning has it remained one and the same, alike and equivalent, in all times and places. In the first shapings this primary substance or erma became varied and divided into many secondary materials or nassi, which have within themselves various patterns, whereby they differ one from another inwardly, and outwardly have different virtues and effects" (108).

In the French translation of 108, "primary substance" appears as "substance premi�re," though erma is glossed "substance primitive" in the glossary. "Secondary materials" appears as "mati�res secondes," though in the glossary nasse is simply "mati�re" (material), as it is found elsewhere in the text.

When talking about nassi (materials) Tolkien mentions iron, gold, etc. as examples, and we also see allusions to atoms and isotopes.

Posted: Fri Jan 09 2015 19:55
by Roman
This is really interesting - I would never have expected isotopes, of all things, in an Elvish essay of Tolkien's. :shock: I'm assuming the quote above refers to them: same nassi, different únehtar? This somehow seems to go right into nuclear physics, bypassing the idea of molecules and chemical compounds formed from the elements - or is there something on that as well?

Is it known whether Ermenie contains -men- 'place/way'?

Posted: Sat Jan 10 2015 1:22
by Tyrhael
Well, Tolkien himself doesn't use the words "atom" or "isotope," but the commentary in French does.

The relevant parts are from part of a text on Elvish reincarnation ('The Converse of Manwe with Eru,' from 1959); Tolkien is discussing various points, including "whether the fea re-housed was the same person as before the death of the body. It was agreed that it was the same person, for these reasons. 'What means this word same?' the loremasters said. 'It means two things: in all respects equivalent; but also identical in history.'"

This turns into discussing that idea ("same") with regard to spirits, and to "things without life, and to things with life corporeal only," with Tolkien noting "But here two things require thought. First: "In what degree things without even life corporeal can be distinguished as the same (or identical) on the one hand, and as equivalent on the other." [...] 'To speak of things without life. In history, maybe, one quantity of iron (for example) is not the same as any other equal quantity of iron; for both co-exist in time, occupying different places, and they will do so while Ea lasts, even though each quantity may be dispersed into smaller quantities. But this difference concerns IRON only, that is the total of this nasse (or material) that exists in Arda (or in Ea, maybe). For later-made and higher forms, whether having life (from Eru and his vice-gerents), or the shaping of art (from minds incarnate), this difference has no importance or eaning [sic], and all fractions of IRON (or any other nasse) are in value or virtue the same.'* Thus for all the purposes of constituting a form that uses (say) IRON in its embodiment, the substitution of one fraction of IRON for another equal fraction will have no effect upon life or identity. It is commonly said, for instance, that two rings (differently shaped by art) are made 'of the same stuff', if they are both made (say) of GOLD. And 'same' is rightly used, when the higher thing that uses lower materials for its embodiment.

Still more truly is the word 'same' used, if we consider things with life corporeal. For life corporeal consists in a pattern, existing in itself (from the mind of Eru), directly or mediately), and neither derived from the nassi used in its embodiment, nor imposed by other living things (as by the art of the Incarnate).

*Or nearly so. They may indeed be 'virtually', that is in all operations or effects in the service of higher forms, identical. But the loremasters tell us that they may be in themselves not wholly and exactly equivalent. Some of the loremasters hold that the substance of Arda (or indeed all of Ea) was in the beginning one thing, the erma; but not since the beginning has it remained one and the same, alike and equivalent, in all times and places. In the first shapings this primary substance or erma became varied and divided into many secondary materials or nassi, which have within themselves various patterns, whereby they differ one from another inwardly, and outwardly have different virtues and effects. In so far, therefore, as the separate nassi maintain their characteristic patterns within, all fractions of the same nasse are equivalent and indistinguishable, and with regard to higher forms may be said to be 'the same'. But the Valar, through or by whom these variations were effected as the first steps in the production of the riches of Ea, and who therefore have full knowledge of the nassi and their combinations, report that there are minute variations of pattern within one nasse. These are very rare (and their origins or purposes the Valar have not disclosed); yet it can thus happen that in comparing a quantity of one nasse with another equal quantity of the same nasse the subtle in skill may find that the one quantity contains uunehtar (the smallest quantities possible in which the interior pattern that distinguishes it from other nassi is exhibited) varying somewhat from the norm. Or both quantities may contain the variant uunehtar, but in different numbers. In such cases the two quantities will not be precisely equivalent; though it may be held that the difference between them is so incalculably small that their virtues as materials for the making of embodiments of living patterns are indistinguishable. [end footnote] (106, 108, 110)

[...]"

Tolkien then goes on into life corporeal, and talks (very generally) about "patterns," with differences and blends, and continues to shift into different (but related) topics. That is it for the mention of uunehtar, though, and not much that could be related to molecules, chemical compounds, etc.

As far as "atom" and "isotope" go, they appear in the extensive French commentary (not Tolkien).

The last sentence of the French translation of Carl's gloss of uunehtar reads "Le sens littéral est donc le même que celui d'[atome] (<du grec atom-os, emploi substantivé de l'adjectif atom-os [indivisible] < a privatif + tom-os [coupé])." (47)

(I romanized the Greek and changed double <>s into brackets because of the formatting issues I'm having.)

The most substantive comments related to atom/isotope are on p.87-88, starting "La chimie de la création: les atomes variants ou isotopes [...] Lorsqu'il parle des uunehtar, Tolkien s'inspire sans doute des isotopes. [...]" I may scan those paragraphs and run it through OCR software + Google translate to see if I can make more of it.

Edit: Oops, forgot Ermenie. Carl links that part to the root √men found in VT41:6.

Posted: Sun Jan 11 2015 15:31
by Avorninnas
Zusätzlich dazu der neue Artikel

Posted: Mon Jan 12 2015 0:51
by Roman
@Tyrhael: Thanks for typing it all up, it's much clearer now. It does really sound like isotopes, though - no arguing that..
In Etym, men means 'place, spot' (also ména 'region'), so Ermenie might also be 'single place/region/domain' in the sense of 'single origin'. The ending -ie would then be employed in a similar sense to tengwie, tengwestie (VT47:23, WJ:394), called 'abstract formation'.

Posted: Mon Jan 12 2015 4:31
by Tyrhael
@Roman, no problem!
Carl has posted his English glossary; see Lambengolmor. In it he constrasts abstract nouns like laatie, naamie, and sangie and gerunds like (en)-yalie, saying that "the lack of a long root vowel [...] favors the interpretation of menie as a gerund."

Posted: Mon Jan 12 2015 14:15
by Roman
The abstract -ie seems to be a late ending, since it is formed from full nouns rather than roots: tengwie < tengwa, tengwestie < tengwesta, Hyallondie < *hyar-londe, aranie < aran. In this case, Ermenie would be formed from already existing men.
It might be comparable to the English suffix '-age' in newer words like 'mileage, postage, anchorage', and so on.