On Darkness and Tongues

Tolkien's Tree of Tongues

“One sees that the thing which attracted Tolkien the most was darkness: the blank spaces, much bigger than most people realize, on the literary and historical map.” (Shippey, 30)*

          I would like to explore this remark by Shippey using the language of the Dwarves (Khuzdûl) as a vehicle. Of the languages we read about, I was most fascinated by the Dwarf language because of the secrecy surrounding it. Khuzdûl is notable for its absence from the shared knowledge of the peoples of Middle-earth. It is described as a language that is as dark in its origin “as is the origin of the Dwarvish race itself” (The Lost Road, 194).  With this sentence, Tolkien defines both the Dwarves and their language as originating in darkness. I want to investigate Khuzdûl as an example of Tolkien’s interest in blank spaces and darkness. I found multiple inconsistencies in how Khuzdûl is described across the readings we did for class, and I am wondering if these inconsistencies are deliberate (as perhaps a reflection of the philologist’s job of considering multiple possibilities to fill blank spaces) or are mere mistakes, which is unlikely considering how intentional Tolkien is in his world-building. I do not expect to come to a definitive answer, but maybe this will invite others’ opinions and thoughts.

           In Appendix F, Tolkien writes the following about the Dwarf tongue: “Yet in secret (a secret which unlike the elves, they did not willingly unlock, even to their friends) they used their own strange tongue, changed little by the years; for it had become a tongue of lore rather than a cradle-speech, and they tended it and guarded it as a treasure of the past…in this history it appears only in such place-names as Gimli revealed to his companions; and in the battle-cry which he uttered in the siege of the Hornburg…Their own secret and ‘inner’ names, their true names, the Dwarves have never revealed to anyone of alien race. Not even on their tombs do they inscribe them.” I plan to refer to this passage multiple times in my post, so it is placed here, at the top, for easy reference.

            I would like to examine this concept of Khuzdûl as a language that is “dark.” When the Fellowship travels through Moria, the most notable aspect of the scenery is the heavy darkness. It is very easy to associate the dwarves and their language with darkness, as they dwell underground. Yet Gimli is quick to dispel the misconception that Dwarf dwellings are dark. In fact, the dwarves devised such powerful technology that Moria of old “‘was not darksome, but full of light and splendour, as is still remembered in our songs’” (LotR bk. 2, ch. 4). The technology of Moria was so advanced that the dwarves created artificial light that resembled that of “'sun and star and moon'” (LotR bk. 2, ch. 4). So, although Moria is dark when we encounter it in The Lord of the Rings, it was not always so, and its light was not merely that of lamps but that of the cosmos. Something is disturbing about this concept of technology that can imitate the light of “sun and star and moon.” In Genesis, God’s first act of creation is to create light by separating the light from the darkness. By crafting these imitations of natural light, the dwarves of Moria imitated God’s act of creation and disrupted the structure of creation by introducing natural light where it was not meant to be. The darkness that the Fellowship finds in Moria feels like a reversion to the mountain’s natural state, but this too is painted as extremely unsettling, if only because we as readers feel that something went wrong here long ago, and something could go very wrong here in the future.

Perhaps the darkness in Moria feels so oppressive because the place lacks the language that belonged to it. In one of Gimli’s remarks, we can see that Moria, the dwarves, and Khuzdûl are intertwined. When Gandalf is trying to find the right word to open the doors to Moria, Gimli explains the impossibility of recalling the word that might unlock them: “what the word was is not remembered. Narvi and his craft and all his kindred have vanished from the earth” (LotR bk. 2, ch. 4). There is a great sense of loss here. The dwarves as a race are not extinct, and neither is their language, but a certain way of life, life as it was lived in Moria, has vanished. This way of life cannot be brought back, even by dwarves who return to try and do just that. When Balin tried, the place (through the Balrog) rejected them. To continue the Genesis parallel, Moria seems a Garden of Eden for the dwarves. The dwarves overzealously imitated creation, and forces beyond their control intervened. Their race, language, and stories were allowed to survive, but any attempt to return to Moria, to that Edenic state, was destined to fail.**

"The Eastern Arches" by Allen Lee

To return to the language, it is important to note that Khuzdûl is a “lore language.” This implies that it is not commonly spoken even amongst the dwarves. The tongue “has changed little over the years,” perhaps because it is not a “cradle-speech.” I think we are all aware that spoken languages change quickly. I will provide the overused example of slang. Today, there is always a new word or phrase that emerges from the internet and into common usage. For Khuzdûl to have changed little over the years implies that it is not spoken enough to undergo the constant alterations that most languages experience. It seems to me that the only way for Khuzdûl to change little over the years is for it to be this rarely spoken lore language, but if this is so, how is the language preserved?

The obvious answer is through writing, but even this is deceptive.  Khuzdûl is barely described as a written language. When the Fellowship finds Balin’s grave, there is an inscription in Daeron’s Runes, which were used in Moria of old. The inscription (“Balin son of Fundin Lord of Moria) is “written in the tongues of men and dwarves” (LotR bk. 2, ch. 4). The inscription is written in Daeron’s Runes, used in Moria of old. Gandalf can, apparently, read these runes. Also written partially with Daeron’s Runes is the record of Balin’s time in Moria (LotR bk. 2, ch. 5). Gandalf can read some of this document (also written in Elvish and the runes of Dale), but it is not specified whether he is reading the parts written in Elvish, in the runes of Dale, or in Daeron’s Runes. Also complicating the Dwarf tongue as a written language is the true names of the dwarves. We know that the dwarves never write out their true names, but they presumably share them with other dwarves. This implies that the preservation of true names depends entirely upon an oral tradition, or that perhaps true names are known only to their bearer and die with the dwarf. This attitude around names implies a language that takes on the mortal nature of its speakers, incorporating an acceptance of darkness and blank spaces.

The final point of confusion for me (that I will discuss in this post) about Khuzdûl is that “the Dwarves have skill and craft, but no art, and they make no poetry” (The Lost Road, 194). This statement is straightforward enough, but conflicts with what Gimli says about the preservation of Moria and its splendor in “our songs” (LotR bk. 2, ch. 4). The dwarves have songs, implying the existence of verse, and presumably in their own language. In fact, one of my favorite pieces of verse in the book is one that Gimli recites about Moria (LotR bk. 2, ch. 4). This is recited to the Fellowship in common speech, but I would assume that it was originally composed in the dwarf tongue. I loved this piece of verse for its rhythm and reverence. If the dwarves have songs, how can it be said that they “make no poetry” (LotR bk. 2, ch. 4)? This implies a difference between songs and poetry, but both are composed in verse, and when Gimli recites his verse about Moria, it is described as a chant, which seems like something in between.

            What are we supposed to do with all of these contradictions regarding Khuzdûl? It is the “dark” language of a civilization that attempted to bring the light of the sun underground and suffered for its greed. The written aspect of the language is kept in shadows, and its preservation in an unchanged form is both due to and threatened by the fact that its speakers can only speak it amongst themselves, and even then speak it rarely. If Tolkien was attracted to darkness and omission, the dwarf language seems the embodiment of this darkness and omission in that the details about it are contradictory and inconsistent. It is also, perhaps, an embodiment of the contradictions in Dana Gioia’s poem: “The world does not need words,” yet “to name is to know and remember.” The few bits of dwarf speech in The Lord of the Rings are place names, and these place names carry with them a great potency. The name of Moria contains within it all of the lore surrounding this place, and we get to see that in Gimli’s yearning to behold the mythical land. Yet the true names of dwarves are not known, nor remembered. The potency of a Dwarf’s true name is found in the fact that it is secret and fleeting. I have come to view the language of the Dwarves as an expression of what was simultaneously fascinating and frustrating for Tolkien about philology. Shippey writes “What, then, had happened to England and the English during those ‘Norman centuries’ when, it might be said, ‘language’ and ‘literature’ had first and lastingly separated” (30). Khuzdûl is a language that expresses the fascination and frustration of the separation between language and literature, and maybe that is why the mystery is better left unsolved.

-ACB

*I have an earlier edition of Shippey, so page numbers are different. I have cited LotR by book and chapter number, and have listed other works by Tolkien in my works cited, as I have earlier editions of those than the ones the bookstore had for class. I didn't feel the need to specify my edition of LotR, since book and chapter number are consistent throughout the editions.

**The dwarves were successful in re-colonizing Moria during the fourth age, which I think could either defeat my Genesis parallel or add dimension to it. Information about the successful retaking of Moria is in The Peoples of Middle Earth, which I do not have a copy of.

Works cited:

Shippey, T.A. The Road to Middle Earth. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. First published 1954-1955.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lost Road and Other Writings: Language and Legend Before the Lord of the Rings. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Ballantine Books, 1987.

Why does Tolkien create so many languages?

In “English and Welsh,” Tolkien claims language as a marker of identity in two distinct ways: a person’s “ethnic” identity and a person's individuality. In the very beginning of the lecture, he quotes Sjéra Tómas Sæmundsson, who when speaking of the importance of Icelandic and its preservation, said:

Languages are the chief distinguishing marks of peoples. No people in fact comes into being until it speaks a language of its own; let the languages perish and the peoples perish too, or become different peoples. But that never happens except as the result of oppression and distress.

Language define a person’s identity: to natively speak Welsh is to belong to a clearly set, distinct identity. We are different because we speak Welsh. To disrupt this cycle, to prevent or disrupt the parent teaching the child their language, is to prevent the parent from teaching their child how to be Welsh. A language is an identity marker.

Unfortunately, I erred in the prior paragraph. I said to “natively” speak Welsh: native how you and I understand it. But that is not what Tolkien believed: “'But the inherited, first-learned, language - what is usually mis-called "native" - bites in early and deep. It is hardly possible to escape from its influence.’” (The Notion Club Papers). There is, in each person, the capacity for a different, truly native language. A language that appeals to them, that perhaps comes easier to learn. As he says later in The Notion Club Papers:

We each have our own personal linguistic potential: we each have a native language. But that is not the language that we speak, our cradle-tongue, the first-learned. Linguistically we all wear ready-made clothes, and our native language comes seldom to expression, save perhaps by pulling at the ready-made till it sits a litde easier. But though it may be buried, it is never wholly extinguished, and contact with other languages may stir it deeply.

Language is not merely a distinguisher of people. Tolkien asserts in The Notion Club Papers that every language is so unique that its different qualities can never correctly suit the native speaker. We have our own language within us. Each person, and each language is an individual. A language can and should be individualistic.

Tolkien must write so many languages, because he wishes to create individuals. How could Tolkien introduce us to his world, or the characters within it, without creating different languages.

Consider when Gandalf reads aloud the original words of the ring within Rivendell:

‘This I have done, and I have read: “Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul”.’ 

The change in the wizard’s voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark.

A language so evil changes Gandalf, even for a moment. It darkens the porch – changing Rivendell itself. A character speaking a certain language within Mordor is the equivalent of wearing a specific type of dress in all scenes, or even just more subtly giving them a character trait. To speak a language is to speak like a person, and to, especially in this world, speak and draw on the qualities of its creators. Tolkien describes our native language, and even the languages we speak as ready-made clothes, but ready-made clothes still give you character. Your choice of brand and the designers behind it shape you in their image: Gandalf speaks the Black Speech and he and Rivendell become blacker.

But this act of characterization is most clear with Frodo: the only hobbit of the four who can speak some Sindarin, which is in opposition to the Black Speech, as when the hobbits meet Goldberry:

He stood as he had at times stood enchanted by fair elven-voices; but the spell that was now laid upon him was different: less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to mortal heart; marvelous and yet not strange.

Again, Tolkien makes clear the individualistic nature of languages and the power they hold over a person. Goldberry’s singing in Sindarin prompts a spell of delight for the hobbits: it is nearer to their hearts and familiar. Sindarin allows them to trust Goldberry, and allows Goldberry to trust them, as she says after Frodo sings to her: “‘I had not heard that fold of the Shire were so sweet-tongued. But I see you are an elf-friend; the light in your eyes and the ring in your voice tells it”.

Frodo is sweet-tongued because he speaks Sindarin: the ring in his voice is of the same enchantment. This is no power held by Common Tongue, as “that fold” of the Shire is not sweet-tongued. Frodo is the hero he is because, as we set up, he speaks a little Sindarin. He is different from the rest of the hobbits. Tolkien sets us up in the very beginning of the novel, through a language difference, to glean this. For Tolkien, to introduce languages is to do two things simultaneously: introduce the peoples of Middle-Earth (to be different peoples is to speak different languages) and importantly his characters: what languages they know and choose to speak defines them on an individual level as well.  

ZJ

How Tolkien’s Love of Words Realized Middle-Earth

In the first two chapters of The Road to Middle-Earth, Shippey argues that Tolkien’s imagined universe emerges directly from his engagement with the discipline of philology. Although it fell out of fashion among contemporary scholars, philology held a high status in the late 19th century as a means of understanding the history and culture of a people through their language. Trained in this discipline, Tolkien uses the analysis of language to illuminate the medieval past. He views a “reality of history” contained within the evolution of languages and names. This interpretation of reality through the language itself shapes his writing process, establishing languages first and then building worlds around them. The formation of Middle-Earth through Tolkien’s philology demonstrates the world of Lord of the Rings as grounded in the real significance of language, giving Tolkien’s universe the “inner consistency of reality” which enables the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

Tolkien’s intellectual training views words as windows into the secondary world: man’s tools of sub-creation. His philology treats language as a record of cultural memory instead of arbitrary labels for a pre-existing world. This unique method is best described in his allegory of the man and the tower, as Shippey illustrates in his work. The man inherits the stones and the field, allowing him to build a tower that looks upon the sea. However, the man’s descendants criticize him for not restoring the original house of his fathers, and his friends demolish the tower to look for hidden carvings within the stones. The contrast between the creative will of the man and that of his friends and descendants portrays the different understandings of language held by scholars and philologists, according to Shippey. The man represents the Beowulf poet and Tolkien himself, building works of poetry through the inheritance of language in order to access the realm of Faerie. This philological approach rejects a purely historical analysis of the work and instead attempts to access the secondary reality of ancient peoples. 

For instance, only a philologist can fully comprehend the significance of the dragon for the Beowulf poet. While a purely historical lens may dismiss the dragon as pure fantasy, Tolkien argues this misses a crucial insight into the mind of the medieval poet. The dragon, more than “idle fantasy,” is “a potent creation of men’s imagination.” By inheriting the creature from his medieval forefathers, Tolkien’s inclusion of dragons in his world of Middle-Earth goes beyond arbitrary storytelling. It constructs a mythos grounded in the reality of Old English, intertwined with ancient stories and languages that give Middle-Earth its pseudo-historical atmosphere. There is truth in Tolkien’s stories because they emerge from words themselves, containing inherited realities which underlie their etymologies.

Additionally, Tolkien manages to convey deep histories and interactions between peoples within the names he bestows on his characters. His grasp of the importance of names is evident in his engagement with the Goths and their language, as detailed by Shippey. While most historians take the conflict between the Goths and Huns at face value, Tolkien centers his focus on the name Attila itself: meaning something like “little father” in Gothic. The name’s etymology reveals a new understanding of the relationship between the Goths and Huns, suggesting that some Goths likely joined the Huns’ pillaging and gave their leader the title Attila. In his letters, Tolkien notes that “without those syllables the whole great drama both of history and legend loses savour for me.” As Attila exemplifies, the complexity of the Goths’ history is contained within their words. Even the name of a foreign leader contains within it a deep significance which fleshes out the history and mythos of a people.

While these words contain an inherited culture within themselves, there is also a subjectivity that Tolkien attributes to language. As he describes in his essay English and Welsh, phonemes largely shape how we experience language and the spoken word. In this way, the sound of the word itself carries unique significance outside of the literary and historical context in which it emerges. While reality exists in itself, there is a transformative aspect to attributing a word to each thing. The thing itself remains the same, but the meaning changes based on the word we choose to use. Through the imagination of the speaker, reality is altered through languages and names on a personal and spiritual level.

This interaction between the primary and secondary worlds reveals the spiritual power of language that Tolkien harnesses in Lord of the Rings. Reading the work is meant to feel spiritual, as Tolkien suggests in ‘On Fairy Stories,’ where he emphasizes the importance of the ‘spell’ which good fantasy manages to cast on its reader. The suspension of disbelief comes from understanding the work as in essence true. Tolkien illustrates this process by relating the words spell and evangelium to compare the power of fantasy with the Gospel. Shippey suggests that a similar “supremely convincing tone” is at the heart of Tolkien’s essay and literary projects. By emulating the Gospel, Tolkien creates Middle-Earth’s mythological atmosphere through the real significance of its languages and names. The words themselves are at the center of the work, conveying the truth of their universe in their phonemes and literary influences.

It is thanks to Tolkien’s deep philological practice that he crafts Lord of the Rings in such a convincing manner. By studying the intricacies of language, he was able to recognize words as the bedrock of the human spirit: the containers of meaning that allow for sub-creation in the realm of fantasy. This understanding allowed him to compose his world’s names and languages with real significance, building the sincerity and expansiveness that keeps us returning to Middle-Earth today. 

-MJS

The Language Portal

    Tolkien’s “Mythopoeia,” the first assigned reading for the course, got me thinking about the way my understanding of the world depends on language. Without language, I’d be totally lost, unable to interpret or understand anything at all. My facility—or lack thereof—with English allows me to understand my surroundings. A world without language would be very confusing. How would we be able to make sense of anything? As Tolkien writes, we “look at trees and label them just so.” However, it should be obvious to all that we are born into a world already shaped by existing languages. The location of one’s birthplace determines the language they speak and, as Tolkien’s work reveals, profoundly shapes their identity. 

   My thoughts, for instance, are bound by the limits of the English language, the only one that I can speak well. Nevertheless, I recognize that there are sensations, emotions, and countless other parts of the human experience that I cannot describe using language. Now, one might rightly point out that if I cannot give these feelings a name, how can I be sure they are real? 

    Tolkien, in both his Letters and the aborted Notion Club Papers, wrestles with this problem. One of the Oxford dons in the story—named Lowdham—informs the other members of the Notion Club that he has been visited by “linguistic ghosts” or some kind of echoes of a forgotten past. Lowdham, like a proper philologist, interprets these visitations as evidence of another, mythical realm, arguing that language possesses the power to transport us to another plane of thought or imagination. The rest of the novel, or what remains of it, deals with the relationship between the world of the 1980s and the prehistoric language that has assailed the senses of poor Mr. Lowdham while presenting itself as a relic of a lost civilization. In the process of hunting down and then reconstructing ancient languages, Tolkien—and I admittedly lack the requisite training in physics to proceed along these lines but will do so anyway—complicates the Newtonian notion of time as a singular force, moving forward at the regular pace of one second per second and sweeping the past aside. It’s easy for us to accept the familiar, secular argument that, to ape the immortal words of Lynyrd Skynyrd, once Tuesday’s Gone, she’s never coming back. 

    Not so fast. Tolkien believes the past can be reconstructed by sifting through the philological wreckage of forgotten languages and cobbling it back together again. We can reenter the past through language. 

    Reading through the Notion Club Papers and listening to the class discussions, it occurred to me that Tolkien seems to view language—and most important names—as literal historical artifacts that must be handled with appropriate care. They have tremendous power. In much the same way that one feels a sense of history and majesty standing before Napoleon’s tomb, one can be moved by the mere presence of a historically important word. Dana Gioia’s poem “Words” offers a far more eloquent articulation of this worldview than I can hope to offer by pointing out that “one word transforms [a kiss] into something less or other—/illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.” By attaching any one of these adjectives to the noun, the nature of the kiss is utterly transformed. Not only that, but everything associated with it takes on a totally different meaning. The act of identification—or more precisely—the act of naming something is akin to the act of creation. That is the power of language. 

    All of Tolkien’s fiction, and even some of his scholarly work, invites the reader to consider the provocative notion that language has the power to open the doors of human perception to an unprecedented degree and take us to wondrous places. Now, on some level, most of us acknowledge this, having allowed ourselves to be transported by great works of literature, music, or even prayer. I certainly remember my first time reading The Lord of the Rings and the magical way in which Tolkien’s prose, poetry, and facility with names literally transported me to Middle-earth. Still, Tolkien’s letters—especially the one to the unfortunate Mr. Rang with whom I sympathize greatly—reveal a man tormented by the sense that people are misunderstanding his project and the responsibility with which one must treat these languages and names. They allow us to access another world entirely. We must be sure we stay on the proper path.     

    Tolkien makes it very clear in “On Fairy Stories” that indeed he takes this all very seriously, writing this world of our imagination “cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible.” Faerie, a world that we can only gesture toward, exists just beyond the reach of our language. It’s a vibe or a feeling rather than a place. One wonders how Tolkien would have responded to the charge that one knows Faerie when they see it, but not before. Lowdham’s sweaty anguish in the Notion Club Papers stems from his doomed attempt to translate his experience in Faerie—that other wild, mystical realm—into our physical world. He is, by transcribing these ancient, primordial words, literally creating a new world within the Oxford of the 1980s. Predictably, it all goes horribly wrong. By exhuming the desiccated husk of a lost civilization and injecting it with the white light of creation, Lowdham invites the total annihilation of the world. 

    Through this fascinating time-travel tale, Tolkien offers both a warning and a rallying cry. He argues that, by preserving and updating ancient languages, we retain access to the worlds that those languages created, building upon his argument that it is language that creates reality rather than the other way around. All this ties into our broader conversation about the style in which Tolkien chooses to engage his readers compared with most modern fantasy writers. Style and language are everything in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien does not shy away from allowing his masterfully-constructed languages to outshine his characters and plotpoints.

    Modern authors seem determined to not let language get in the way of their stories. Elmore Leonard—admittedly not a writer of fantasy but still a respected author—lives by the principle that the reader should never notice the writing; style should never impede the plot development. Ursula K. Le Guin, in her essay “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie,” inveighs against this development in modern literature by arguing that fantasy creates new worlds—that is its unique power. Both Le Guin and Tolkien frame names and language as keys that can be used to unlock gates to hidden worlds or even tools that can create new worlds. Le Guin laments the fact that modern fantasy too often borrows language from the reader’s physical reality to construct something that, in her eyes, merely masquerades as fantasy. These writers fail to recognize that a name can contain an entire world within it, something that Tolkien grasped. Names are not something that we project onto the world. Rather, as we all discover at an early age, they arise out of the world.

ES

 

The Secret Language of the Dwarves

 “his world-dominion by creative act: not his to worship the great Artefact, man, sub-creator, the refracted light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that moved from mind to mind.” (Mythopoeia)

                                             

It is no secret that Tolkien was a linguaphile, therefore, it should come as no surprise that he holds language in high esteem, believing that human language is the same form of creation that was used by God when he created the universe.  For Tolkien language is not just the giver of life but is alive itself and this ability to constantly evolve is what gives life to language.  The Oxford English dictionary, which he contributed to, comes out every year with a list of new words, keeping the English language alive.  Tolkien gives the Orcs, the foulest of all races in Middle Earth, a dead language in their Black Speech to portray their corrupted nature. Contrasting Black Speech with the languages of Elves, which are ever evolving, as portrayed by the Tree of Tongues, only emphasizes this point.

 

Tolkien states that the Dwarves “are not evil by nature”, yet their language has “changed little by the years”.  Why then are the Dwarves and their language more closely linked to the Black Speech than the Elvish languages?  I believe that this question can be answered through a look at Tolkien’s opinion on naming and how it relates to language.

 

“I like history, and am moved by it, but its finest moments for me are those in which it throws light on words and names!” (Letters, 264)

 

            With a background in, and passion for, philology one might be surprised to learn that Tolkien did not view people trying to find the meaning in his characters’ names favorably.

 

“I remain puzzled, and indeed sometimes irritated, by many of the guesses at the ‘sources’ of the nomenclature, and theories or fancies concerning hidden meanings.” (Letters, 379)

 

“looking around for more or less similar words or names is not in fact very useful even as a source of of sounds, and not at all as an explanation of inner meanings and significances.” (Letters, 387)

 

             Tolkien created the languages and names solely as pleasurable exercise in “linguistic ‘æsthetic’”, where there is no meaning for these words outside of the stories, they are created in.  Any link of names to “real” languages is purely a coincidence and it is a waste of time to try and sort through all of these.  These names are Tolkien’s version of the Cellar Door concept, and by searching for a meaning in names outside of the story you will miss the forest for the trees.  It is infinitely more worthwhile to just take Tolkien’s names and languages as a given and work with them in the framework they were intended for.  This is why Tolkien’s nomenclature does not place emphasis on concepts like “true names”, such as one might find in the story of Rumpelstiltskin, but rather on how names define relationships.  Take Gandalf for example, who goes by many different names and what he is called depends on his relationship to those people. To the people of Gondor, he is Mithrandir, meaning “Grey Pilgrim”, and to the hobbits and the north men he is Gandalf, meaning “Wand-elf”, among many other examples.  While the meaning of these names in their respective languages is important, what is more important is the relationship that these names convey.  Even Earendil, the one name he admits to lifting directly from Anglo-Saxon language, was only given meaning in his story once it had been incorporated into the “Elvish linguistic situation”.  Therefore, in Tolkien’s world, nomenclature is inseparable from the languages that he created.      

 

            Therefore, I would invite you to look at the language of the Dwarves as a critique on this dismantling of language by the likes of Ursula Le Guin, Robert Graves, and all those who seek meaning in names where there is none.  The notion of holding power over an entity through the knowledge of its true name, like in the story of Rumpelstiltskin, is, in my opinion, why the Dwarves hide their language and their names.  The Dwarves are so secretive of their native tongue that they even refuse to inscribe their “true names” on their tombs.  Through this practice, the Dwarves lose their connection to this language they valued so much and leave their legacy translated into a different language and, therefore, a different people.  I believe that this is why Tolkien describes them as “a race apart” from Elves and Men.  Unlike the Orcs, the Dwarves are not evil by nature, but they have bastardized their language the same way the Orcs did the Black Speech.  The Dwarves’ mistaken beliefs around secrecy killed the very language they sought to protect, turning it into “a tongue of lore rather than a cradle-speech” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix F).  The result of the Dwarves’ actions concerning their language that was valued as “a treasure of the past” is a warning against the dismantling effects that digging too deep into a language triggers.  

 

The scholars who seek a “real world” meaning behind every name and the Dwarves who destroy their language while trying to guard it have both toppled the metaphorical tower to read the inscriptions on the bricks.  Therefore, the language of the Dwarves should serve as Tolkien’s warning to all those who seek to find meaning in every single name and word: that by dismantling these languages you risk missing the point of the narrative and, therefore, ruining the story for youself.

-CG

Naming and Information

 On Tuesday, we discussed at length the role that names and naming play in our immersion in a piece of media. More specifically, the relationship between two very different viewpoints-

​One, that every person, place, and thing possesses a true name that holds power with it. Name a thing, and you can control it. There are a few issues with this point of view, though it can work if done properly. It presupposes the existence of some primordial language- or languages- that the true names are spoken in. This fundamentally changes the role of language, from something that humans use as subcreators and masters of their world, to something inhuman which is simply harnessed by humans. Language as an inhuman phenomenon raises some questions, given that we rarely see things other than humans use language. It can still work, however, depending on how ancient you want the world to be. 

​On the other hand, there is a viewpoint that names are just arbitrary sounds, thrown together by humans to reflect something. I do not think Tolkien would appreciate this viewpoint either. Within his works, there are numerous examples of language and names holding special power over someone or something. The Black Speech of Mordor, for example, so corrupted the Mouth of Sauron that his mouth was physically disgusting, as well as the words which came from it. Clearly, we can see that names do hold some power- but not purely in their status as names, but rather the power deriving from something the name is attached to. 

​Within Tolkien’s work, names are used to reflect the relationship between a linguistic group which speaks a language and the thing they are naming. Often times when a name is uttered, it has a specific meaning in mind that it is being used to evoke. This is often historical, but can refer to great feats and aspects of that thing as well. Gandalf’s list of names given in Book IV Chapter V is a great example of this. When Frodo and Sam meet Faramir and they discuss Gandalf, Faramir calls Gandalf by the name Mithrandir, which Frodo is taken aback by, having only ever personally called him by one name. Faramir replies: 

‘Mithrandir we called him in elf-fashion,’ said Faramir, ‘and he was content. Many are my names in many countries, he said. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.’

​This type of “direct” worldbuilding allows us to analyze these names and what they mean for the people who call him by these names. 

The name Mithrandir is rather straightforward, being of Elvish origin. It is comprised of Mith, meaning “grey”, and Randir, meaning “wanderer”. 

Tharkûn, then, is extremely unclear in specific etymology. As it comes from the Dwarvish language, who famously keep their language a secret to outsiders, we know nothing of its morphology other than that it has the meaning of Grey-man. 

Olórin has a meaning associated with dreams or the mind, denoting his demeanor and expertise.

Incánus, then, has a slightly less clear origin, given that he is called that in the South, which generally has less information available due to its less civilized nature. It is suggested, however, that it comes from the words of the Haradrim Inkā-nūs, meaning North Spy. This shows both the close-minded nature of the people of the South as well as the general infrequency with which he visits.

Gandalf, then, means “Staff-Elf” and is so named from Old Norse. As a result, it does not have any strictly in-universe etymology given, but rather the people of the North have given him a name which happens to match the etymology of the “real world”. This one is of particular interest to me. Not only because it is the primary name people know him by, but that in-universe, we have spottier information than even the name from the South. Knowing how Tolkien essentially localized the text of the Lord of the Rings rather than presenting names exactly as they would appear, it is possible that “Gandalf”, too, is a localized name.

All of these names are two-way mirrors into both the conception of Gandalf by these people groups as well as what we can learn about the people groups from the names. The extremely plain names of the Elves and Dwarves, for example, speak to the frequency with which Gandalf would appear to them, and how he generally fit in to some extent. Likewise, from the outside looking in, it tells us how to perceive the Elves and Dwarves somewhat. Given that we are intended to view the Elves and Dwarves as distinctly “not like us” in some respect, the fact that they would have a plain name for a wizard places him and them firmly in the same world of our conception. 

The name Olórin, then, betrays Gandalf’s origin as a maia. Not only is it definitively more ethereal in feel, but it has a distinct name that does not simply characterize him as being “like a man” in some way. Thus, the name places the people who named him as being more like him in some respect.

The fundamental difference between names like these, which place both the named and namers firmly within a “built world” and names which we use in ours is a clear origin. There is a tendency in fantasy for names to have clear etymologies, while in our language, they typically do not. It is possible that someone knew the etymologies of names we use at some point, but most have been lost. There is a clear break in our world between names with clear origins and those without. “Germany”, for example, is first attested as the name of a people living around the Rhine in the first century B.C.. It cannot be placed further back than that, already existing as a name. Of course, there are other names we do know the origins of. America, for instance, coming from the name Amerigo Vespucci, who was an early explorer of the New World. 

This is a trade-off faced by everyone who goes to build a world, in the sense Tolkien would be satisfied with- between explanation and believability, between known facts and mystery. Every author must solve this problem in a way that is suited for their world.

Of course Tolkien, as a philologist, would find it incredibly unsatisfying to simply leave etymologies unknown- where’s the fun in that? Instead, he leaves massive chunks of his geography as proverbial question marks on his map. Other authors handle this differently. In total, though, it is just interesting to see this conundrum of worldbuilding come up upon the analysis of names, given its omnipresence in works such as this.

-BTS

Welsh and English

Treating language families as trees that branch is probably the most common metaphor in historical linguistics; though it is a rather poor one. Languages actually work something more like bacterial lines: large groupings of similar organisms with tiny variations between them but broadly the same DNA. The bacterial analogy also works better because in a tree, once a branch splits it cannot be rejoined with other influence; but bacteria can and do exchange material between one another. Of course, the metaphor suffers for being relatively less grand and comforting than a tree, so Tolkien would likely not have tolerated it. And besides, the diagrams can be so beautiful 

(taken from a webcomic called Stand Still Stay Silent)

How do languages "exchange material"? This question is the basis of contact linguistics, a relatively new sub-field. The lowest level of contact is exchange of vocabulary. Powhatan does not need to have profound influence on American English to lend the word 'raccoon' for an animal the settlers had never seen. Words can even spread so far that no one is sure of their origin; take 'orange', which spread to English through at least five languages and probably originated in South India. There is obviously another type of vocabulary exchange, of the type experienced by English with a mass influx of words from French, Latin, and Greek. And there are much higher levels of contact: languages can borrow whole grammatical structures; or they can be so influenced by another language as to lose all of their vocabulary but keep their grammar, becoming creoles; or the community gradually switches to another language entirely. The position that English is a creole between a Germanic base and Romance superstrate has been thoroughly refuted. 

Contact take place within a whole area, usually termed a 'sprachbund'. For example, language of the Balkans such as Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Albanian, and Turkish have developed a large number of similar grammatical features, despite being distantly or wholly not related. Other famous sprachbunds are in the Caucasus, in Southeast Asia, in Mesoamerica, and even the whole of Western European. The last is termed 'Standard Average European' and includes English but not the Celtic languages. So the 'climate' a language finds itself in influences it, in the sense that neighboring languages usually influence one another. The (literal) climate of an area also impacts languages; see my last post on sonority.

Contact is not necessarily symmetric. When a language is imposed from a higher level and imparts characteristics onto local languages (as e.g. French on English), it is termed a 'superstrate'; when a local language imparts effects onto a new language in the area which eventually displaces it (as e.g. Irish on Hiberno-English), it is termed a 'substrate'. Welsh undoubtedly has an English superstrate, and Welsh English has a Welsh substrate. However, the number of Welsh loanwords in English can be counted on one hand. The issue of Brittonic influence on English is controversial, mainly because there appears to be incredibly little. Advocates of the Brittonic theory usually assume that 1) huge numbers of Britons switched to English and 2) their influence was mostly on common English, not the conservative, high-prestige register used in written Old English. Both these assumptions fall apart rather easily. The consensus in the archaeological community until fairly recently was that the Anglo-Saxon invasions were overblown and that the English had a large amount of Briton in them. But a very recent genetic study of Anglo-Saxon graves (Gretzinger, Sayer, Justeau et al, 2022) proved that they indeed had overwhelmingly Germanic heritage. The very cause of any debate is overblown itself. Furthermore, many of the supposed Brittonicisms in English only developed in the later Middle Ages or even Early Modern period. 

The first matter is phonology. English is unusual among the Germanic languages for still having "th"-sounds (dental fricatives) and keeping "w" and "v" separate; and it shares these sounds with Welsh. But the influence could run either way. The continental Germanic languages lost their "th" sounds in a wave spreading from south Germany that reached Dutch at about 1200 A.D., at which point there was no feasible way for former Brittonic speakers to still be influencing English. The continued presence of the sounds in Welsh could well be argued to be English influence; Breton, a close relative of Welsh in France, has lost them, and so did Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx. Although English vowels, on the other hand, have undergone massive shifts, similar developments occurred in German; English is only unusual for lacking front rounded vowels like German ü, ö. These vowels are also found in French, yet disappeared from (written, highly conservative) English at about the time of the Norman conquest, three centuries after any possible Brittonic influence. But Middle Welsh developed the ü vowel after contact with Old English and lost it after Middle English did. So, to summarize, there are no sounds English has definitively borrowed from Welsh at any stage.

Supporters of the Brittonic substrate theory typically fly straight to grammar. The most shocking development in English is the near-total death of inflection. Or at least, it is shocking when comparing only with Old English and ignoring all in-between stages or what happened to Old Norse or Dutch. Dutch and the continental descendants of Norse have both lost noun cases, reduced their gender system, and severely reduced their . The loss of cases and most verb inflection occurred gradually over centuries, not all at once in 600 A.D. The evidence more suggests Norse influence as the catalyst. The inflectionless trend spread from the North, where there were more Norsemen, and the fact that there are hundreds of Norse words among basic English vocabulary is a smoking gun for strong contact.

The two strongest candidates for Brittonic influence are do-periphrasis and continuous verb forms. Respectively, these are the tendency to use "do" as a meaningless auxiliary verb for negation and questions and the verb construction BE + participle. But both features developed slowly and did not reach their present forms until the Modern period. Do-support first appears in the 15th century, and continuous verb forms likewise originate in two Old English constructions, which 

When Tolkien says Latin is an "old" language and that Old English is a "middle" language, he uses terms unusual in modern linguistics. But the trend he refers to, which has been happening to languages across Europe for the past several thousand years, does have a name: becoming more 'analytic'. "Old" European languages have rich, mostly regular inflection and are called 'synthetic'; "middle" languages lose a great deal due to sound changes and become more irregular; "new" languages like Modern English very have little inflection left. A classic example of a totally analytic language is Chinese, which (more or less) lacks any and all inflection. But there are more factors to language than being analytic or synthetic. The latter category splits into 'agglutinative' and 'fusional', where the morphemes indicate one category in the former and many in the latter. For example, the Turkish ending -lar- indicates just plurality; but the Latin ending -ae (can) indicate not just plural but also feminine and nominative. There is a trend from agglutination to fusion. In fact, there is a trend from analytic to agglutinative again! As syntax becomes more fixed and small words become purely grammatical, words smush together and become inflected. The process of an independent word becoming a grammatical affix is called "grammaticalization". The English affix -n't is actually inflectional by most arguments, and it does not seem a stretch to say that contractions will become true inflection at one point in the future. So there is really a cycle, from agglutinative to synthetic to analytic and back to agglutinative. Over the course of its thousands of years of recorded history, Ancient Egyptian seems to have gone through the whole cycle, starting as fusional, becoming analytic, then agglutinating, and trending back towards fusional again by the time it went extinct as Coptic in the 16th century. So fear not, fans of fusion! Rich inflection will return one day in glory. 

-LN

It's All Oak? Languages and Origin

 "The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it anyways"  

At the tail-end of our discussion on Tuesday we looked at the Tree of Tongues (later form) that is depicted in The Lhammas.  After a hearty discussion on what exactly Tolkien was doing with his languages and what "truth" lied beneath a name, we had settled on an account that words do not have a pure essence, it's not all just oak, but instead carry unique histories with relational words that build onto and expand those histories.  Tolkien articulated these histories when writing the Lord of the Rings.  With such an expansive text and world, it would seem ridiculous to think that it's all oak, all the repetition of one true essence as Robert Graves described in his prose.  However, upon looking at the Tree of Tongues, even though the tree grows and continues to morph, it all leads back to Valanin, the language of the gods; is it actually all oak?

Tolkien spends a great deal of time explaining how these languages changed in his historical account of the Lhammas.  There is a great emphasis of language as a form of individualization: "Now as the ages passed and the Noldor became more numerous and skilled and proud, they took also to the writing and using in books of their own speech beside the Qenya" (HME 5, 189).  It's noted that the language of the Noldor never became fixed and was mainly spoken by a small subgroup of people.  

Later on the diversity in language is exemplified in a different way, not purely being derived from Valanin or Orome but instead highly influenced: "The languages of men were, from their beginning, diverse and various; yet they were for the most part derived remotely from the language of the Valar.   

I'm not sure what to make of this story where time and distance and pride constructed new identities that are all reminiscent yet distinct from their pasts.  I say identity because from these passages, and or discussion, language itself is a name, or a collective of names that brings shape to a group of people.   To clarify, what I mean by this is that we have names in different languages, but we also have names for the languages themselves, and that name is not just a story about the individual but a story about the collective as a whole who participate in that language. I think our class ended on the very hopeful reading that language and it's diversity means there is not one true language, not just oak, that is better than all the rest.  I think a more critical reading, however, or perhaps more cynical, might be to question what this equality. Isn't it all oak if it's all Valinan? And what does it mean for languages to grow on the tree planted by Valinan? Does it mean that we are expanding the world or corrupting the original? 

I'm glad I'm not a cynic, but to answer this question, we must go back to the function of language, for Tolkien this is to transport you back in time.  As Gioia puts it, "to name is to know and remember," but Tolkien also says this explicitly in his letter drafts to Mr. Thompson (Letter 180) and Mr. Rang (Letter 297).  The question then becomes what is it that we are remembering?  What is the origin of the history of these languages and what origin are we being transported back in time to? What is the the shared history of the languages, the names of groups, who all come from Valinan? 

Tolkien answers this question at the very beginning of the Lhammas: "From the beginning the Valar had speech, and after they came into the world they wrought their tongue for the naming and glorifying of all things therein." (HME 5, 183).  Naming for the Valar, is a way of glorifying, and in that sense it is different from oak which just is.  The essence of oak is part of creation, but the essence and origin of the Valar and their language is divinity itself.  This quote and the text afterwards depicts a creation story from which then all things exist and which all things can then be named.  The origin of language in Tolkien's world is not so limited as to find itself in one essence, but in the essence of creation itself; that is what allows the tree to grow and what allows for every other ability to name and glorify to take place, the language of the divine.  

Tolkien annunciates this in a different way in his letter to Mr. Rang: "We are in a time when the One God, Eru, is known to exist by the wise, but is not approachable save by one through the Valar, though He is still remembered in (unspoken) prayer by those of Numenorean descent" (Letter 297). 

The idea of all languages coming from Valanin is not reductionist or essentialist in the way that Graves describes it, but it is necessary for each of those who are named by a language to continue to grow and name all things, as sub-creators of the divine.  "The day light needs no praise, and so we praise anyway" because we have the ability to by the one who created the day.  Our naming, whatever the form, is so much more than our ability o define, but is instead in all forms out ability to continually glorify creation and create on our own. That is our origin, the history of creation and the divine that continues with us in His image.     

I'd like to think Frodo is connecting with this creation story when he is entranced by the elven song as he sees "a golden mist above seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world".       

-Gabby Bayness

Finding the Perfect Title

Master of the Rings and Lord of the Crowns, let alone more absurd alternate titles, such as King of the Rings, are all lacking when compared to the staying power of Lord of the Rings, but why is that the case? Is it only because of the mental connotations we’ve built up between the title and the source, or is there a more sound logical or linguistic reasoning for why this is the case?

Well, to begin with is the item of jewelry chosen for the title. As covered in class, crowns, necklaces, or other items could be justified for use in the title, but given the One Ring’s centrality to the entire trilogy, it only makes sense to focus the title upon it. And of course, one can most likely look to the utility of a ring in comparison to a crown, or a torc. While a crown would be in comparison unwieldy for Frodo to lug across Middle-Earth, not least for Bilbo to find in The Hobbit, a torc would similarly raise questions due to the constraints of wearing multiple. Whereas with rings, one person or being could technically wear as many as they wanted at once, a being would most likely only be able to physically wear two torcs at once. And to add, the simplicity of sliding on a ring, as described throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, is important in comparison to, for example, a necklace, which must be taken out of a pocket or bag and slung over one’s head.

Next comes the choice of “Lord” over similar words like “Master,” “Ruler,” or “Earl,” and this is where it makes sense to call upon Tolkien’s attention to philology in an attempt to justify the usage of “Lord,” which comes from the Old English hlāford, from hlāfweard, which means “bread-keeper,” and is based upon hlāf “loaf” + weard “keeper.” The word “Lord” finds its earliest meaning as one who is a keeper or guardian, and its usage in religious texts such as the King James Old Testament or Bible as a reference to god can further the connotation in one’s mind to the “Lord” as an all-powerful, omniscient being.

Meanwhile, “master” has its roots in the Latin “magister,” which not only conveys meanings and connotations of a teacher, or one who is “better” or “more than” others, but, as Tom Shippey might put it, is “wildly inappropriate to a work which does its best to avoid Latinisms” (pg. 5, Road to Middle-Earth). “Ruler” similarly finds its roots in Latin, and contains meanings of governance, guiding, and, of course, ruling. Both of these two choices as replacements for Lord relate towards an external power structure and hierarchy that isn’t meant to be implied by the title “Lord of the Rings,” as the “Lord” in question, as will be discussed later, is meant to be the keeper and controller of said rings, not necessarily the one who is “better” than others, or who “governs” the rings.

And while other titles such as “Earl” don’t come from Latin, instead having roots in the Germanic, not only does the definition not track with Tolkien’s most likely intent for the title (see definitions including “brave man, warrior,” and “nobleman”), but this may be where the question of phonology and the sound of words comes into play, similar to what was discussed in class. But for Earl in particular, there’s a third reason why Tolkien may not have chosen it as part of his title – “Earl” is also a name, and in Tolkien’s time, it was quite a popular one. Looking at statistics from “Ourbabynamer.com,” Earl reached peak popularity in 1894, when it reached #20 in most popular boy names, and it remained in the top 40 boys’ names from 1884 to 1931 meaning Tolkien, and a large contingent of his readers at the time, grew up around kids named Earl, and while the word still had another meaning, it would’ve been like the first book of Harry Potter being named “Harry Potter and the Jack’s Stone” (Jack is currently the #22 boy’s name). Connotations of words, especially in the time that Tolkien was writing, are important to think about.

But let’s get into what the title of the trilogy is in reference to: namely in Book 2, chapter 1 of The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf refers to the Black Riders as “the Ringwraiths, the Nine Servants of the Lord of the Rings” (pg 220). Otherwise known as Sauron, the eponymous “Lord of the Rings” is the central villain of the story, and one of the cruxes of the plot is that if Sauron regains control of the “One Ring to rule them all,” Sauron will be able to control all of the other rings, and through them, their wearers – in effect, Sauron will be the warden of the rings, the ultimate power upon them – much more similar to, say, a keeper, or a lord, than a warrior, or governor, or teacher. Where words like “master” and “ruler” break down here, as described above, is simply that in the trilogy, there is no apt comparison between Sauron and other characters of power in relation to the rings. Sauron won’t “govern” or be “better than” others with control of the rings, Sauron with the rings is simply seen as the be-all end-all if he gains control of them, hence the phrase “and in the darkness bind them.”

It's difficult to tell, when discussing, how much of the weight of the name “The Lord of the Rings” comes from our own connotations, which we’ve attached to the story throughout our own lives, and which have been attached to the story for decades before us – instead, we should look to the literal roots of the title, both in the story – e.g., what “Lord of the Rings” refers to – in Tolkien’s life – e.g., the commonness of Earl as a name – and in the etymology of words – e.g., the Latin roots of “master.” Words carry power, just like rings do, and understanding where they come from, and why their chosen, is the most important step in fully understanding the stories and meanings they weave. -MR

Name as Actuator and Substantiator

            Previously, in classes passed, we’ve identified a unique intellectual trajectory both in Tolkien’s own worldbuilding, and in his conception of the act of subcreation itself. This progression, which I will call Tolkienian evolution for sake of brevity, is the intellectual flow of language to myth, and then, from myth to history. While the relationship between all three of these elements of Tolkien’s Legendarium (and, these conceptual structures in the real world as well) are clearly bidirectional, it is also clear that Tolkien emulates this progression, and this evolution marks the conceptual aspects of his worldbuilding as well at the literal ones. This progression of language into myth into history was vital to Tolkien’s creative process and can explain much of the unique richness and depth that characterizes his worldbuilding. In his own words in a BBC Radio interview in 1964 (as Andrew Stump pointed out in our chat during class): “It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in my writing, always start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about, normally.” This conceptual progression is meaningful specifically in our discussion of names. Names, for Tolkien, are able to actuate language, providing the definite meeting point where language creates myth, and myth creates history.

            Perhaps the clearest example of this is in Eärendil, a name which Tolkien describes (through a proxy character in The Notion Club Papers) as having come to him unbidden, through the Crist cycle of poetry. Tolkien, through Lowdham, describes the moment: “I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English” (Sauron Defeated 236). Eärendil, of course, would become an eminent part of Tolkien’s legendarium, being also the father of the first king of Numenor, Elros, and Elrond. Interestingly, Eärendil also neatly embodies the progression discussed earlier: the purely linguistic name, Eärendil, leads to the mythological figures Eärendil and Elros, and finally, to the historical Elrond, and his status as a vital part of the history of the Second and Third Ages. Additional, Eärendil’s heritage traces backwards to Finwe and Indis, and his wife, Elwing, was saved by Ulmo, the Valar, who can be linked further back to Iru Eluvatar, bearing the full range from myth to history. This neatly sums up the way name actuates language: Eärendil, which stuck to Tolkien as interesting for mysterious, philological reasons, through name, set into action Numenor and Rivendell, the kingdoms of men and elves, and the history of Middle-Earth itself, and cascades backwards into myth, all the way back to Iru Eluvatar.  

            It is worthwhile for me to note that delineation between myth and history, in Tolkien’s fully-fleshed out Legendarium, is not quite binary. There is definitely a meaningful creative component to this distinction that one can trace through the first finished and public entries, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being historical and the prior events they allude to being mythical (especially in the deep past of the First Age and before). However, as Tolkien developed and published works predating this period, the broad distinction becomes less clear, though it is clear that Tolkien’s intellectual and creative progression followed from language to myth to history.

The way name can set language into action is not only relevant to the creative process of Middle-Earth’s creation, but also to the text of the creation itself. In my previous discussion post, I discussed how, in the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil can be considered a stand-in for Tolkien, and the Hobbits a stand-in for us, as readers. Through Tom Bombadil’s storytelling, the Hobbits are whisked into an ancient world of deep and mythic undercurrents seemingly impossible large in scope and grandeur. It is meaningful to revisit Tom’s encounters with the Hobbits with a renewed focus on naming.

For example, when Old Man Willow traps Merry, the Hobbits do not comprehend the tree as a living, conscious being until Tom gives it a name. Only then is what they assumed was brute matter rendered animate in their eyes. Another meaningful point of reference is how often Tom Bombadil states (and sings) his own name (certainly more than any other character in the Legendarium). These usages of name give their referents substance; Tom and Old Man Willow become real, to the Hobbits, and likewise, following the analogy, to the reader, when given name. This use of name can likewise be observed in Gollum’s/Smeagol’s use of third person (and their own name) in speech later in the text, wherein it reinforces and substantiates their identity. In this sense, naming not only actuates the creative evolution of Tolkien’s Work, but also substantiates the legendarium within The Lord of the Rings as well.

            Given that names, in this case, can substantiate, it is meaningful to look at Tolkien’s concept of real language versus simple code set out in The Notion Club Papers. Real language is relational, it has motivated similarity between its sonic qualities, its phonemes, and its referents. This, of course, also helps to explain how the internal consistency of languages in the text makes them real: for words with similar referents, or referents encapsulating over already-named referents, to have unrelated sounds associated with them, would make them code speech, not language. Names are what ground this relationality, making language real. This is worthwhile to relate back to Eärendil, and to the roots that emerged from this beautiful sonic name, becoming referents to love and to the Eastern Sea, which would then become roots for other parts of the language and other names. This clearly shows how names ground the relationality which makes language real.

            Revisiting Eärendil, it is worthwhile to note also that what attracted Tolkien to the name most, from The Notion Club Papers, are the sonic qualities of the name itself. There is clearly a relation between language and music in Tolkien’s legendarium, and in its most primal sense, music is what created the world (through Eru Iluvatar) and, in his Mythopoeia, language is what allows for sub-creation (through the primal application of adjectives). Thus, in this sense, names are linked to the fundamental, mysterious creative compulsion that can be placed before the progression from language to myth to history expressed before. Thereby, names do not only actuate language, but they can, in certain cases, predate and stimulate it.

Thanks for reading!

- MHK