The Etymologies isJ. R. R. Tolkien'setymological dictionary of his constructedElvish languages, written during the 1930s. As aphilologist, he was professionally interested in the structure of languages, the relationships between languages, and in particular the processes by which languages evolve. He applied this skill to the construction of the languages ofMiddle-earth, especially the Elvish languages.The Etymologies reflects this knowledge and enthusiasm: he constantly changed the etymological relationships of his "bases", the roots of his Elvish words. The list of words covers several of his minor languages as well as the two major ones, greatly extending the vocabularies known before it was published inThe Lost Road and Other Writings in 1987.
From his schooldays,J. R. R. Tolkien was in his biographerJohn Garth's words "effusive about philology"; his schoolfriend Rob Gilson called him "quite a great authority onetymology".[1] Tolkien was a professionalphilologist, a scholar of comparative and historicallinguistics. He was especially familiar withOld English and related languages. He remarked to the poet andThe New York Times book reviewerHarvey Breit that "I am a philologist and all my work is philological"; he explained to his American publisherHoughton Mifflin that this was meant to imply that his work was[T 1]
all of a piece, andfundamentally linguistic in inspiration. ... Theinvention of languages is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows."[T 1]
The Tolkien scholarVerlyn Flieger writes that[2]
it is important to remember that all of Tolkien's studies, the focus of his profession, was a concentration on the importance of the word. His profession as philologist and his vocation as writer of fantasy/theology overlapped and mutually supported one another".[2]
In other words, Flieger writes, Tolkien "did not keep his knowledge in compartments; his scholarly expertise informs his creative work."[2] This expertise was founded, in her view, on the belief that one knows a text only by "properly understanding [its] words, their literal meaning and their historical development."[2]
Tolkien is best known as the author of thehigh fantasy worksThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings, both set inMiddle-earth.[3] Hecreated a family of invented languages forElves, carefully designing the differences between them to reflect their distance from their imaginary common origin. He stated that his languages led him to create theinvented mythology ofThe Silmarillion, to provide a world in which his languages could have existed. In that world, the splintering of the Elvish peoples mirrored the fragmentation of their languages.[4][5]
The Etymologies is Tolkien'setymological dictionary of the Elvish languages, written during the 1930s. It was edited byChristopher Tolkien and first published in 1987 as the third part ofThe Lost Road and Other Writings, the fifth volume of theHistory of Middle-earth. It is a list of roots of the Proto-Elvish language, from which he builthis many Elvish languages, especiallyQuenya,Noldorin and Ilkorin. It gives many insights into Elvish personal and place names not explained anywhere else.The Etymologies does not form a unified whole, but incorporates layer upon layer of changes. It was not meant to be published.[6]
TheEtymologies hasthe form of a scholarly work listing the "bases" or "roots" of theprotolanguage of the Elves:Common Eldarin and Primitive Quendian.[7] Under each base, the next level of words (marked by an asterisk) are "conjectural", that is, not recorded byElves or Men (it is not stated who wroteThe Etymologies inside Middle-earth) but presumed to have existed in the proto-Elvish language. After these, actual words which did exist in the Elvish languages of Danian,Doriathrin (a dialect of Ilkorin), Eldarin (the proto-language of the Eldar), (Exilic)Noldorin, Ilkorin, Lindarin (a dialect of Quenya), Old Noldorin, Primitive Quendian (the oldest proto-language), Qenya, and Telerin are listed.[6]
Absent from this list of languages isSindarin, which Tolkien decided, soon after writingThe Etymologies and the contemporaneousLhammas, to make the major language of the Elves in exile inBeleriand. As such it largely replaced Noldorin; eventually Tolkien settled on the explanation that after theNoldor returned to Beleriand fromValinor, they adopted the language used by theSindar (Grey Elves) already settled there. He decided that the new Noldorin was just a dialect ofQuenya, little changed from it, while the old Noldorin essentially became Sindarin, inheriting the phonology, grammar, and syntax that he had developed for Noldorin, whether or not they fitted their new context.[6][8]Carl F. Hostetter called this a "fundamental conceptual change", noting that Sindarin has "a radically different history and by the nature of Tolkien's own process of invention a necessarily different grammar in detail than Noldorin."[8] This means thatThe Etymologies encapsulate a stage in Tolkien's development of his Elvish languages which precedes that assumed inThe Lord of the Rings andThe Silmarillion.[6][8] That in turn means, Hostetter writes, thatThe Etymologies cannot safely be used to draw conclusions about what "mature Sindarin" might be or for that matter what "mature Quenya" might be like.[8]
Some examples may illustrate how Tolkien worked with the "bases":[T 2]
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Tolkien's manuscript ofThe Etymologies is handwritten, with crossings-out, sometimes overwritten, scrawled, or so faint as to be almost illegible. Christopher Tolkien undertook the challenging task of transcribing it.[6][9] After publication, the linguistHelge Fauskanger identified a list of probable errors in the transcription.[9] Many of his suggestions were confirmed in 2003 and 2004, whenCarl F. Hostetter and Patrick Wynne documented a substantial body of addenda and corrigenda to the published text inVinyar Tengwar issues 45 and 46.[10][11][12]
WithThe Etymologies unpublished, Tolkien stated in a 1956 letter that his plans for the "specialist volume" oflegendarium materials, which he had hoped to publish alongsideThe Lord of the Rings, were[T 4]
largely linguistic. An index of names [not identical toThe Etymologies] was to be produced, which by etymological interpretation would also provide quite a large Elvish vocabulary; this is of course a first requirement. I worked at it for months, and indexed the first two vols [ofThe Lord of the Rings]. (it was the chief cause of the delay of Vol iii) until it became clear that size and cost were ruinous.[6]
He writes in a 1967 letter that while he is pleased that readers are so interested in the names used inThe Lord of the Rings, they "often neglect" the evidence he provided in the text and the appendices.[T 5] He mentions that he has written a "commentary on the nomenclature for the use oftranslators"; and[T 5]
Desirable would be anonomasticon giving the meaning and derivationof all names and indicating the languages that they belong to.[T 5]
Tolkien adds, in the same letter, that he would find it "agreeable" to have a "historical grammar ofQuenya andSindarin. He at once states, however, that he does not "intend to engage in these projects, until my mythology and legends are completed".[T 5] In the 1956 letter already mentioned, Tolkien notes that "many [fans] want Elvish grammars, phonologies, and specimens; some want metrics and prosodies — not only of the brief Elvish specimens, but of the 'translated' verses in less familiar modes, such as those written in the strictest form of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse (e.g. the fragment at the end ofthe Battle of the Pelennor, V vi 124)."[T 4] In short, Tolkien was much more interested in words than in grammars.[T 4] ThusThe Etymologies is preoccupied with words, not with grammar: only a few Elvish phrases are included in theonomasticon.[T 2]
The organisation ofThe Etymologies reflects what Tolkien did in his career as a philologist. With English words, he worked backwards from existing words to trace their origins. With Elvish he worked both backward and forward, to create "fitting names" with appropriate meanings, and to devise suitable etymologies for them in Quenya and Sindarin. In theory he would create the root first and work forwards to the word; but if the word already existed, he worked backwards from there.[13][7] Christopher Robinson gives as an exampleElendil, founder of the Kingdom ofArnor. His name,The Etymologies reveals, unitesel, meaning 'star', pluralelen, withdil, 'friend', to give the meaning of "Elendil" as 'Star-lover'.[7]
The etymological development was always in flux as Tolkien ceaselessly tinkered with etymologies and the linguistic processes that brought about the changes from a language to its descendants.Arden Smith writes that Tolkien usually started with a detailed historical phonology of a language; then he created part of its morphology, before scrawling "a mass of incomplete notes", not bothering to move on to syntax: "by that time he would have already started revising everything from the beginning."[10] This means, Smith comments, that Tolkien scarcely created languages with grammar and lists of words at all. Instead, he created "outlines of [the] historical development" of his languages. Smith gives as an example theGreen-elves' Danian language: it consists of about "two dozen attested words" and a bit of phonological development, which indicates that its sound structure resembles that ofOld English.[10]
Christopher Tolkien calledThe Etymologies "a remarkable document".[6] He stated that his father "wrote a good deal on the theory ofsundokarme or 'base structure' ... but like everything else it was frequently elaborated and altered".[6] In explanation, he wrote that his father was "more interested in the processes of change than he was in displaying the structure and use of the languages at any given time", and that "the successive phases of their intricate evolution were the delight of their creator."[6]
GAT(H)-Ngath (*gattā) cavern;Doriath 'Land of the Cave' is Noldorin name for Dor.Eglador = Land of the Elves. The Ilkorins called [?themselves]Eglath =Eldar. Rest ofBeleriand was calledAriador 'land outside'. Ngadr,gador prison, dungeon;gathrod cave. Another name isGarthurian = Fenced Realm = NArdholen (which was also applied toGondolin). [Added to this later:] Dor.gad fence;argad 'outside the fence', the exterior, the outside. Cf.Argador, FalathrinAriador. [SeeAR2, ÉLED, ӠAR, LED.]
Dimitra Fimi notes that under the rootGAT(H)-, Tolkien mentions the place-name "Garthurian", meaning 'a fenced realm' such asDoriath, or the secret Elvish city ofGondolin. She comments that this seems to imply that at the time of writingThe Etymologies, Tolkien still imagined the tale ofLúthien and Beren "asCeltic/Arthurian". In that case, Fimi writes, Tolkien was making a "historical pun" – given that Beleriand was originally theArthurian-sounding Broceliand (derived from the forest ofBrocéliande) – and he was obliged to work backwards from there to invent some roots that fitted.[13]
Mark T. Hooker writes that the word-roots which Tolkien uses inThe Etymologies owe something toSanskrit, the ancient literary language of northern India. This influence may have been indirect, with much of Tolkien's direct inspiration being taken from reconstructed roots of theProto-Indo-European language, "the kind most frequently cited in philological scholarship"—which depend considerably on Sanskrit, a majorIndo-European language. Tolkien frequently denotes older roots withasterisks in accordance with the conventions of historical linguists, where they indicate reconstructed vocabulary with no historical attestation, like that of Proto-Indo-European—the "meaning-elements of an unrecorded proto-language of the distant past".[14]
Hostetter, reflecting on half a century of Tolkienian linguistics, notes that in 1992Anthony Appleyard usedThe Etymologies to attempt to systematise thegrammar of Quenya for the first time.[15][16] The linguistArden R. Smith, inA Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, callsThe Etymologies "the most valuable source of Elvish vocabulary", covering "about a dozen" Elvish languages.[10]