I think that we should look at Tolkien's words not in a sense of breaking down what they mean but instead we should think about how they sound. All the words and names have an aesthetic appeal and the personalities of characters can be guessed by reading their names. The elves have fluid names that roll of the tongue, which denotes their harmony with the world and their ability to adapt. The dwarves have sharp, angular words, often consisting of many K's, B's, D's and Th's. When reading their words, their is no fluidity or continuum of sound (Khazad-dum, Azanulbizar, etc.) , which in many ways reflects their temper: no fluidity. They are quick to anger, and their mood can change as quickly as the weather. Tolkien's ability to create words that sound like what they describe was a valuable asset in his writing.

Just found this in a dictionary.
A road closed at one end is called French fashion cul-de-sac which means the bottom of the sack. Or Bag-End , doesn't it?

Here's a phrase I love very much (Sam remembers the Gaffer's saying) "Whenever you open your big mouth you put your foot in it" , that is speak without thinking first. Just try visualising it [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Bilbo sounds like biblios, which is Greek for "book."

Books signify an education, which Bilbo was already equiped with. And quite obviously, Bilbo is the author of The Red Book of Westmarch, the book that is supposed to actually bring US the entire story of The Lord of The Rings.

I've always seen Legolas and Gimli as gentle puns, one describing the Elven Casanova's flaxen legs, the other harking at gimlets.

Dry, twist of lemon.

Hmmm, something just crossed my mind, in the 7th century C.E. there was a Kign of the Franks, I think that he was of Merovingian descent and his name was Pepin. What makes this interesting is that he had the by-name the Short; thus Pepin the Short! In my language which is related to the Germanic language spoken in France at the time (before the latin in the form of, Lingua Romana rustica reclaimed the area) Pepin is Pippin!

Måns

[ July 09, 2003: Message edited by: Måns ]

That's because the name is just a translation of a real Westron hobbit name, cf. Appendix F II:
"In some old families, especially those of Fallohide origin such as the Tooks and the Bolgers, it was, however, the custom to give high-sounding first-names. Since most of these seem to have been drawn from legends of the past, of Men as well as of Hobbits, and many while now meaningless to Hobbits closely resembled the names of Men in the Vale of Anduin, or in Dale, or in the Mark, I have turned them into those old names, largely of Frankish and Gothic origin, that are still used by us or are met in our histories."

The fact that everything in the books which is English, or in a language related to it, is just supposed to be a translation should always be considered.

A wierd thought:

El=god
rond-sounds like "round"

So Elrond=round god

[img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

Barliman Butterbur

has four words in it. Barley, man, butter, and beer. this sort of makes sense, considering that he's an innkeeper.

[ July 11, 2003: Message edited by: Elennar Starfire ]

Barliman Butterbur - hee hee! I like how you turned it into 'beer'. I always mentally stuck an extra 'r' on the end of bur - so though he's wholesome as butter, he's 'burr' rough around the edges.

Aragorn - arid; dried out? The 'g' makes him harsh. Compare his name to his father's - Arathorn - 'dry thorn' - makes him dry - and hardened - horn? which when you pull in the Hebrew analogy for 'horn' you get 'strength'. Dry, hardened strength. That's a bit of a reach, of course, but who knows?

Have at it! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Tolkien's linguistic puns and games are indeed a fascinating feature of his writing. Unfortunately most of those jokes require explanation for the likes of us to understand them, so extensive was his philological learning. The following are examples of which I'm particularly fond.

Writing about The Hobbit for an English newspaper, Tolkien explained the origin of Smaug's name: (Letter #25, to the editor of the Observer)

Then there's the case of the Withywindle. The following is from Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, and follows a quotation of the passage from The Old Forest that describes the river.

I think this thread is worth raising from its second-page exile, if only for the airing of my new signature. Again I'm indebted to Professor Shippey for pointing out that the word 'okshen' means 'mess' in the Huddersfield dialect. Hence, he notes, Bilbo returns to Bag End at the conclusion of The Hobbit to find both an auction and a mess.

What I find much more amusing, though, is the description of the prices fetched by various items in said sale: The range in prices could not have been very wide if the most expensive items were 'going for a song'!

Back to the topic of puns, Fredegar's last name of Bolger (meaning, something that bulges?!) makes him a likely candidate for the nickname Fatty. Although I should point out that most of the puns mentioned in this thread are from our own invention, and probably not Tolkien's. With LOTR in so many languages now, there's bound to be some very funny stuff out there.

It's quite ironic that Pippin is actually the merry one, too! I guess we don't all have to do exactly what our names tell us to. Otherwise the Dark Lord might have wanted to soar on (yes, I know that's not the correct pronunciation) like an eagle, instead of plotting and scheming. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Bumping this back to the top :)

A Beleriandic place-name pun
 

From The Etymologies (The Lost Road and Other Writings).
* I have used ã here to represent an 'a' with macron, which I couldn't seem to replicate on my machine. Squatter's note.

"Incánus", as Gandalf was known to the South, reminds me of "incantation":

n. Ritual recitation of verbal charms or spells to produce a magical effect.

Obviously, very self-explanatory. ;)

Beorn is the most obvious example of Tolkien's wordplay that I can think of. It means "man, noble, hero, warrior ..." in Old English, but originally meant "bear" according to Christopher Tolkien. Modern Swedish and Norwegian björn means "bear".



I found this myself in 'Description of the Island of Númenor' which I thought was a bit suspicious:

Vëantur, venturer?

In a way Vëantur was the first 'venturer' of Númenor: Vëantur probably means something entirely different translated, though.



PM, 'The Problem of ros': That sounds as if almost all of such reminiscences exist by accident; that Tolkien could not help that many words ended up similar to modern words or he did not care, or perhaps he used modern words as inspiration for some of his invented words and therefore they are similar.

Neithan, Túrin's name among the Gaurwaith, sounds like English 'Nathan'.

I thought Nathan was short for Nathaniel, which I thought was a Hebrew word (one of Jesus' twelves disciples, for example). Or is it an English name that was used to represent a Hebrew name? That would be the same kind of thing as has occurred with the names, James and Jacob (for example, the Jacobite rebellion which supported the claim of James to the throne of England). Not much to do with LotR in this post, I'm afraid, but I was hoping someone could clarify this for me.

littlemanpoet:
Nathan can be short for Nathaniel 'gift of God', or by itself meaning 'gift'. It is a Hebrew name. Nathaniel was one of Jesus' diciples, and Nathan was a prophet during King David's reign. I think what Ardamir meant was that Nathan was a normal name in English-speaking countries.

Anyway, back to LotR:

As I read RotK, I noticed a translation of a name that Tolkien had actually worked into the text when Éowyn/Dernhelm was fighting the Witch-King.
Dernhelm means literally 'secret-helm' or 'helm of secrecy'. I love it! It's not funny per se, but it gets a "ha! isn't that interesting?" from me. It's more like a riddle, not as easy as "the White Mountains of Ered Nimrais."

Have any of you found hidden translations like this?

Although the standard transltion of Legolas is "Green Leaf" there is a good punning alternative - Laigo = sharp/ acute and L(h)as = ears a pointy eared bow-twanger indeed..

You may yell at me if this is old territory....
 

Boromir and Faramir.

I can't imagine that Tolkien thought this way: boring pond and faraway pond. Faramir always has struck me as the more feminine of the two names.

More likely, he was after Boromir as a forceful boar (or bore?); Faramir as farsighted?

While poring over hobbit family trees, researching for something I want to write, I discovered something I find very amusing. The three fabulous Took sisters have four syllable names each, but they are made up of a total of only six syllables. That means each sister has two syllables from each of the others! Their names form a chain, so to speak: Belladonna, Donnamira, Mirabella. Belladonna has been mentioned as the deadly nightshade; I'm not sure yet whether the other two names have a botanic meaning. In German, "Mirabelle" is a yellow plum. So far, my searching for further meaning has not yielded any results.

Well simply put... if we translated it very vaugly...

*bella* donna = *night* shade
Donna mirra = shade yellow?
Mirra *bella* = yellow *night* ?

Well a plum is dark in color... and maybe the color just before night?? I doubt if tolkien dove this deep into thinking about all of this... but maybe bella could be translated as "night" or "plum"...
... maybe im completely wrong... but if the chain is meant to be translated literally... i guess that would be the closest thing to it... :(

Well, literally "bella donna " means" beautiful woman" in Italian!
(Hence the name of the deadly nightshade "atropa belladonna"; it was used in small quantities to dilate the eye-pupils... (and is still medically used for that purpose)

For some time I've been wondering over the following question - was Tolkien familiar with Russian and could he make use of some Russian words?

While reading UT I came across the word DRUG. In Russian it means friend or companion - just the role that the Druedain were playing for the folk of Haleth.

In a couple of names there is a stem VORON that is like raven, a bird that serves as messenger of gods - sounds true in case of Voronwe.

Anyway, is there something in all that? :rolleyes:

Tolkein had a "working knowledge" of Russian, so it's possible that he meant to do those things.

On the derivation of 'Wetwang'
 

I happened to be reading through The Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research a few weeks ago, and came across an interesting article that seems pertinent to this discussion. The paper, by the Reverend E. Maule Cole, appears in the fourth volume of the journal, which covers the years 1904-5, and would therefore have been available to Tolkien even in his undergraduate years. [1]

At the time of writing, Rev. Cole had been the vicar of Wetwang in the East Riding of Yorkshire for some forty years, and had often been asked to explain the origins of the name. His conclusions would almost certainly have interested Tolkien, and it could be that the interesting dichotomy between the name and nature of the parish might have inspired him to use it in a more appropriate context in The Lord of the Rings.

In Old English, to quote the great Professor W.W. Skeat, "Wet's wet and Wang's a field, and there you are." But Wetwang in Yorkshire, as Rev. Cole points out, is on a chalk ridge, fifty feet above the bottoms of the dales on either side. It is so dry that in a report on the manor made to Lord Bathurst by his steward in the early eighteenth century, which Rev. Cole quotes in his paper, "Water is here much wanted. There is a pond in ye Town supply'd only by rainwater, wch in dry Summers affords none, and then the Inhabitants are obliged to drive their Cattle three miles for water."

However, as Cole points out, in Old Icelandic there is a compound word 'Vœtt-vangr' or 'Vétt-vangr', from 'vætti' ('witness', 'testimony') or 'va'ttr' (a witness), and the compound is a legal term, basically meaning a place to which one was summoned when accused of an offence; 'vettvang' being the area within a bowshot of the place in all directions. According to Cole, then, the Yorkshire place-name derives from a Norse system of trial by one's peers, which may or may not have been the origin of the English and Scottish systems of trial by jury.

I think that the idea of a place, the name of which can be translated as 'Wet field', but which is actually so dry that the well is useless in hot summers, might have appealed to Tolkien. On the other hand, he may never have read this article and the name of the marshes south of the Emyn Muil may simply be derived from the Old English phrase for a wet field. In either case a certain amount of irony is implied, but I like to think that he had come across the article during the course of his studies in Norse literature and put a reference to it into his story for personal amusement.
___

[1] Rev. E. Maule Cole, M.A., F.G.S.: 'On the Place-name Wetwang'. Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research IV (1904-5), 102-6

Thanks for digging that up, Squatter. What a delightful pair of possibilities! Thanks for the link, too. The top of a hill as you speak of it, seems a likely spot for a jury style council. Vetvang.

Humour in the landscape
 

I picked up a copy of Mark T. Hooker's collection of essays A Tolkienian Mathomium at Oxonmoot this year, and I've very much enjoyed reading it despite the harsh light it threw on my ignorance. Hooker is a professional linguist and gives an interesting insight into the workings of Tolkien's jokes. I'll give some examples from his essays below by way of a taster.

In 'The Linguistic Landscape of Tolkien's Shire', Hooker examines the place-name Dwaling. Now, as any fule kno, -ing in an English place-name usually indicates the home of people descended from a common ancestor: hence Reading (Readingum = 'Settlement of Réada's people'), Nottingham (Snotengaham = 'Settlement of Snot's People'). Hooker suggests that in Dwaling, the first component of the name (the personal name of the tribe's original founder) is a shortened form of Dwalakoneis, which is just the Gothic form of 'Tolkien'. Hence 'Tolkien's people' or 'ancestral home of Tolkien's people'. Looking at a map of the Shire, Dwaling would be some distance north-north-west of Buckland, which in the real world is south-south-west of Evesham in Worcestershire. Tolkien associated his Suffield ancestors with Evesham, and his brother ran a fruit farm there for many years. One of the significant landmarks of this area is Bredon Hill (Bree-dún = 'Hill-hill'), which contains the same element that gave Bree its name.

Hooker devotes an entire essay to explaining the derivation of Carrock. He reveals this to be an anglicised form of Welsh carreg, which means 'stone', 'rock' or 'escarpment'. One famous carreg in the Black Mountains of Carmarthenshire is Carreg Cennen, which has a castle on it that some legends say was founded by one of King Arthur's knights. Hooker takes these two facts (and various topographical similarities between Beorn's Carrock and the Welsh location) and then throws in a good joke. If, following the usual pattern of such words in Welsh, we make a compound out of the Welsh for 'bear' (arth) and the Welsh for 'man' (gwr), we get arthwr.

The very hills are laughing on Tolkien's maps.

Now that is a good find.

If I'm not mistaken the hebrew word for horn can also mean "beam" as in "a beam of light"....
... "A light from the shadows shall spring," eh?



edit- Woo! 1000th post! Utúlie'n aurë!

But isn't it always Aragorn (1), Legolas (2), and Gimli (3). I always think of them in that order anyway. And even in the movies they place them in that in order in the CoE

So Theoden is more in power than Denethor? Anyway, Theoden is a king, whereas Denether is just a steward.

Or maybe the 'dae' bit could be a reference to Mirkwood.

And the Old English word 'mægþ' (pronounced magth, I think) can mean a clan (with Aragorn and Gimli?), race (Elves?), or kindom (mirkwood again?)

Maybe I'm just stretching things a bit on this one.

'Eoh' is OE for 'horse'. So maybe Eomer is "horse-mare" or even "horse-horse" just to emphasize the Rohan-ishness.



The there's this whole Galad/Galadh thing. People say they're not related but I think they are. Remeber, the Two Trees=Light. Makes sense. Later on, Galadriel is has the "galad" for light, but her people are the "galadhrim" which are connected to trees. So maybe light and treesare meant to go together in Tolkien's wors.



Then again, I think it is in UT that CT meantions some of these. I'll have to go and fins the relevant quotes.

On reading 'alata' I immediately thought of Alatar (the Blue Wizard, not the downer -though that was my first thought:rolleyes:). Maybe he's hinting that Alatar actually did do something good.
But that's not a pun, is it? The two are not related. Or are they? Is there something similar or connecteing them except coming out of the west?

A few others,
Pippin's real name "Peregrin" of course sound a lot like "Peregrine" which is a type of falcon (perhaps indicating the brave warrior spirt under his peacuf hobbit outside) Re-enforcing thins is the fact that as I recall Peregrin's Father, the Thain was named Paladin which is a type of knight (I looked it up and technically it appers to refer to a knight of Charlemagne) and Pippin does end up a Knight of Gondor.
As a final double pun consider Theodens residence, Meduseld. This is usally translated (at least by Tolkein) as "Golden Hall". But of course "Med-" is also the orgin of the word "mead" and of course the center of any good Northern type village was the "mead hall" (which as I understand usally was the Cheiftans house) So Meduself becomes both "The Golden Hall" and "The Hall where evyone drinks their mead"

Speaking of Drink, I beive that somewhere its said that the Name of the Brandywine river is the result of a lingustic change in Hobbit from "Barad-nin" (Border water) to Barad-him (strong ale). (Thog if this is the case, I wonder whay the River is called the Brandywine and not the Barleywine, after all Brandy is not ale, and come to think of it I'm not enitirely sure the ME even knows about distillation yet)

I think Éomer means 'horse-famous (famous horseman)', while Éowyn means 'Horse-joy'. These are intended as Anglo-Saxon based translations of their 'real' names, which we do not know (in full anyway).

There's an essay published over at the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship: Light and Tree, A Survey Through the External History of Sindarin, by Helios De Rosario Martínez. It's in depth and maybe some might be interested (see the Tengwestie link over at E.L.F.org). I'm going to read it again in any case.

As an annoying spelling note concerning Alfirin's post: that should be Branda-nîn 'Border-water' and Bralda-hîm 'heady ale' (pun of the name).

Though *Barad-nen could be Sindarin ;)

Oops, I;m sorry must have been reading too fast when I copied hence the mistakes (also my keyboar doesnt seem to be able to put the carats over the "i"'s at last not when I'm online)

The use of pompous names are a hallmark of some families of Hobbits (particularly the upper class Tooks and Brandybucks). Some are of Welsh origin: Madoc, Caradoc, Gordobac etc. Some are Frankish: Isengrim, Pippin, Odo, Otho, Paladin, Hildibrand, etc. Some are even Latinate or Continental European: Gerontius, Donnamira, Mirabella, Ferdinand, Belladonna, Sigismond and Fortinbras (also the Prince of Norway in Shakespeare's Hamlet).

Actually, in Sindarin it is Baranduin, "golden-brown river", which is the color of brandy (in fact, brandy was usually referred to as brandy-wine in medieval texts). 'Heady Ale' is not pale but more brown in color (but not as dark as stout)...it's all in the color and not the specific alcoholic drink I guess.

To add a bit on Pippin: as already noted peregrine means 'foreign; alien; coming from abroad' or 'wandering, traveling, or migrating' (with respect to the bird, according to some sources the sense may have been a bird 'caught in transit,' as opposed to one taken from the nest). And Pippin can refer to 'any of numerous roundish or oblate varieties of apple.'

In Tolkien's notes on the name Pippin (published in The Peoples of Middle-Earth at least) appear the words raza 'stranger' and razan 'foreign', and it is related that Pippin's name was Razanur Tûc. There is also (same source) a word razar for a small red apple, so Razar 'Pippin', associated with the apple-word, but actually short for Razanur -- which can have the peregrine connection.

BTW Alfirin I was the one being annoying (that's what I meant in case the wording wasn't clear). No need for you to apologize in any case.

:)

Pompus names remind me what about "Sackville-Baggins". Isn't there a real Engish surname "Sackville-bagg" (or "Bagge"?

On the River, I wasnt questioning the color I was just questioning whether, at the technological level most of ME was at in the Third age, anyone knew what distillation was, given that none of the beverages people are noted as drinking are distilled (no whisky, no eu-de-vie, and most important, no brandy) and whether, if distillation was unknown, naming a river the "Brandywine" might be an bit of an anachronism, since it would be naming it for it resembence to a beverage no one in ME had ever seen.)

Well, the Elvish Miruvor is described as a 'cordial' I believe, which indicates it is a liquor or liquer and therefore distilled. But considering were are talking of Hobbits, it may well be anachronistic, unless of course there was a Benedictine monastery nearby Hobbiton.

Peregrine
 

Hi all,

Peregrin as mentioned, was a wanderer or outsider to the Romans but said to be the basis of 'pilgrim',

see the Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrinus_(Roman),

Cheers,

Rumil

Various points considered
 

I've never seen that particular surname, but both Sackville and Bagge turn up in The Oxford Names Companion and a compound of the two names isn't unlikely. These days it's becoming more common for married couples to combine their surnames and adopt the new compound, but in Tolkien's day this was mostly done if the bride's maiden name was more prestigious than her husband's surname, so as to emphasise the family's social connections. The Bagginses are a family of high social standing, so it would make sense for the Sackvilles to have engaged in a spot of onomastic one-upmanship. In England, this sort of thing is considered the hallmark of a socially aspirant middle class, so a double-barrelled surname carries distinct overtones of bourgeois pretension (one seldom encounters such surnames among the higher aristocracy and never among the working class). More damning yet from a Tolkienian perspective is that Sackville is a Norman habitation name (from Saquenville in Eure) and the Normans were the annoying social climbers par excellence: the great-grandsons of Vikings, sporting recent French names and styles for their borrowed cachet and speaking a debased form of French.

Tolkien's antagonism towards the Normans in particular and the French language in general is well documented. In 1910 he addressed the King Edward's School debating society in support of the motion 'This house deplores the occurrence of the Norman conquest'; and according to one of his former students, he once commented in a lecture to cadets: "You see... English was a language that could move easily in abstract ideas when French was still a vulgar Norman patois". I can only imagine that he was speaking of Norman French, which was the English court language from 1066 until Edward III began using English in his official documents more than two centuries later.

Regarding Hobbit names, they seem to have been given, as names are in England today, with no regard for their meaning. Clearly Tolkien enjoyed a joke at the expense of his characters in giving them names with appropriate meanings of which their owners were unaware. Apart from Peregrine, an obvious example would be Frodo, which is related to a Norse word meaning 'wise' and the personal name Froði (ð is always anglicised as d).

The anachronism of Brandywine can be explained by Tolkien's translator conceit. His special note on this name at the end of Appendix F to LR suggests that Brandywine is his own attempt to translate a pun in Westron in terms that would be understood by his English-speaking contemporaries. This doesn't cause the same problems for me as his simile in A Long-Expected Party: "The dragon passed like an express train...", since I don't think that anything in the pre-industrial world is comparable to a steam-powered express. Perhaps in Middle-earth itself the only thing like a dragon passing low overhead is the thing itself.

[EDIT] The names of Gerontius Took's "three remarkable daughters" are all Italian. As mentioned earlier, Belladonna means "beautiful woman", Donnamira means "Remarkable woman" and Mirabella means "Remarkably beautiful". It's interesting that Bilbo's mother is the only one of the three sisters not to have a "remarkable" name.