Linguistic puns, riddles, and jokes in LotR, etc.

[Cúdae]

Interesting topic! Why am I always late for these things? Anyway...

Now for my pet peeve - Tolkien's worst name: Legolas. Leg 'o lamb. An elf with a lass's leg? See what I mean? erk

I think somewhere Tolkien said that Legolas's name is the dialect form of the two words "Laeg" and "[g]olas" or something like that. When I've looked at this name, I mess around with the pronunciation. For example, pronouncing the "Le" as "Lee." (Which just makes me laugh.) Then when I found "laeg" as being the actual root, I thought of something else:

First of all, rearrange ae into ea. Then take away the g and put an f in it's place. You have the word "leaf" now (while still having it bear a resemblance to "laeg"), which is also an element in the English translation of Legolas's name.

Second, I discovered that ae is supposed to be pronounced as a long "i" (kind of) in Tolkien's words. I have no idea if this applies everywhere, but when I put it in the pronounciation I ended up with "Lie"-golas. Then, playing around the dialect Tolkien wrote of, it became "Le"-golas again. Realizing on which syllable I was placing the emphasis, it sounded less like "leg o'lamb" and more like "L(ay)gol-la(z)."
I have no idea where this idea is going, maybe someone else can pick up where I left off.

The third thing I came up with after breaking it down were other Sindarin words with "ae" or preferably "aeg" in them OR with "las" or "olas" in them. Here's what I found:
maeg-"sharp; piercing" Looking at it this way- possibly a reference to eyesight? This is also seen in the eyesight of the other Legolas in Gondolin(?).
dae- "shadow" I almost eliminated this one because of the "d."
falas- "shore, line of surf" Possibly a reference to Legolas's future love for the sea?
gaer- "sea" If not for the meaning, I would have eliminated this one. But when I found the previous "falas", I changed my mind.
lad- "plain, valley" Similar to "las," but no reference I could thing of except for the matching syllable of "Imladris."
ras- "horn" Also similar to "as," but again no reference other than the match in "Caradhras."

That's all I found, maybe someone else has ideas.

Or maybe the joke's on us this time. Maybe Toklien created a name with little to other linguistic meaning than his own translation for his own amusement.

Or, maybe my Bawston [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] accent is getting n the way of proper pronunciation of...everything.