The War of the Jewels (73 page)

(3) [Cf. p. 398: 'statements that certain names (especially those of the Valar or of places in Valinor) were translations of the Valarin forms']

Arda Q arda (< *garda, S gardh) meant any more or less bounded or defined place, a region. Its use as a proper name for the World was due to V Aparaphelun.

Aratar 'the Supreme', was a version of the V maxanaz, pl.

maxanumaz 'Authorities', also adapted as Mahan, pl. Mahani.

Ea 'All Creation', meaning 'it is', or 'let it be'. Valarin not recorded.

Ambar 'the Earth', meaning 'habitation'. Though the Eldar often used Arda in much the same sense, the proper meaning of Ambar was the Earth only, as the place where the Aratar had taken up their dwelling, and the Incarnate were destined to appear.(29)

Eru 'the One'. Iluvatar was, however, a name made by the Eldar (when they had learned of Eru from the Valar), which they used more often than Eru, reserved for the most solemn occasions. It was made from iluve 'allness, the all', an equivalent of Ea, and atar 'father'.

Varda 'the Sublime'. V form not given.

Melkor 'He who arises in Might', oldest Q form *mbelekoro.

V form not given.

Namo 'Judge'; usually called by the Eldar Mandos, the place of his dwelling.

Irmo 'Desirer'; usually called by the name of his dwelling Lorien.

Este 'Repose'. (*SED: CE *esde > *ezde, Q Este, .T Ede (as names only); S idh 'rest, repose'.)

Vala 'has power' (sc. over the matter of Ea), 'a Power'; pl.

Valar, 'they have power, the Powers'. Since these words are from the point of Q structure verbal in origin, they were probably versions of V words of verbal meaning. Cf. axan (p. 399), Ea; and also Q eques.

Atan, pl. Atani 'Men', meaning 'the Second, those coming next'. The Valar called them in full 'the Second Children of Eru', but the Quendi were 'the first Children of Eru'. From these terms the Q Minnonar 'First-born' and Apanonar 'After-born' were imitated; but Q Eruhin, pl. Eruhini 'Children of Eru', or 'Elves and Men', is a translation of the Valarin expression 'Children of Eru' (of which the actual Valarin form is not recorded, probably because the V equivalent of Eru is nowhere revealed). Besides the form -hin, -hini only used in composition after a parental name, Q has hina 'child', and hina only used in the vocative addressing a (young) child, especially in hinya (< hinanya) 'my child'. S has hen, pl. hin, mostly used as a prefix in patronymics or metronymics: as Hin Hurin 'The Children of Hurin'. These words are derivatives of stem *khin: khina (in composition khina > Q -hin), and khina.

Kalakiryan 'the Cleft of Light', the pass in the Pelori not far from the north side of Taniquetil through which the Light of the Trees in Valinor flowed out to the shores of Aman.

Taniquetil, the highest of the mountains of the Pelori, upon which were the mansions of Manwe and Varda. The name was properly only that of the topmost peak, meaning High-Snow-Peak. The whole mountain was most often called by the Eldar (Oron) Oiolosse, '(Mount) Everwhite' or 'Eversnow'. There were many names for this mountain in Quenya. A variant or close equivalent of Taniquetil was Arfanyaras(se). The Sindarin forms of the names were made by the Noldor, for the Sindar knew nothing of the land of Aman except by report of the Exiles: e.g. Amon-Uilos and Ras-Arphain.

Pelori 'the fencing, or defensive Heights'. The mountains of Aman, ranging in a crescent from North to South, close to the western shores.

On this list Pengolodh comments: 'These are all that I can find in old lore or remember to have read or heard. But the list is plainly incomplete. Many of the names once known and used, whether they be now found in the surviving histories or passed over, must have belonged to the first or the last group. Among those that are still remembered I note Avathar, the name of the dim and narrow land between the southern Pelori and the Sea in which Ungoliante housed. This is not Elvish. There are also the names Nessa, the spouse of Tulkas, and Uinen the spouse of Osse. These too are not Elvish, so far as can now be seen; and since the names Tulkas and Osse come from Valarin, the names of their spouses may also represent titles in the Valarin tongue, or such part of them as the Eldar could adapt. I say "so far as can now be seen", for there is no certainty in this matter without record. It is clear that some, or indeed many, of these adoptions and translations were made in very early days, when the language of the Eldar was otherwise than it became before the Exile. In the long years, owing to the restlessness and inventiveness of the Eldar (and of the Noldor in particular), words have been set aside and new words made; but the names of the enduring have endured, as memorials of the speech of the past. There is also this to consider. When words of Elvish tongue had been used to make the names of things and persons high and admirable, they seem to have been felt no longer suitable to apply to lesser things, and so passed from the daily speech.

'Thus we see that vala is no longer used of any power or authority less than that of the Valar themselves. One may say A vala Manwe! "may Manwe order it!"; or Valar valuvar "the will of the Valar will be done"; but we do not say this of any lesser name. In like manner Este or Ede is the name only of the spouse of Lorien, whereas the form that that word has in Sindarin (idh) means "rest", such as even a tired hound may find before a fire.' (Note 36, p. 416)

The reasons that Pengolodh gives or surmises for the scanty knowledge of Valarin preserved in Noldorin lore are here summarized. Some have already been alluded to.

Though Valarin had many more sounds than Eldarin, some alien to the Eldarin style and system, this only imposed any real difficulty upon the borrowing of words and their adaptation to Eldarin. To learn Valarin was probably not beyond the powers of the Eldar, if they had felt the need or desire to do so; references to the difficulty of Valarin are mainly due to the fact that for most of the Eldar learning it was an ungrateful and profitless task.

For the Eldar had no need to learn the language of Valinor for the purposes of communication; and they had no desire either to abandon or to alter their own tongue, which they loved and of which they were proud. Only those among them, therefore, who had special linguistic curiosity desired to learn Valarin for its own sake. Such 'loremasters' did not always record their knowledge, and many of the records that were made have been lost. Feanor, who probably knew more of the matter than any of the younger generations born in Aman, deliberately withheld his knowledge.

It was probably only in the very early days that the Eldar heard Valarin much spoken, or had opportunity for learning it, unless by special individual effort. The Teleri had little immediate contact with the Valar and Maiar after their settlement on the shores. The Noldor became more and more engrossed with their own pursuits. Only the Vanyar remained in constant association with the Valar. And in any case the Valar appear quickly to have adopted Quenya.

All the orders of Eru's creatures have each some special talent, which higher orders may admire. It was the special talent of the Incarnate, who lived by necessary union of hroa and fea, to make language. The Quendi, first and chief of the Incarnate, had (or so they held) the greatest talent for the making of lambe.

The Valar and Maiar admired and took delight in the Eldarin lambe, as they did in many other of the skilled and delicate works of the Eldar.

The Valar, therefore, learned Quenya by their own choice, for pleasure as well as for communication; and it seems clear that they preferred that the Eldar should make new words of their own style, or should translate the meanings of names into fair Eldarin forms, rather than [that] they should retain the Valarin words or adapt them to Quenya (a process that in most cases did justice to neither tongue).

Soon after the coming of the Vanyar and Noldor the Valar ceased to speak in their own tongue in the presence of the Eldar, save rarely: as for instance in the great Councils, at which the Eldar were sometimes present. Indeed, it is said that often the Valar and Maiar might be heard speaking Quenya among themselves.

In any case, to speak of the early days of the settlement at Tirion, it was far easier and swifter for the Valar to learn Quenya than to teach the Eldar Valarin. For in a sense no lambe was 'alien' to the Self-incarnate. Even when using bodily forms they had less need of any tengwesta than had the Incarnate; and they had made a lambe for the pleasure of exercising the powers and skills of the bodily form, and (more remotely) for the better understanding of the minds of the Incarnate when they should appear, rather than for any need that they felt among themselves. For the Valar and Maiar could transmit and receive thought directly (by the will of both parties) according to their right nature;(30) and though the use of bodily form (albeit assumed and not imposed) in a measure made this mode of communication less swift and precise, they retained this faculty in a degree far surpassing that seen among any of the Incarnate.

At this point Pengolodh does not further discuss this matter of the transmission and reception of thought, and its limitations in any order of creatures. But he cites, as an example of the speed with which by its aid a tengwesta may be learned by a higher order, the story of the Finding of the Edain. According to this the Noldorin king, Finrod, quickly learned the tongue of the folk of Beor whom he discovered in Ossiriand, for he understood in large measure what they meant while they spoke.

'Now Finrod,' he says, 'was renowned among the Eldar for this power which he had, because of the warmth of his heart and his desire to understand others; yet his power was no greater than that of the least of the Maiar.'(31)

Pengolodh concludes as follows. 'In the histories the Valar are always presented as speaking Quenya in all circumstances.

(Note 37, p. 417) But this cannot proceed from translation by the Eldar, few of whose historians knew Valarin. The translation must have been made by the Valar or Maiar themselves.

Indeed those histories or legends that deal with times before the awaking of the Quendi, or with the uttermost past, or with things that the Eldar could not have known, must have been presented from the first in Quenya by the Valar or the Maiar when they instructed the Eldar. Moreover this translation must have concerned more than the mere words of language. If we consider the First History, which is called the Ainulindale: this must have come from the Aratar themselves (for the most part indeed from Manwe, it is believed). Though it was plainly put into its present form by Eldar, and was already in that form when it was recorded by Rumil, it must nonetheless have been from the first presented to us not only in the words of Quenya, but also according to our modes of thought and our imagina-tion of the visible world, in symbols that were intelligible to us.

And these things the Valar understood because they had learned our tongue.'

Author's Notes to Quendi and Eldar.

Note 1 (p. 367; referred to in two passages).

Distinguish yomenie 'meeting, gathering' (of three or more coming from different directions). The Telerin form was: el sila lumena vomentienguo.

Note 2 (p. 369).

It was a later development in Quenya, after the elements -o and

-va had become inflexions, applicable to all nouns, to pluralize

-o by the addition of the plural sign -n, when added to a plural stem (as by natural function it could be): as lasseo 'of a leaf', lassio > lassion 'of leaves'. Similarly with -va; but this was and remained an adjective, and had the plural form -ve in plural attribution (archaic Q -vai); it could not, however, indicate plurality of source, originally, and the Q distinction Eldava Elf s and Eldaiva Elves þ was a Q innovation.

Note 3 (p. 372).

roquen is < *roko-kwen with Quenya syncope, *roko being an older simpler form of the stem, found in some compounds and compound names, though the normal form of the independent word 'horse' had the fortified form rokko. These compounds being old were accented as unitary words and the main stress came on the syllable preceding -quen: kirya:quen, kirya:queni.

Note 4 (p. 373).

That is, elliptically for Quenya lambe, as English for English language. When historians needed a general adjective 'Quendian, belonging to the Elves as a whole', they made the new adjective Quenderin (on the model of Eldarin, Noldorin, etc.); but this remained a learned word.

Note 5 (p. 375).

This change took place far back in Elvish linguistic history; possibly before the Separation. It is in any case common to the Telerin of Aman, Sindarin, and Nandorin.

Note 6 (p. 375).

The Noldorin Loremasters record that Pendi was used by the Teleri only of the earliest days, because they felt that it meant the lacking, the poor (*PEN), with reference to the indigence and ignorance of the primitive Elves.

Note 7 (p. 377).

The Dwarves were in a special position. They claimed to have known Beleriand before even the Eldar first came there; and there do appear to have been small groups dwelling furtively in the highlands west of Sirion from a very early date: they attacked and waylaid the Elves by stealth, and the Elves did not at first recognize them as Incarnates, but thought them to be some kind of cunning animal, and hunted them. By their own account they were fugitives, driven into the wilderness by their own kin further east, and later they were called the Noegyth Nibin (32) or Petty-dwarves, for they had become smaller than the norm of their kind, and filled with hate for all other creatures.