The Etymologies (Tolkien)

The Etymologies is a document edited by Christopher Tolkien which appears in the History of Middle-earth: The Lost Road and Other Writings. Christopher Tolkien described it as "a remarkable document." It is essentially a list of "roots" which J. R. R. Tolkien used as "building blocks" in creating the Elvish languages of Arda, namely Quenya and Sindarin. Christopher Tolkien said in his introduction 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." ("Lost Road" p. 378.)

Organization

The etymologies neither a dictionary nor an instructional primer. Words are not listed in alphabetical order. Each entry is an ur-root which never existed in any language, called a stem. Under each ur-root, the next level of words are "conjectural" (denoted by an asterisk) root words which also did not exist, but are speculated to have once existed, in the elvish languages. After these, actual words which do exist in elvish are offered as examples. Often, the words bear little resemblance to their stems, and the shifts in phonology among elvish languages is anything but obvious.

The shifts are even less obvious because Tolkien never explicitly tells how to conjugate verbs, decline nouns, make sentences, and all the other usual aspects of communication for his two invented languages. Nowhere does he explain the rules of how any regular changes to spelling occurs, nor does he discuss regular and irregular verbs, so this makes the changes in spelling for different versions of elvish even more opaque than they could have been.

This organization 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 did the same thing, but since his invented etymological development was always in flux, it is extremely difficult for later readers to follow because only he knew the starting point, and later readers do not have an anchor (such as they would have with English).

Tolkien was always interested in words, not in actually using a language to communicate. Thus the etymologies are preoccupied with place-name elements and the like, but nowhere are basic elvish phrases (except the two or three in "Lord of the Rings") ever developed. In a sense, Tolkien never invented "languages" because he never tells how to carry on a meaningful conversation in elvish!

Two (Or More) Elvish Languages In Flux

The etymologies discuss the languages Quenya and Sindarin (as they're known in the Lord of the Rings and other "canonical" books; called "Noldorin" at this stage). The etymologies are not a single, unified whole, but layer upon layer of changes. The relationships between the two languages are made much clearer than, say, in "Lord of the Rings". The etymologies have both Old Noldorin and "modern" Noldorin, and a smattering of other cognate Elvish languages (like that of the Teleri).

Because the etymologies were extant when work on "Lord of the Rings" began, they give many insights into place and personal names of elvish origin otherwise opaque in the work itself.

undokarme: Base Structure

Christopher Tolkien stated that his father "wrote a good deal on the theory of "sundokarme" or 'base structure'...but like everything else it was frequently elaborated and altered..." ("Lost Road" p. 379.)

Examples

The following examples (taken from the etymologies, s.v. the stems referenced) serve to illustrate how Tolkien used the "roots" to create words in his Elvish languages:

1. BAD- "*bad-" judge. Cf. MBAD. Not in Quenya. Noldorin [Archaic/Old Sindarin] "bauð (bād)" judgement; "badhor, baðron" judge.

2. TIR- watch, guard. Quenya "tirin" I watch, past tense "tirne"; Noldorin "tiri" or "tirio", past tense "tiriant". Quenya "tirion" watch-tower, tower. Noldorin "tirith" watch, guard; cf. "Minnas-tirith" [From root MINI] .