pure geek curiosity

[truepenny]

On the tracks of something completely else, I discovered that one of the Attic Greek words for future is το μελλον. Which transliterates to mellon, which is famously the Elvish word for friend.

Anybody got any guesses as to what Tolkien was up to with that?

Comments

[libskrat]

"Just one of those things," says David.

See this article for numbers on chance language resemblances.

[aquila1nz.livejournal.com]

But surely those number apply to languages that grow instead of being made? The chances of conincidences are just as high for comparing made languages to actual, but the chance of relationships must be higher since Tolkien did pick words because of references in a whole range of languages.

So if you compare Quenya to one of the Australian Aborigine languages you'd see coincidences. Compare it to practically any European language and you can't be sure which are coincidences and which were Tolkien's inspirations.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And Tolkien liked to play games with that sort of bilingual pun/reference. Which was what got me wondering.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

FWIW, his Elvish characters have a visual pun on Greek in them -- letter #29, which represents S, is a lowercase Greek sigma (the way it's drawn in the middle of a word). Letter #31, which is Z, looks like one sigma on top of another.

I suspect many of his borrowings are wihout plan, as with the plural morpheme "-im" (my Israeli friend went into raptures hoping she'd see fictional Hebrew); but I don't know which are planny and which not.

[libskrat]

... but I don't know which are planny and which not.

And that's the crux of it, for natural languages and artificial ones alike. Takes more than a resemblance to prove anything; always assume chance first.

In the case of natural languages (or artificial ones descended from a common, if equally artificial, ancestor), one must demonstrate a PATTERN of resemblances, and said pattern must fall within the realm of linguistic possibility, which is wide but not infinite.

In the case of artificial languages -- at least, by someone as smart and savvy as Tolkien -- the pun in question needs a bit of explication, a bit of external evidence (say, in one of his letters), or preferably both.

(Duffers like Frank Herbert tend to be more stupidly transparent about these things, obviously. But Tolkien, LeGuin, and their clueful ilk are another story.)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering this for years.

Also on the Tolkien word-sounds wondering-for-years front; in the Appendices to LOTR, Tolkien says that taken purely phonetically, there are no sounds more beautiful than "cellar door". "As long ago as forever, and as far away as Selidor..." can this be a coincidence?

(Your email seems to be bouncing mail from me, BTW.)

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Hmm. A clue that elves populated the world of Middle Earth by time traveling from a distant future world?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Argh. Stupid email.

Have sent message with alternative addresses.

If nothing else, truepenny (at) livejournal (dot) com should work.

[libskrat]

Dunno. Is it coincidence that the Old Speech teaching-word for "pebble" is "tolk"?

:)