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| At Manwë's Feet: Studies in Tolkien's World by Fiondil | 9 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/15/2010 |
| A fascinating discussion, from one who has studied visual perception, brain mapping, and art. Thanks for the enlightenment! Author Reply: I'm so glad you found this enlightening, Larner. Thanks for letting me know. I really appreciate it. | |
| rick | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/15/2010 |
| Another good one, in an entirely new way! I enjoyed your essay very much,and learned at least a little bit. A comment on your comments about purple: elves may not have had it because it is very difficult to obtain Crayola-equivalent Royal Purple from vegetable dyes. The ancient world used murex sea-snails for a dye always described in modern journals as "reddish-purple"; the kermes insect produces the scarlet that cardinals wear. To get any kind of purple with vegetable dyes, you'd need to over-dye blue with red or vice versa, and royal purple (modern) would not be the result. Neither woad (blue) nor madder (red), the primary dye sources for those colors in medieval Europe, produce the blazingly intense colors of modern aniline dyes. It would take a great deal of persistence and time to get even a fairly rich purple using over-dying. Elves have time & persistence, but they may also have had other things to do, or may not have thought the result worth the effort, or may have classified the results in with blues or reds. An additional note about murex sea snails: In the Wikipedia article about Tyrian purple at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple it says David Jacoby remarks[10] that "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 g of pure dye, enough to color only the trim of a single garment." | |
| 6336 | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/14/2010 |
| Been reading some of the reviews. Perhaps the reason the Sindar had so many differant words for white is because, before Ithil rose, that was mostly what they sew, shades of black, white and gray. Lynda Who can think of any number of names for differant whites. Author Reply: Very likely true, Lynda. In "Elf, Interrupted" I have Finrod explaining how Sindarin clothing was highly textured rather than colorful, the way the Noldor's clothing was. When colors are in shades of grey, so to speak, you're likely to get more textured material to provide interest. Finrod goes on to tell about the Sindar's white-on-white embroidery technique which did not exist among the Noldor as an illustration of this. And we see this in our own world. Eskimos have 20 words for 'snow'. Here in Central New York which can have brutal winters I think we have about a dozen or so different words for 'snow'. Down in the South where snow is rare, they probably have only one or two words to describe it. | |
| Kaylee Arafinwiel | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/14/2010 |
| Hi, Atar Fiondil! Well, this is interesting. :) An essay! You never fail to amaze. *grin* I have to say, I firmly disagree with the CARP here. The beginning of the essay was a wonderful introduction. I never had it explained like that in school...now it makes sense! As for the colors themselves...I didn't know Tolkien had so many words for the different colors. That's amazing...especially how some cultures of Elves (and some 'real' languages) don't actually have words for certain colors. As at least one other reviewer said, I grew up on Crayola colors, so I can't imagine that! Still, I can imagine different words for various hues and shades. (Someone ought to come out with an Elvish Crayola box! "Menelluin" would be one of my favorites!) Hantanyel, so much for this wonderful resource! Tye-melin, Atar Fiondil! Kaylee Author Reply: Hi Kaylee. You're welcome. I'm glad you found this essay interesting and that it makes sense to you. We all grew up with Crayola colors so it is hard to imagine that some cultures only recognize 3 or 4 or 5 basic colors. An Elvish Crayola box sounds like a lot of fun. *LOL* Thanks for reviewing and letting me know how much you enjoyed this. I appreciate it. Tye-melin. | |
| Erulisse (one L) | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/14/2010 |
| This is simply yummy. As an anthropologist, this type of analysis is a wonderful example of how cultures can be studied and understood from the outside looking in. Your extrapolation of color terminology based on the history of the languages makes a great deal of sense - color terms abound in the cultures raised with the Two Trees, color terms of shade and shadow abound with those raised under Varda's stars. Thank you SO MUCH for your insight. I can visualize these cultures just a bit clearer now, thanks to your research. Le hannon. - Erulisse (one L) Author Reply: I'm so glad you enjoyed this essay, Erulisse. Having a background in anthropology and sociolinguistics, I love to explore these aspects of elvish culture as much as one can without having any Elves to question. *LOL* I am glad that this little exploration in the possible consequence of living in the light of the Two Trees as opposed to living under continual starlight with respect to how color is named and recogized has helped you to visualize these two cultures more clearly. That is certainly one of my goals in writing this and subsequent essays. Thank you so much for reviewing and letting me know how much you enjoyed this. I really appreciate it. | |
| Serinde | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/14/2010 |
| YELLOW: malina? It is intressting. In Slavic languageas it is a word for a raspberry. Author Reply: Interesting, indeed, Serinde. In studying Tolkien's Elvish languages one comes across many words that apparently are lifted from real world languages though their meanings are changed. | |
| eiluj | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/14/2010 |
| Very interesting! Yeah, I know; that's my default word when I don't know what to say. Okay, this isn't exactly a review: more like what your essay made me think of. I remember reading long ago something Kenneth Jennings wrote about writing "Aztec" (a best-seller in the 80s). He couldn't use the word "orange" in the novel. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly *why*, but since there does seem to be a word in Nahuatl, presumably it was that the Spaniards/Europeans didn't have a word for orange, or an actual concept of orange as a color, before visiting the New World. [I never read the novel, so I don’t know if the lack of a word for orange might have been a minor plot point.] Having grown up on Crayola color-names, it was difficult to understand how any culture could lack a name for the color orange. But as near as I ever figured out, there's no generic or umbrella term for brown in Spanish. And there are two separate words for purple, depending whether blue or red predominate. That there could be cultures that had only a handful of color designations is difficult to imagine. Well, I know the Polynesian cultures lost most of the consonant sounds, presumably because of their isolation. Apparently they lost most of their ancestors' vocabulary as well. Hm -- I wonder if any of those cultures had a word that meant "color"? Probably not. As for Elvish, all the different words for white and grey always seemed like overkill, and later made me wonder where to draw the line between what was a type of color and what was an attribute of that color (if that makes any sense). And my mind responds vaguely to the info about the Welsh glas meaning so many different colors -- though my Welsh vocabulary was never very large (unfortunately my gut response to learning that a language makes wide use of lenition is literally outrage, with the result that over the years I've given up on Gaelic, Welsh, and Elvish). Then again, there's the old color Sandringham, which is a blue-green with a fair amount of grey in it (not that the actual Sandringham was anywhere near Wales). Lovely color, but a bit too bright to use for elvencloaks. So what colors would the Tol Eressëans use, after a few millennia in Aman? Author Reply: Hi eiluj. If this essay (or any of my writings) make you think, then I've done my job. *grin* While I studied Spanish (so I know the Spanish word for 'orange') I do not know if what you say about it is true, but from a sociolinguistic stance I can certainly see that it may well be so. When I first started studying the linguistic aspects of colors, I was surprised to know that not everyone 'sees' the same colors as we Westerners do so it was fun to try to imagine *why* Elves might not see particular colors because Tolkien didn't give us names for them. I imagine that as the Tol Eressëans became more integrated into Amanian society, that Sindarin would begin to adopt color names that it does not have at the 'present' moment. And perhaps Quenya will do the same, adapting Sindarin terms that are not found in 'present-day' Quenya. It would be an interesting sociolinguistic study to see how the two cultures effect one another on a linguistic scale, wouldn't it? *grin* Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this subject, eiluj. I really appreciate it. | |
| 6336 | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/14/2010 |
| Well, that was interesting. I am going to have to reread it as I am not quite awake yet. Is it possible that Tolkien did not have names for some colours because he either did not like them, or did not see his elves wearing them? Whoever heard of warrior elves running around in pink! Though at the beginning of the last century pink was worn by boys as being a 'bold' colour and little girls wore blue as being a 'calm' colour. Ah, time to hit the shower and get ready for work, also I need caffene! Huggs, Lynda Author Reply: Hi Lynda. I imagine this essay will take more than one reading as there is a lot in it. You may be correct about why Tolkien did not have names for some colors, althoug I would think purple at least would be a color worn at least by Elvish nobility. I just find it interesting to see just *what* colors Tolkien did bother to give names to and wonder what, if any, significance can be attached to them. | |
| Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/14/2010 | |
| I'd have liked this better had you left out the physiology bits at the beginning which were oversimplified and/or flat-out wrong. Author Reply: And I would have liked it better if you had been courteous (or courageous)enough to sign your review and offer more constructive critcism in order to correct any errors on my part. I believe that I acknowledge in the beginning that the neurophysiological explanation was very simplified and based on a particular article. I have it there so people have an idea about *how* we see color in a general way without being overly scientific about it, since it is not the main focus of the article. If you think the article would be improved by my removing that part of it, then you could have simply said so and given reasons why. | |