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At Manwë's Feet: Studies in Tolkien's World  by Fiondil 14 Review(s)
SerindeReviewed 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.

eilujReviewed 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.

6336Reviewed 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.

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