Re: CHAT: I'm back!
| From: | Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, January 19, 2002, 19:53 |
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BP wrote:
>
>At 19:22 2002-01-09 -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
>
>>LOL! And so Tolkien doesn't borrow, doesn't MAKE his words from any
>>real world sources, my foot! And I imagine that gul is "ghoul." < Arabic
>>_ghul_, BTW.
>
>The supposed derivation of Black Speech _guul_ 'magic' would be that it is
>a loan from Sindarin _guul_ '(black) magic', which itself is derived from
>Common Eldarin *ngoolee 'knowledge, wisdom', also found in Quenya _~noole_
>'wisdom'. It is probably the case that this Eldarin root predates the word
>_nazguul_, but I would still not rule out an influence from _ghoul_ on the
>latter word.
>
Where do you find Black Speech _guul_ "magic" from? In A Tolkien Compass the
meaning is given as "any one of the major invisible servants of Sauron
dominated entirely by his will", and Nazgul is translated "ringwraith", not
**"ring-magic" or something like that.
If there's any connection between Sindarin and Black Speech _guul_, I
suspect it only consists of Tolkien feeling /gu:l/ to sound sinister.
Andreas
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