Re: tolkien?

Naaaa, if i were really that skillzed and/or audacious i would've come
up with a lot more than just some sound correspondences and a
word-analysis or two, i'd've filled in the whole Drughu language!
Since I am writing this email while offline and therefore can't check
for everything i've posted to the Conlang list about the
Drughu-Rokbeigalm connection, here's what i remember:

The Drughu word "gorgûn" used by Ghân-buri-Ghân is analyzable as:

gorgu+u+n
|gorgu| [gorgu] meaning "orc" (the Rok. cognate meaning something like
'swarm' if i remember correctly could be |gaurg| [gO4g], |gaurguh|
(with final [V]) or |gaurgoo| (with final high central rounded vowel)
depending on whether the final vowel was originally */@/, */@:/, or
*/u/)

Drughu seems to pluralize its nouns by a kind of reduplication i call
'echoing' where the final vowel echoes itself across the final
consonant, shortening itself if it's long:
ex. |drûgh| 'stonecarver', pl. |drughu|

When the word ends in a vowel, however, the vowel can't echo itself
across any final consonant, so it jumps over empty phonemic space and
merges back into itself, becoming long.
therefore |gorgu| -> |gorgu+u| -> |gorgû| "orcs"

Then, in distinction to Rokbeigalmki, the Drughu language seems to have
a special suffix for collective plurals: /n/.
Therefore:
|gorgu| 'orc'
|gorgû| 'orcs'
|gorgûn| 'orc-host'

This |n| suffix seems related to the Rokbeigalmki semi-obsolete
singular suffix |n|:
Archaic Rokbeigalmki:
|ghalub| 'rising (abstract)'
|ghalubn| '(specific incidence of) rising', 'a rise'
'Modern' Rokbeigalmki:
|ghalub| 'a rise', '(a specific incidence of) rising'
|ghalub-tzat| 'rising (abstract)'


-Stephen (Steg)
  "elf booty got soul!"
      ~ highly amusing tolkien-fan geek-rap

On Thursday, December 11, 2003, at 09:43  AM, Wesley Parish wrote:
> You're amazing, Steg!  I am at a loss for words!
> You've trumped me royally, bro!  I never would've had the audacity -
> or the
> linguistic skill, for that matter - to make something so thoroughly
> convincing and realistic out of the Master Conlanger's own works!
> Well done!  Very well done!  (/me takes hood off, bows deeply, a la
> Balin to Bilbo after the Mines of the Goblins. :-)
> Wesley Parish
>
> Quoting Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>:
>> On Tuesday, December 9, 2003, at 10:23 AM, Wesley Parish wrote:
>>> Then I read "Morgoth's Ring" and thought a lot about Tolkien's
>>> statements that
>>> the Druedain - Ghan-buri-Ghan and the Wild Men in Druadan Forest -
>> were
>>> somehow related to orcs, each viewing the other as traitors to their
>>> essential selves
>>
>> But of course Ghaan bre'Ghaan and the other Drughkidhm are actually
>> related to the Rokbeigalm ;) .
>> long A in Dru. = /&/ in Rok.
>> Proto-R/D */@/ and */@:/ merged into /u/ in Dru.
>> In Rok., */@:/ turned into /V/ and /@/ dropped out.
>> The Rok. patro/matro-nymic prefix |bre'| (son of) and |bra'| (daughter
>> of), and the Dru. patro/matro-nymic binder |-buri-| (son/daughter of)
>> are unusual; especially in Rok., names defy rules of phonological
>> shift. The original protoform was probably something like */b@r@/,
>> which then was split up genderwise in Rok., but not at all in
>> accordance with the normal gender prefixes and pronouns, where male is
>> represented by the /o/ vowel land female by the /i/! In Dru., on the
>> other hand, it seems to have remained gender-neutral, but the two
>> vowels dissimilated from each other. */b@r@/ is also strange, because
>> you'd expect a transparent construct-compound with the normal word for
>> 'child' (/bar/ in both languages), in which case, at least in Rok.,
>> the
>> vowel would be *lengthened* (to /ba:r/) instead of centralized! It's
>> possible that Proto-R/D used a construct-compound binder, like the
>> archaic Rok. /o/, in which case */b@r@/ could have been a worn-down
>> form of something like */baro/ or */baro:/.
>> (((((of course, all statements and suppositions here about the Drughu
>> language which are unattested in Prof. Tolkien's writings are my own
>> invention and therefore completely noncanonical)))))
>> -Stephen (Steg)
>>  "numenoreans came, numenoreans who became selfish
>>  and thought that they were gods.
>>  but Ocean rose up over them,
>>  and traded them to Underworld
>>  for murex-shells and pebbles,
>>  and for glitterings of light."
>>  ~ rokbeigalmki poem ("numyenaurkim uhmzu-elyeb")
>
> "I me.  Shape middled me.  I would come out into hot!"
> I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of
> the other horizon.

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