Re: tolkien?

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")

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