Re: Eärendil, Isengard etc...

--- In conlang@y..., "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@M...> wrote:

> Does that have anything to do with German <Eisen>, "iron"?
I'm pretty sure.  In Swiss German, which retains many vowel values of
Middle German (before the "Great Vowel Shift" of contemporary German),
the word for iron is /is@/.  The Middle German word might actually be
<isen>.


> I, too, found this odd for some reason.  There are loads of books
> on display at the local Border's and Barnes and Noble bookstores
> about the historical and mythical background to the six books
> that comprise the Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit, but I have
> yet to find one about Tolkien's languages.  You'd think that,
> because languages were *the* motivating factor in creating Middle
> Earth, you'd find at least something out there on it.
Probably because conlangers have always been a rare sight so far.  We
can only hope the movie franchise will produce more books, and maybe
even kindle the general public's awareness of langmaking.

I've read that the actors were given veritable language lessons in
Sindarin and Quenya.  They have no idea how I envy them.  If only we
could get our hands on an e-mail address of those linguists!  =)


-- Christian Thalmann