This forum was closed on October 1st, 2010. However, the archives are open to the public and filled with vast amounts of good reading and information for you to enjoy. If you wish to meet some Wardrobians, please visit the Into the Wardrobe Facebook group.

Tolkien's Betrayal

Plato to MacDonald to Chesterton, Tolkien and the Boys in the Pub.
Forum rules
Please keep all discussion on topic and in line with our code of conduct.

Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby A#minor » February 22nd, 2006, 3:17 am

"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
User avatar
A#minor
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 7323
Joined: May 2005
Location: Georgia, USA

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby Lady Rebecca » February 22nd, 2006, 4:53 pm

"Well, you know how it feels if you begin hoping for something that you want desperately badly; you almost fight against the hope because it is too good to be true; you've been disappointed so often before. But it was no good trying to throttle this hope. It might - really, really, it just might be true. So many odd things had happened already." - from the magician's nephew

Image

Member 2456317 Club
User avatar
Lady Rebecca
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 189
Joined: Feb 2005
Location: East of the sun, and West of the moon

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby Theo » February 22nd, 2006, 6:34 pm

User avatar
Theo
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 777
Joined: Nov 2005
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby The Pfifltrigg » February 24th, 2006, 9:44 pm

The most fundamentally useful parts are the chronologies, and somehow I think that's the way it's meant to be. Tolkien never bothered constructing a seperate language system for the Hobbits: even in the story they speak a dialect of the Common Tongue. I seriously doubt that even the Profssor (JRRT) ever actually considered these characters under their "correct" names.
False ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they expelled. — Apologia Pro Vita Sua: Cardinal Newman
Freedom lost and then regained bites with deeper fangs than freedom never in danger. — Cicero
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. — Ray Bradbury
User avatar
The Pfifltrigg
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 625
Joined: Feb 2006
Location: Where I can reach the coffee.

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby alecto » March 7th, 2006, 2:54 am

When Tolkien creates names like Banazir and Ranugad, he's finishing out his fiction in a way that simulates a specific philosophy of translation.

I'll explain that sentence in parts. First, the whole thing is fiction from cover to cover, but it's a particular kind of fiction. Simulating some ancient authors, he's telling a story within a story. Tolkien pretends (and he tells us so on the title page, which are also fiction, though he does so in various Elven scripts) that he is the translator of The Red Book of Westmarch. I don't remember if he ever says how he managed to learn the language of the Red Book, though he calls it "Westron" which is itself supposed to be a made-up English word including the meaning "western" since the original word contained something like adun-, which meant "western". The Red Book is supposed to contain Bilbo's and Frodo's Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King and The Silmarillion, the latter of which was translated from Elvish by Bilbo. Thus we have a fictional translation (by Tolkien) of a historical account by Frodo.

Second, Tolkien chooses to have translated the names rather than having related them directly. He says in Appendix E, "I have also translated all Westron names according to their senses." I personally would not have done this were I the translator of such a book, but I understand Tolkien doing so in his simulated world. He wants us to relate to the name Samwise (Semi-wise) Gamgee the way we would relate to the name Banazir were we native speakers of Westron. Tolkien was a big believer in the power of the sound or "feeling" of names in telling a story. You know a "Balrog" is bad, just from the sound of it. At the same time, however, he was a big realist. The "realistic consistency" of Middle Earth is one of the things that makes it such a good story realm. I'm sure he made up "Samwise" first, but realized that the probability that someone being named "sam-wise" in a foreign language would be thousands to one against, so to maintain realism, he created an explanation for it.
Sentio ergo est.
User avatar
alecto
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 510
Joined: Dec 2005
Location: Austin, TX

Re: re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby Adam Linton » March 7th, 2006, 3:04 am

we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream
User avatar
Adam Linton
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 981
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Columbia Falls, MT

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby NarniaLover89 » March 7th, 2006, 3:49 am

Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.-Saint Patrick Of Ierland

old user name Ian
User avatar
NarniaLover89
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 139
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: U.S.A But born In Ierland

Re: re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby A#minor » March 7th, 2006, 3:56 am

Last edited by A#minor on July 20th, 2006, 3:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
User avatar
A#minor
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 7323
Joined: May 2005
Location: Georgia, USA

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby Mavramorn » July 20th, 2006, 12:36 am

I think what Alecto is trying to say is that the name "Banazir" would sound perfectly familiar to a Westron speaker, in the same way that "Samwise" sounds familiar to us.

To illustrate this, the name "João Maria de Carvalho Figueiredo " would to English speakers sound perfectly alien and bizarre, whereas to a portuguese speaker it sounds no more wierd than, say, "John Thomas Hargreaves" sounds to an Englishman. What Tolkien was doing (or rather, pretending to do) was translating what these names (Banazir, Kalimac) actually sounded like to westron-speaking Hobbits' ears.

Note the Shire is actually called "Sûza" and the Brandywine the "Baranduin", but the point is, to Hobbits, "Sûza" = "Shire" and "Shire" to them would sounds just as alien as "Sûza" sounds to us. Tolkien wanted us to see the Lord of the Rings through a 'Hobbit's eye view', but because he was such a perfectioninst he had to explain how.
User avatar
Mavramorn
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 180
Joined: Jul 2006
Location: In search of "la Cobaye Corse"

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby A#minor » July 20th, 2006, 3:24 am

Yes, you do make a good point, Mavramorn. We must make allowances. I love that Tolkien "translates" LOTR from Westron. My point is that the feeling is not the same. Of course to someone who spoke Westron the feeling would be the same.
Remind me to take a "Tolkien's dead languages" class sometime. :idea:
"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
User avatar
A#minor
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 7323
Joined: May 2005
Location: Georgia, USA

Re: re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby Adam Linton » July 20th, 2006, 3:51 am

we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream
User avatar
Adam Linton
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 981
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Columbia Falls, MT

re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby A#minor » July 20th, 2006, 4:08 am

"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
User avatar
A#minor
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 7323
Joined: May 2005
Location: Georgia, USA

Re: re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby Adam Linton » July 20th, 2006, 2:39 pm

we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream
User avatar
Adam Linton
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 981
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Columbia Falls, MT

Re: re: Tolkien's Betrayal

Postby LynnMagdalenCollege » July 26th, 2007, 4:04 am

User avatar
LynnMagdalenCollege
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 11
Joined: Jul 2007

Postby Stanley Anderson » July 26th, 2007, 2:57 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
User avatar
Stanley Anderson
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 3251
Joined: Aug 1996
Location: Southern California

Next

Return to Inklings & Influences

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered members and 16 guests

cron