by 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.