#shibboleth of Feanor

[millenariumhappinesstheorem]

Maglor: She sells seashells on the seashore :)

Fëanor: TRAITOR

Maglor, crying: Forgive me! I forgot about--

Fëanor: DO IT AGAIN. DO IT RIGHT.

Maglor, through tears: the thells theathells on the thea thore...

[eri-pl]

Túrin spoke Quenya with thúle.

(aka "the Feanorian lisp").

Proof: he spoke the language, because he did name himself in it when in Brethil.

The only place he may have learned it is Nargothrond (because obviously not Doriath), and descendants of Finarfin (except the unfriend forever Galadriel) and their people kept the archaic th, because the Teleri had it, and they liked the Teleri.

... This makes the whole Dagor Dagoradh (or whatever it's spelled) thing way funnier. Still lame, but at least funny. Imagine Morgoth's face when he gets beaten by an angry human guy speaking Feanorian(ish) Quenya. The utter confusion.

[thewhitewolf2002]

Guys, I was going over some Tolkien grammar just now and something bugged me, why the word "moon" in Quenya is with "S" but in Sindarin it is with "TH" which is basically like it was written in Feanorian Quenya (just replacing the th with þ), Is there a reason for this linguistic regression or is it just Sindarin's weirdness? Do any of you know?

Just a thought

Moon

Iþil = Feanorian Quenya

Isil = Quenya

Ithil = sindarin

[thelordofgifs]

Thinking about that line in the Shibboleth of Fëanor that even his sons might not have all adhered to the old-fashioned thorn pronunciation after his death - which immediately raises the question, so which ones did?? Random headcanons only vaguely supported by anything in the text below.

(Disclaimer that this all obviously became somewhat moot when Thingol’s Quenya ban came into play. Using crispy Amrod canon here.)

Maedhros: there are pages I could write on Maedhros’ complicated relationship with his father and his father’s legacy, it absolutely fascinates me. Initially Maedhros is the son of Fëanor who most openly defies his father - he stands aside at Losgar, he goes to parley with Morgoth literally as soon as Fëanor is dead, and, most notably, he gives the crown to Fingolfin. These are not the actions of a dutiful eldest son devoted to his father’s memory, which makes me fairly confident in saying that Maedhros definitely dropped the thorn post-Thangorodrim. It’s a fairly minor gesture of reconciliation compared to dispossessing his entire house, and I really don’t think Maedhros has many fucks left to give about linguistics after decades hanging from a cliff.

How did this change, say, post-Nirnaeth when there were effectively no descendants of Indis left to make nice with? I don’t know, but I rather like playing with the headcanon that Maedhros started using the thorn again in the last century or so of his life, especially when his mental state was particularly bleak.

Maglor: I don’t think Maglor’s feelings about his father were much less complicated than Maedhros’. He’s specifically noted as hanging out with Finrod and being trusted by Maedhros not to cause a scene at the Mereth Aderthad, suggesting that he very much follows Maedhros’ lead in reconciliation with the other side of the family. On the other hand, Maglor has always been rather fascinated by his dead grandmother, and he maintains that people’s names should be pronounced the way they want them to be pronounced. Also, several of his older works contain puns that absolutely hinge on the th/s distinction. He doesn’t drop the thorn.

Celegorm: actually never used the thorn consistently in the first place, a constant source of annoyance for his father. Celegorm values fast and efficient communication over linguistic precision - if foxes don’t have a word for what he wants to express, he’ll borrow one from Dog. Meaning over pedantry. Prescriptivism is stupid. He’s one of the fastest of the sons to pick up Sindarin, and displays zero interest in actually studying it. Post-reconciliation of the Noldor, he uses the thorn when the distinction is necessary for clarity, and doesn’t otherwise. Everyone is used to this.

Caranthir: I could go either way here, not having many headcanons about Caranthir’s relationship with his father. Since he’s not particularly on board with Maedhros’ efforts at diplomacy, let’s say he keeps the thorn, purely because nobody can tell him what to do.

Curufin: absolutely does not drop the thorn, that was his father’s hill to die on which means it’s his too. Is constantly furious with his brothers whenever they mispronounce something, this is personal, how can they just betray everything Fëanor stood for like that?? Will fully march Tyelpë out of the room if non-Fëanorian Quenya is being spoken there, his child’s ears are Pure and will not be Sullied with Improper Language. The Fëanorions are generally annoyed by Thingol’s Ban, but at least it gives Curufin a new target for all his linguistic aggression.

Amras: has never forgiven his father for Losgar and never will. Drops the thorn out of pure spite. 

[hes-a-plant]

Pro tip for the Fëanorians out there:

Do you find yourself typing þ so often that copy and pasting it is a hassle?

You can use the text replacement function on iPhone to make it much faster! Pick something, maybe (thorn), that will be a stand-in phrase, and you can make it autocorrect to þ each time!

Thorn is also on the Norwegian keyboard, but I find it’s quicker to do it with Text Replacement, since if you already have multiple keyboards, adding more can make it harder to find the one you need.

[eldal0te]

Fandom: Ony feanorians use thorn, no other elves would ever use it.

Jirt: Actually, many of them would. Galadriel is just a petty bitch

[toomanybrowsertabs]

For all the bad things wrought by Feanor's oath and the first kinslaying and the ship burning... he was objectively correct when it comes to linguistics.

Maybe my reasoning is slightly different as to why it's important for Quenya to retain the thule-silme sound distinction and to avoid the sa-si, and were I a Quenya speaker I probably wouldn't bring it up if someone sa-si'd in front of me, unless they tried to correct my accent (similar to how I don't care how someone pronounces gif, as long as they don't try and tell me I'm wrong if I say it different)...

But as long as Sindarin retains the distinction, then collapsing the sounds in Quenya should not be treated as an adjustment to standard Noldorin Quenya, but as a variant dialect/accent. Any time a fanfic has a non-Feanorian Noldo mention a "Feanorian lisp," I can't help but think "no, they don't have a lisp, you have an Outrageous French Accente" (The dental fricative does not exist in French, meaning Francophones speaking English will often replace th with s/z... or t/d if they're Quebecois but that's a tangent). I understand that among the Noldor it became political, but it still seems to me like... someone who spoke Sindarin first, with the sound distinction, would speak Quenya with that distinction? Making it even more political because now Noldor who sa-si are probably out there "correcting" Sindar who don't and really who's the one making a mess of the language?

Also it seems to me that the shift from thule>sule becoming standard Noldorin Quenya happened over a timescale that would be jarring to us if translated into human timescale, like if over the course of a year the word "yeet" replaced the word "throw" in standard english, and anyone who still said "throw" would be lumped in with war criminals.

Also when you take into account that Noldo would apparently sa-si Miriel's name, can you really blame Feanor for being stubborn about it? Like, at the very least make an exception for people's names, even if you've merged the sounds in the rest of the language.

Anyway, let them sa-si if they can speak no better, but if they try and correct someone who doesn't, they're objectively wrong lol.

[edennill]

"Þilmaril" would be something the non-Fëanorians say to mock him tbh.

My toxic trait is that when I encounter the ‘Fëanorian lisp’ in a fanfiction I’ll go check the root of the word to make sure it was originally written with a Þ and it is not a linguistic abomination. For example: Þauron is correct since the archaic form is Thaurond, but saying Þilmaril would send Fëanor in a fiery fit of anger.

[stellavesperis]

Can we talk about Maglor for a second? Because I love this idiot. He canonically takes the most difficult territory to defend against Morgoth, and places himself in between the forces of evil and his brothers. He commanded the cavalry. He was probably a horse girl. He was said to be most like his mother in temperament. He is so loyal he immediately kills the man who was about to backstab Maedhros. He killed a bunch of Teleri, and then wrote a song about how it was the Noldor who truly fell that day. He burnt the ships. He was glad that Eärendil could be seen by all and everyone could share in the Silmaril's beauty. (He probably would have broken them to save Aman, too). He loves Elrond and Elros. He fights against his last brother in an attempt to return to the Valar he had defied. His loyalty leads him to defer. He chooses to live on. His voice was said to be like the ocean that he wanders beside. The last son of fire was lost to the sea.

[thelordofgifs]

Right let’s settle this.

[cirrdan]

So much linguistic drama in Shibboleth of Fëanor.

That one th/s sound change that Fëanor cared about because the th appeared in his mother's name...I adore this detail, so decided to sketch Fëanáro teaching his children to pronounce correctly xD

[beatx-mavie-archangelx]

"pronouncing 'Þerindë' as 'Serindë' is not that big of a deal" just say you've always been called right your whole life.

[eri-pl]

Dear Feanorians and people who know Quenya:

How do I know which words do the Feanorian "th" and which words are always "s"? ("They're spelled with suule vs with silme" is not an answer: How do I know how they're spelled?)

Do I compare them with Sindarin and if Sindarin has "s", it's always "s"? Like, "estel" is always s, right?

Thank you.

[ardafanonarch]

Wait, so like, does Fingolfin's son Argon exist or not?

The Argon Element

He does! Christopher Tolkien tells us (though regrettably does not show us) that his name first appeared in a genealogical table of the House of Finwë dating to 1959, which Tolkien was still revising in 1968 when he wrote the 'Shibboleth of Fëanor'.* It is in that essay that Argon's story appears, in the "excursus on the names of the descendants of Finwë":

Arakáno was the tallest of the brothers and the most impetuous, but his name was never changed to Sindarin form, for he perished in the first battle of Fingolfin's host with the Orks, the Battle of the Lammoth (but the Sindarin form Argon was often later given as a name by Noldor and Sindar in memory of his valour).

A footnote on this passage reveals more about him. (This is also the only mention in Tolkien's published writings of the Battle of Lammoth.)

When the onset of the Orks caught the host at unawares as they marched southwards and the ranks of the Eldar were giving way, [Argon] sprang forward and hewed a path through the foes, daunted by his stature and the terrible light of his eyes, till he came to the Ork-captain and felled him. Then though he himself was surrounded and slain, the Orks were dismayed, and the Noldor pursued them with slaughter.

But his death at Lammoth was not the only fate Tolkien considered for this short-lived (on multiple levels) character. Christopher Tolkien comments (note 38):

[The third son of Fingolfin, Arakáno (Argon), emerged in the course of the making of the genealogies. A pencilled note on the last of the four tables says that he fell in the fighting at Alqualondë; this was struck out, and my father noted that a preferable story was that he perished in the Ice. It is curious that this third son, of whom there had never before been any mention, entered (as it seems) without a story, and the manner of his death was twice changed before the remarkable appearance here of 'the first battle of Fingolfin's host with the Orks, the Battle of the Lammoth', in which he fell. In the account in the Grey Annals (XI.30) Fingolfin, after the passage of the Helkaraxë, 'marched from the North unopposed through the fastness of the realm of Morgoth, and he passed over Dor-Daedeloth, and his foes hid beneath the earth'; whereas in the present note his host was attacked in Lammoth 'at unawares as they marched southwards'.]

Confusingly, in the same essay Arakáno ('high chieftain') is said to be the mothername given by Indis to Fingolfin. It's not clear if Tolkien intended for Fingolfin and his youngest child to share a name or if he was simply throwing names at the wall to see what would stick.

What are you thoughts on Argon? Did he exist? How do his existence and tragic fate change how you think about the characters closest to him? Any wild Argon headcanons? And most importantly, how do you feel about him being taller than Turgon?

*The 'Shibboleth' is published in The History of Middle-earth Vol. 12: The Peoples of Middle-earth.

[soothingmoonlight]

The change from þ to s was a political move no matter how much any Noldo or Indis of the Vanyar try to deny it. And it was in fact a very unfortunate and unwise change that actually damaged the Quenya language. Were it not for the strife in the house of Finwë, the thorn would have been kept as all the lore masters agreed with Fëanor's opinion on the matter.

"Into the strife and confusion of loyalties in that time this seemingly trivial matter, the change of þ to s, was caught up to its embitterment, and to lasting detriment to the Quenya tongue. Had peace been maintained there can be no doubt that the advice of Fëanor, with which all the other lore-masters privately or openly agreed, would have prevailed." - Shibboleth of Fëanor, HoME XII, The Peoples of Middle-Earth

Regardless of how people in the fandom delight in mocking Fëanor and saying he had a lisp, the truth is that he was the one who spoke proper Quenya. He wanted to keep both 'þ' and 's' as both letters surve a purpose and are needed in order to speak the language correctly. Þ (the thorn) is not an alternative pronunciation for 's' . Imagine making the same change in the English language and substituting all the 'th' sounds with 's' sounds and notice how many words would change their meaning e.g. þink [think] -> sink.

Idea for the poll submitted by anonymous – slightly altered.

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

From the Shibboleth of Feanor: “His shield… could be seen by elvish eyes from a great distance if he stood upon a height”

Limitation: there is not always a readily available height.

Solution: there is always a readily available Elrond.