#the shibboleth of feanor

[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.

[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.

[eri-pl]

When I casually mentioned the "th vs. s" drama to my friend, who is a member (or main guy, not sure) of his university's Tolkien club and does stuff like conventions, his reaction was: "oO What? But that's from some fanfic, right? Or is it an actual thing?"

I think the th controversy is a part of lore that is very Tumblr (and fanfic) specific. Even normal Tolkienists rarely know it.

in reference to this post:

admittedly i'm not the right person to make this meme since i'm not really well-versed in the lore lol

[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.

[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]

Silme, sule, orthography and stuff

(@dfwbwfbbwfbwf you wanted me to explain, and it's too much for a comment)

So, the th -> s shift in Quenya. And the question of "which words do have the Feanorian th".

The th is one letter (sule | thule), and there's another letter, silme, and everyone pronounces it as s, even the Feanorians.

To know how would they say "Silmaril", we need to know which tengwa (=letter) does this word use. Thanks to @nerdy-catfish for giving me a link to some etymology. No th variant is mentioned, so it is the silme s.

Also, I realized that I have the edition of the Silm which has Tengwar ornaments on the inner cover and it mentions Silmarils and I checked and yes, it's spelled with silme.

Anyway, I was to talk about Polish orthography and how we had similar situations as the Quenya "th -> s". (English likely had some of those too, but I know Polish better. )

So, for example, long ago we had "ó", which was a different "o". Not longer, I think, but higher in tone? I'm not sure. It slowly changed in sound and became as English "oo". But. We already had a "oo" sound and letter, the letter "u".

So the result is that now, Polish kids have to learn which words with the "oo" sound use "ó" and which use "u".

Why won't we do a revolution and spell all of them with "u"? I don't know.

But, just like in Quenya, it is visible in etymology. It helps to remember many words. For example:

"róg" (horn) <-> "rogi" (horns)

If the "oo" sound changes to o (or a) in some word... (whatever it's called), it's "ó". The "u" never changes. (But, sadly, some "ó" stays as "ó" always too.)

We have similar problems with other sounds, all caused by sounds converging and two letters becoming one sound:

u / ó = oo sound

h / ch = h sound

ż / rz = zh suond

I imagine the poor non-Exilic elven kids must have a hard time with the s-sound too. Oh, wait. Elves have perfect memory. :o

Also, an interesting fact: now it's almost gone, but like a 100 years ago you could very well tell if a Polish person was from the Eastern part of Poland (or rather: of what was Poland before WW2) or well-educated, by how they pronounced "ł". Now we all say it just like English "w" :( but earlier they pronounced it with a touch of "l".

So it's kinda like with Feanorian vs non-Feanorian Noldor. The difference is audible.

BTW, even if we disregard the poiltics, I still have a dillema on sule vs thule.

"Th" makes the orthography non-ambivalent and also fits the Tengwar scheme better - the sound fits better with others in its set.

"S" sounds better in my ears. Maybe because I'm Polish and the "th" sound is not native to me.

[eri-pl]

Both are funny, but pronouncing Quenya one way doesn't mean you pronounce Sindarin this way too. (Source: I speak more than one language and can keep the pronounciations separate, and the Elves are supposed to be good at languages)

so I've seen a lot of the "Fëanorian lisping their Sindarin" jokes, but the thing is, Sindarin has the þ sound. They call themselves Thindrim. His name is Thingol.

So I propose a new kind of guy: anti-Fëanorian who sá-sís their Sindarin. Probably a Nolofinwean who crossed the Ice lbr.

"Sose ship-burners will pay! Sey abandoned us just like sat, I cannot believe sey would do sat!"

Galadriel, who changed her dialect to Noldorin Quenya specifically because it was more different than Fëanor's Quenya than her native Telerin was, in Doriath absolutely torn because on the one hand fuck Fëanor but on the other hand she doesn’t want to piss off her host and also her Sinda crush is right there...

It gets funnier the longer it goes on. Some ex-Mithrim soldier living in Rivendell staunchly refusing to ever pronounce the þ despite the fact that Fëanor has been dead half a millennia longer than Elrond has been alive.

[ardafanonarch]

Is it a canon for fanon idea that Elros and Elrond are identical twins?

Based on the research I did for this post on who was born first, I found no evidence to confirm or deny that Tolkien imagined them as identical.

Elladan and Elrohir seem to have been ("so much alike were they, the sons of Elrond, that few could tell them apart," from The Lord of the Rings) and Amrod and Amras also ("alike in mood and face" from the Silmarillion and "much alike and remained so while they lived" in The Shibboleth of Feanor). It's not clear whether Eluréd and Elurín were conceived as identical; in several texts they are not even twins.

[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.

[aracaranelentari]

There's two different lines in HoME I found about what happened to Indis:

"'But above all her heart now yearns for the halls of Ingwë and the peace of the Vanyar, far from the strife of the Noldor. Little comfort should I bring her, if I returned; and the lordship of the Noldor hath passed to my sons.'" (MR p.249)

This is actually the rest of the quote in my original post, directly succeeding it. So this is Finwë's belief about Indis, which may or may not actually be true, since they've been parted for some time, but is likely not entirely false. It's slightly contradicted by this line in the Shibboleth tho:

"[Findis] did not go into exile, but went with her mother after the slaying of Finwë and they abode among the Vanyar in grief until such time as it seemed good to Manwë to restore Finwë to life. (note 27: If he ever did so. Little has been ever heard in Middle-Earth of Aman after the departure of the Ñoldor)" (PoME p.343&359)

The Shibboleth was written later on, and this isn't a quote from a character, but is Tolkien himself writing, so it probably has a little more merit. But in the LaCE/Statute version in MR, which is afaik the only place where Finwë's fate is documented, he doesn't ever come back to life, instead deciding to stay in Mandos forever so that Míriel can return to life. If this remains true in the later Shibboleth version, then Indis and Findis would probably stay with Ingwë and the Vanyar for forever.

Considering that Tolkien himself says that little is known of what actually happened in Aman after the Flight, though, honestly it's hard to say. The texts agree that she went back to the Vanyar after (possibly before) Finwë's death, but it's quite possible that she returned to visit or abide in Tirion at some point. I find it hard to believe that she would never go to visit Finarfin, or especially Fingolfin if/when he's reimbodied, but I kinda like the idea that her permanent residence became Ingwë's halls again.

Please read this Morgoth's Ring quote with me cuz this is PEAK Fëanor and Fingolfin angst potential: [[This is Finwë talking to the Valar about Indis]] "But Indis parted from me without death. I had not seen her for many years, and when the Marrer smote me I was alone. She hath dear children to comfort her, and her love, I deem, is now most for Ingoldo. His father she may miss; but not the father of Fëanáro!"

Those familiar with only the Shibboleth's list of quenya names might assume that this is referencing Finarfin, but no. At this point in the story, Ingoldo was Fingolfin's mother-name. This quote implies that, according to Finwë's observations, Fingolfin was Indis's favorite child.

SO IMAGINE; Fëanor, who loves his mother so dearly and so desperately, but never knew her, and therefore never felt her love in return, looking at Fingolfin, who gets the favoritism and motherly love that he craves yet never got. Imagine how jealous and furious that might make him, especially since he hates Indis so much. I can't help but wonder if Fingolfin's being his mother's pride and joy was one of the reasons why Fëanor seemed to hate him the most of his half-siblings.

[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.