mirkwoodest:

mirkwoodest:

mirkwoodest:

One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal. 

This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds] 

#wait so they have hobbitish names and common names?

No, they have Westron names and English names.

What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us. 

There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign? 

“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”

Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down: 

In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder). 

“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing. 

“Banazîr” is Westron for “half-wise, or simple.” In Proto Germanic, the prefix “Sam” means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use. 

“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because  “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”

“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match. 

Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine. 

I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently). 

The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn”  is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss). 

“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L. 

The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron. 

The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.

Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud. 

Further Reading: 

Rohirric , Westron 

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Only the most committed followers will have any idea why this is here.

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onaveridiansea:

ultranos:

sweet-on-you:

boatlyrics:

deafeningechoesofsilence:

boatlyrics:

if you’re in america and you’re eligible to vote…… i’m begging you to vote for hillary like literally begging

I wouldn’t vote for either of them. They’re both keeping secrets and will both turn this country to absolute shit.

anyway vote for hillary instead of throwing your vote away

This is what gets me. The fact that for 90 minutes Hillary clearly showed how prepared she is to be president. How capable, knowledgeable, and cool-headed she is. She put forth actually solutions to problems that are inclusive and hopeful.

Donald Trump stood there for 90 minutes and yelled belligerently into his microphone. Twenty minutes into the debate his sentences were incoherent and, as he is so skilled at doing, he managed to never actually answer the questions thrown his way, unless he was called out on it and given even more time to actually respond with something relevant to the topic at hand.

And yet here we are. The debate is over, Hillary has clearly won and shown the American people want an actual President should look like, and people still aren’t convinced. Hillary has been at this job for THIRTY YEARS. And yet, she still suffers from this ‘likability’ thing thanks to the GOP propaganda that has been smearing her name since the beginning of her career.

“But she’s a liar!” “She’s hiding something!” “She’s keeping secrets!”

Bullshit. Hillary Clinton is a high-ranking government official. Of fucking course she’s keeping secrets, that’s her damn job. If we knew ever last thing that ever went down in the State Department, we’d all shit ourselves. Those are just your own shitty excuses for not voting for her because she wasn’t your first option in the primaries. What, exactly, do people think will happen if Hillary becomes President? What would be the terrible awful outcome of that? I have never actually heard, specifically, what she would do that would ruin our country beyond repair. We all know what Trump would do. It’s his fucking platform, he’s not trying to hide anything there. But no one can actually lay out specifics on what makes Hillary so scary, other than the fact that she’s overly qualified for the job she’s being interviewed for.

If you really feel so strongly about it, fine. Vote third party. But please, do yourself a favor. Actually fucking look at what Hillary and Trump are proposing for this nation. Really try to understand what exactly will happen if one of them gets elected. And then truly think about whether or not you could stomach looking the next generation in the eye if your third party vote gets Donald Trump elected President of the United States.

“This election draws into relief how women are penalized for not being perfect while men are rewarded for not being terrible.”

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pastel-and-proud:

This rant is brought to you by Poe Party and who is honestly surprised by that. 

Listen, I fucking love this web series and here is why. 

As an amateur writer, I get discouraged like all the time, literally every second because either I’m not writing often enough, my ideas are crap, I’ll never be a good writer, etc. etc. and whatever else my anxiety can concoct. 

But when I remember how weird all the classic authors are? Like, when I remember how Emily Dickinson literally almost never left her house, how Ernest Hemingway was probably a sex addict and was definitely an alcoholic and how Edgar Allen Poe suffered from a crazy severe depression and how George Eliot was always running from herself, I feel better about what I can accomplish. Because hey, these flawed people made it– why not me? And seeing them portrayed on a medium like YouTube so well and with such light humor takes away that worry that I’ll never amount to anything and fade into oblivion after I die.

Now, when my anxiety is like hey you suck, my brain is like yeah they said that about Oscar Wilde too and look where he is, he’s being played by an incredible actor on an amazing web series that I hold very dear to my heart so HA to you anxiety, also leave me alone please and thank you.

Also, it combines my two very favorite things which are literature and history so that’s a plus. 

Also it’s a pretty great community that I can feel like I belong to, so that’s also nice. 

Moral of the story, thank you Poe Party for helping me combat my anxiety and fear of oblivion, I really appreciate it.

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gnossienne:

Art in Cinema: Caspar David Friedrich (“The Abbey in the Oakwood”, 1809) in The Revenant (2015)

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