Tolkienian Glossology examines the linguistic and cultural materials in the Gnomish and Qenya Lexicons that represent Tolkien’s earliest efforts to document the languages that he created for Middle-earth. The materials in the Gnomish and Qenya Lexicons are commonly called primitive Elvish, in contrast to the mature Elvish represented by The Etymologies, where the names of these languages have become Quenya and Noldorin. Not all the lexical materials contained in the Lexicons survived to become a part of mature Elvish.
The materials of the Lexicons date to the second half of the 1910s, while the materials in The Etymologies date to the second half of the 1930s. The words and names attested in the Lexicons are the first ‘stones’ that Tolkien created for the foundation of his secondary world, and the patterns observable in the organization of his creative process reflect the patterns inherent in the multi-lingual linguistic baggage (leaf mould of his mind) that Tolkien carried around with him. (Letter to Graham Tayar, 4 – 5 June 1971; Letters #324)
The Qenya and _Gnomish Lexicon_s are fertile hunting grounds for examples of Elvish words with first-world cognates, because this early stage of his language creation is more like a series of notes for forms that would be fun to develop than like a lexicon developed from a corpus of historical texts. In this primitive Elvish stage, the relationship between Elvish and first-world forms is easier to see than in mature Elvish.
The ease of seeing the relationships between Elvish words and their first-world ‘cognates’ also makes it easy to recognize the techniques that Tolkien used to make his invented words seem more Elvish and less first-worldish.
Tolkien explained that the process behind the creation of Middle-earth was an idiosyncratic enterprise undertaken to satisfy his own private linguistic taste. He was, therefore, not surprised that most analyses of his work went awry because “linguistic invention” is a “comparatively rare” art form, and most analysts have little understanding “of how a philologist would go about it.” Their analyses “appear to be unauthentic embroideries on my work,” said Tolkien, “throwing light only on the state of mind of [their] contrivers, not on me or on my actual intention and procedure.” (Draft letter to Mr Rang, ~Aug. 1967; Letters #297.)
Many early commentators on Tolkien’s language creations adopted the technique of looking for words that are spelled the same in Elvish and some other language, without considering what the Elvish words were supposed to mean. The application of this technique is a fool’s errand not only in Middle-earth, but also in the field of first-world philology.…