XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien   
   XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: djheydt@kithrup.com   
      
   In article <20090920140306.32AD.3.NOFFLE@dthierbach.news.arcor.de>,   
   Dirk Thierbach   wrote:   
   >Quadibloc  wrote:   
   >> On Sep 19, 9:18 am, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:   
   >>> Jeff Urs   wrote:   
   >   
   >>> >And there was the word "numinous" to help him along.   
   >   
   >>> So there was, and that was a favorite word of Lewis's.   
   >   
   >> And, in fact, that word was intentionally part of Tolkien's   
   >> inspiration too.   
   >   
   >Is there a source for that? Tolkien states twice in /Letters/ that   
   >there is no connection between "Numenor" and "numinous".   
      
   There are *some* sneaky connections between words in _LotR_   
   and words in our linguistic inventory.  For instance _craban_   
   (plural _crebain_), "crow", is cognate with Latin _corvus_,   
   Greek _korax_ and (by Grimm's Law) English "raven."  And very   
   sneaky indeed, consider the Sindarin for "Man" -- _adan_.   
      
   And in the _Silmarillion_, at the end of the Akallabeth, we   
   read that after Numenor sank beneath the sea it was called   
   Atalante, the Downfallen.   
      
   But I don't think _Numenor_ itself means anything other than   
   "Western land."   
      
   --   
   Dorothy J. Heydt   
   Vallejo, California   
   djheydt at hotmail dot com   
   Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.   
   Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)