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04-29-2021, 09:52 AM | #1 | |||
Regal Dwarven Shade
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: A Remote Dwarven Hold
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Basileus is not the original Greek word for king. The original word was "Anax," which while losing the status of a title, is still present in the Greek language and appears in such places as personal names. "Basileus" in origin was a lower title subservient to an anax. The reasons why anax faded into dusty obscurity and basileus came to the fore are, at this far removed, lost to us. I've read speculation that "anax" had more of a sacerdotal association and "basileus", as it ultimately developed, was more secular in nature. There are also implications of what we could consider a feudal hierarchy at play where the anax was the high king and the basileus were autonomous rulers loosely subject to the anax. This is the political system at play in The Iliad. When the Bronze Age collapse occurred, there was no longer an anax but a host of petty basileus’ and that title came to dominate because it was so common. I don't know if this potential sacred vs. secular dichotomy was what the editors were referring to in saying that "basileus" had the connotation of "administrator". It would be a pretty obscure reference if it was. Quote:
"Caesar" has experienced a similar phenomenon, although to a lesser degree. There is still some sense in the collective consciousness that Caesar was used as a title, but it is mostly associated as the name of Julius Caesar. More on “Caesar” below. However, to ratchet up the levels of confusion "Imperator" was used, especially in an informal sense and "Imperator" as a title (for whatever reason) is the one that ultimately won out linguistically in the West. It was used in its connotation of "command - commander - command sphere or realm." In a way, from a pure definition standpoint, it is similar to the Arabic title “emir.” My theory for why “Imperator” leading to “Emperor” became the utilized title in the West is that the preferred word order changed from Latin and "Imperator" won because it was the word that came first and was thus more prominent and "Augustus", reflecting its status as being a pretended nickname came later in the name and people lost the original importance of the word. Of course, this is very much not the case in German as the word for emperor is “Kaiser” coming straight from “Caesar.” Same thing in Russian with “tsar.” I’d be interested to know if there is a similar practice in other Eastern European languages. This is actually a topic of keen interest to me, so please forgive my digression on this. Quote:
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...finding a path that cannot be found, walking a road that cannot be seen, climbing a ladder that was never placed, or reading a paragraph that has no... Last edited by Kuruharan; 04-29-2021 at 09:59 AM. Reason: Making a long post even longer. |
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04-29-2021, 12:37 PM | #2 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
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"Augustus" survives in the Russian adjective avgusteyshiy, meaning pertaining to the royal family (e.g. avgusteyshaya osoba = royal persona). Imperator is, surprise, imperator and is equivalent to emperor. The other royal persona (avgusteyshaya osoba ) that left quite a mark on European language development is Charlemagne, who I believe is credited with seeding his name all over Europe's languages (mostly in the form of Karl). In Russian it appears as korol, and means "king", same as "tsar", but is applied to non-Russian (perhaps even non-Slavic? not sure) kings. I know the word also appears in Western Slavic languages, but I will leave it to Legate maybe to talk on their behalf, he would do it much better than I. What all this mess means in terms of Tolkien is that there is a lot more flexibility in titles - not to mention that my beloved translation also dug up konung from some proto-germanic depths specifically for the rulers of Rohan. But Aragorn, for instance, not being tied to any real-world dynasty, can be called tsar and korol interchangeably, and also knyaz (which is "prince" except that it's much more than "prince", it calls back to the time in history when Knyaz was the title of the biggest boss in your group of people). But coming back to Farmer Giles with a question: wouldn't the root of baselius still echoed in Latin in some form, since it's via Latin that it gives words like basilisk to modern languages? Or am I getting the order of things wrong?
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04-29-2021, 02:08 PM | #3 | ||||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
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'tis the last one about Emperors, I swear...
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Anyways, I hope to post soon something more about the progress of the story itself
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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04-29-2021, 09:29 PM | #4 | |||
Regal Dwarven Shade
Join Date: Jan 2002
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Of course, the Latin itself is evidence of that.
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04-30-2021, 04:00 AM | #5 | |||||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
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The Giant Episode
A few observations about the first adventure...
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Another side-remark: what is the deal with there being specific effort to remark that Giles has a ginger beard when he is being introduced? (However is it exactly phrased in the original? Because obviously it seems like a super-random remark that gives me the vibe that it is either just there to provide some artistic imbalance to the sentence, or does it have some other significance? Also because the way it's phrased in my translation makes it sound somewhat derogatory, but that may come with the peculiar cultural element that if you talk about people with that colour of hair using that particular word, it has a somewhat negative tone. But is that a reference to something in the English culture that I am not aware of?) Quote:
Garm is a little more "crude" than Roverandom, perhaps, but the similarity is there. If I exaggerated a little, I would say that all Tolkien's dogs could happily be the same character and it would not be a problem. So is that it? Does Tolkien have an "archetypal dog" figure? That made me think: I am aware of his opinion on cats, but what about dogs? Did he have any close relationship with any dogs that we know of? The family didn't own a dog, right, or did they? (I actually only now just noticed that Pitchwife has already asked this question, and it hasn't been answered.) Did some of Tolkien's closest friends have one? In other words: is Tolkien's writing of dogs pure fabrication, or could it have been inspired by some specific dog(s) that he had had the chance to get to know more closely? Quote:
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More strikingly, there is the same progression in The Hobbit and Giles with "upping the challenge" of Giants(trolls)->Dragons (->greedy individuals of royal bloodline). Quote:
I have one more remark about the first adventure. So we have painstakingly analysed the "real historical period" of when this takes place, figured out that it goes maybe into around 7th century or somesuch, and then we have Giles using a muskette. Um...? Talk about "suspending disbelief", Mr. Tolkien! And speaking of that, there is one little joke I enjoyed - now again, like I said, I have only a translation, so I would like to know how it goes in the original - there is the part where Tolkien supplies a quote from "four wise men" from, obviously, Oxford (in my translation it literally says Volský Brod, "Ox Ford", something that evokes the idea of some average muddy village and therefore fits the rural setting of the story while at the same time pointing to the famous university; but how does it go in the original? Is it something along the same lines?). And was this just a generic nod to Oxford as the centre of science, or was this perhaps even a specific referrence to him and some of his friends among the Inklings, a self-insert, if you will?
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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04-30-2021, 08:44 AM | #6 | |
Regal Dwarven Shade
Join Date: Jan 2002
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My guess is that it is an additional personal identifier in case there was another Giles in town.
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04-30-2021, 12:54 PM | #7 |
Princess of Skwerlz
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I've enjoyed following these posts down the linguistic rabbit hole! Thanks to all of you who know the ancient languages for sharing your ideas! I must admit that I'm glad to get back to the story though...
Legate, your signature quote of Gildor's words is exactly what I was looking for, about the wide world! I also find your comparison of Tolkien's dogs interesting. The similarity of the atmosphere of Farmer Giles and the Hobbit is very noticeable, as several have mentioned. One thing I have already seen in Agatha is that she grounds Giles - she helps him to make the first decision to go after the giant. More later on... Concerning the definition of blunderbuss: Scull and Hammond comment that it is taken verbatim from the Oxford English Dictionary. The 'Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford' apparently refers to the four editors of the Dictionary. Have you remarked upon the use of saints' days to mark the time? I know that the scholastic year in England was divided up by saints' days with which the terms began - is that still the case?
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
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