'Echoriad: the Encircling Mountains about Gondolin. The form Echoriath
in the published Silmarillion derives from the later Tale of Tuor; but
Echoriad here is much later.'
HoMe XI, p. 302
- 'but Echoriad here is much later': indeed it is! once the later Tale
of Tuor was written in 1951 and the WH 'can be placed with fair
certainty towards the end of the 1950s'. Although, CT doesn't suggest
that 'Echoriath' was wrongly inserted in the Silmarillion. Is
'Echoriad' not the final and correct form?
We need one of the linguists to weigh in here: but it seems to me that
"Echoriath" must have been a slip on Tolkien's part, since I always
understood -ath to be a dual suffix, and I'm sure there were more than two
mountains!
--
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"Yep. Lots of 'em," replied Cohen. "Only none of 'em work."
> We need one of the linguists to weigh in here: but it seems to me that
> "Echoriath" must have been a slip on Tolkien's part, since I always
> understood -ath to be a dual suffix, and I'm sure there were more than two
> mountains!
I believe -ath is the general plural: "O menel aglar elenath".
But -ath need not be a plural form at all. Consider Doriath, the
guarded realm.
--
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> Mon, 09 Jul 2007 01:32:23 GMT from William Cloud Hicklin
> <icelof...@mindspring.com>:
>
>> We need one of the linguists to weigh in here: but it seems to me that
>> "Echoriath" must have been a slip on Tolkien's part, since I always
>> understood -ath to be a dual suffix, and I'm sure there were more than
>> two
>> mountains!
>
> I believe -ath is the general plural: "O menel aglar elenath".
>
> But -ath need not be a plural form at all. Consider Doriath, the
> guarded realm.
>
But in the case of Doriath the root is -iath, 'fence': the Fenced Land.
But now that you bring it up, I'm sure Echoriath is indeed Echor-iath,
'encircling fence.' (cf Rammas Echor 'encircling walls')
William Cloud Hicklin wrote:
> But in the case of Doriath the root is -iath, 'fence': the Fenced Land.
> But now that you bring it up, I'm sure Echoriath is indeed Echor-iath,
> 'encircling fence.' (cf Rammas Echor 'encircling walls')
That's a possibility, once 'echor' means 'encircling' and '-iath'
'fence', but what then '-iad' of the later form means?
"To this my father made some corrections: Nivrost > Nevrast as in the
preceding chapters; Eryd Wethion > Eryd Wethrin; Handir > Huor (see
above); and Amon Gwareth > Amon Gwared."
HoMe XI, Part Two: The Later Quenta Silmarillion, Ch. 12 - 'Of Turgon
and the Building of Gondolin'
Note that Amon GwarETH was changed to Amon GwarED. And the form that
appears in the published Silmarillion is Amon Gwareth. Why didn't C.T.
maintained the later forms of these names?
Well, I simply don't know. Perhaps some of the ELF folks might. There's
a lot of linguistic material, some very late, that hasn't seen print yet,
and for all I know Tolkien reverted to -eth some time in the 60's.
Apparently nobody knows for sure, but Pat Wynne's best guess is that
Echoriad is a verbal noun *'an encircling'.