C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien wager
Voyl
wager to see who could write a better trilogy. As a consequence of this wager,
Lewis produced _The Cosmic Trilogy_ while Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the Rings.
Is there any truth to this anecdote? Did they communicate with each other about
their literature? And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom supposed to
represent Tolkien?
All input is appreciated.
-- Anton Voyl
C.Innes
Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19991107034652...@ng-fb1.aol.com...
> Some time ago I heard that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had a gentleman's
> wager to see who could write a better trilogy. As a consequence of this
wager,
> Lewis produced _The Cosmic Trilogy_ while Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the
Rings.
>
Lord of the Rings to be one book (or maybe two - but it wasn't three), but
broke it up into a trilogy at his publisher's behest.
Nancy Lebovitz
Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote:
>Some time ago I heard that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had a gentleman's
>wager to see who could write a better trilogy. As a consequence of this wager,
>Lewis produced _The Cosmic Trilogy_ while Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the Rings.
>
>their literature? And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom supposed to
>represent Tolkien?
>
>All input is appreciated.
>
a story about space and Tolkien wrote a story about time.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com
October '99 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Dorothy J Heydt
Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote:
>Some time ago I heard that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had a gentleman's
>wager to see who could write a better trilogy. As a consequence of this wager,
>Lewis produced _The Cosmic Trilogy_ while Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the Rings.
As I recall it (I can look it up later if you like), they once
had, if not a wager, a gentlemen's agreement to produce a work of
SF or fantasy. Lewis wrote _Out of the Silent Planet_ and
Tolkien wrote a time-travel fantasy whose name I'm blanking on.
(Pause to look up.) "Aotrou and Itroun."
This was around 1940. Tolkien had already been working on _LotR_
for a while. Lewis later followed up _OotSP_ with _Perelandra
and _That Hideous Strength_.
>And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom supposed to
>represent Tolkien?
Oh, I think so. He's a philologist, and note that the few words
of Old Solar (Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi) we get are related to
Tolkien's Elvish languages.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Dorothy J Heydt
C.Innes <cin...@www.ats.com.au> wrote:
>>
>That sounds unlikely as I read somewhere that Tolkien originally wanted The
>Lord of the Rings to be one book (or maybe two - but it wasn't three), but
>broke it up into a trilogy at his publisher's behest.
In fact, _LotR_ is divided into six "books" in the sense of major
subdivisions. The work is not a trilogy, properly so-called. A
trilogy is three books in sequence; _LotR_ is that well known
Victorian phenomenon, a three-volume novel. Compare the
paperback edition of _Cyteen._
Dennis Higbee
: In article <19991107034652...@ng-fb1.aol.com>,
: Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote:
: >Some time ago I heard that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had a
: >gentleman's wager to see who could write a better trilogy. As
: >a consequence of this wager, Lewis produced _The Cosmic Trilogy_
: >while Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the Rings.
: >
: >Is there any truth to this anecdote? Did they communicate with each
: >other about their literature? And, while we're on the topic, is
: >Lewis's Ransom supposed to represent Tolkien?
: >
: >All input is appreciated.
: >
: The version I heard was that they split the universe so that Lewis wrote
: a story about space and Tolkien wrote a story about time.
IIRC, they each decided to write a story (Lewis science-fiction and
Tolkien fantasy) in which they would examine the meaning of Myth in
human culture.
Tolkien's contribution was _The Lost Road_, which was never finished.
Parts of it showed up in one of the volumes of the "History of
Middle-Earth."
--
Dennis Higbee | "Ain't it funny that they all fire the
bn...@li.net | pistol at the wrong end of the race."
http://www.li.net/~bnook/ | -P. Townshend
Robert Shaw
Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote > Some time ago I heard that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.
Tolkien had a gentleman's
> wager to see who could write a better trilogy. As a consequence of this
wager,
> Lewis produced _The Cosmic Trilogy_ while Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the
Rings.
>
> Is there any truth to this anecdote? Did they communicate with each other
about
> their literature? And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom
supposed to
> represent Tolkien?
>
> All input is appreciated.
>
Lewis and Tolkien were both Inklings, and quite friendly.
The bet was that Lewis would write about space travel
and Tolkien would write about time travel. Lewis wrote
the narnia books, Tolkien never finished his story, but
the initial drafts have been published.
Tolkien was planning to write about a father and son
who kept dreaming of the fall of Numenor, and may
have ended up physically back then.
--
'It is a wise crow that knows which way the camel points' - Pratchett
Robert Shaw
Michael S. Schiffer
>In article <94197512...@dns2.ats.com.au>,
>C.Innes <cin...@www.ats.com.au> wrote:
>>That sounds unlikely as I read somewhere that Tolkien originally wanted The
>>Lord of the Rings to be one book (or maybe two - but it wasn't three), but
>>broke it up into a trilogy at his publisher's behest.
>In fact, _LotR_ is divided into six "books" in the sense of major
>subdivisions.
The last time I was at Borders, I saw that there's now an boxed
set of LotR done as one volume per book (for a total of six
paperback-sized hardcovers), with the books given their
original titles. And of course there's long been a one-volume deluxe
edition (I have a copy I bought when I was somewhere near the Golden
Age of 12, using a summer's pet-sitting earnings to do it.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS "I decline utterly to be impartial
ms...@mediaone.net as between the fire brigade and
msch...@condor.depaul.edu the fire."
-- Winston Churchill, July 7, 1926
Brenda
Lmundstock wrote:
> >This was around 1940. Tolkien had already been working on _LotR_
> >for a while. Lewis later followed up _OotSP_ with _Perelandra
> >and _That Hideous Strength_.
>
> Little quest on _That Hideous Strength_. How does Lord Feverstone get where he
> is? I thought he went nuts during _Out of the Silent Planet_.
>
He got better.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough, author of HOW LIKE A GOD, from Tor Books
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Lmundstock
>for a while. Lewis later followed up _OotSP_ with _Perelandra
>and _That Hideous Strength_.
Little quest on _That Hideous Strength_. How does Lord Feverstone get where he
is? I thought he went nuts during _Out of the Silent Planet_.
"I don't believe in coincidences. They're like leprechauns and unicorns, they
died out a long time ago."
Dorothy J Heydt
Lmundstock <lmund...@aol.com.invalid> wrote:
>Little quest on _That Hideous Strength_. How does Lord Feverstone get where he
>is? I thought he went nuts during _Out of the Silent Planet_.
Quick check. No, all three of them (Weston, Devine, and Ransom)
damnear go mad on the return voyage, what with heat, thirst, and
the iffiness of their ever getting home at all. Ransom collapses
and wakes up alone back on Thulcandra, the other two having already
abandoned the ship (which is due to go poof real soon now). Nice
guys. Weston meets his end on Perelandra and Devine, later Lord
Feverstone, pause for another quick check, gets his in Edgestow.
And good riddance.
Matthew Malthouse
} In article <FKuAI...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
}
} >In fact, _LotR_ is divided into six "books" in the sense of major
} >subdivisions.
}
} The last time I was at Borders, I saw that there's now an boxed
} set of LotR done as one volume per book (for a total of six
} paperback-sized hardcovers), with the books given their
} original titles. And of course there's long been a one-volume deluxe
} edition (I have a copy I bought when I was somewhere near the Golden
} Age of 12, using a summer's pet-sitting earnings to do it.)
I had the 1 vol p/b.
I now have 6 vol - the 1 vol fffell to bits with so much reading I
had to re-bind it. ;)
Matthew
--
"Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."
-- Foghorn Leghorn
http://www.calmeilles.demon.co.uk
Mark A Mandel
: In article <19991107034652...@ng-fb1.aol.com>,
: Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote:
: >And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom supposed to
: >represent Tolkien?
: Oh, I think so. He's a philologist, and note that the few words
: of Old Solar (Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi) we get are related to
: Tolkien's Elvish languages.
Related to, or reminiscent of?
-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
Philological Busybody
a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
--
If you're reading this in a newsgroup: to reply by mail,
remove the obvious spam-blocker from my edress.
Dorothy J Heydt
Mark A Mandel <mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt (djh...@kithrup.com) wrote:
>: In article <19991107034652...@ng-fb1.aol.com>,
>: Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>: >And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom supposed to
>: >represent Tolkien?
>
>: Oh, I think so. He's a philologist, and note that the few words
>: of Old Solar (Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi) we get are related to
>: Tolkien's Elvish languages.
>
>Related to, or reminiscent of?
Okay, if you want to pick nits, we don't know which. But there
are some forms in common: _bor_ "red" and _cor_ "field" come to
mind.
Anyway, when we consider that Tolkien managed to document the
descent of a language based on Welsh from an earlier language
based on Finnish....
Richard I. Pelletier
Heydt) wrote:
> Anyway, when we consider that Tolkien managed to document the
> descent of a language based on Welsh from an earlier language
> based on Finnish....
>
Would you, could you, please elaborate on that? I'm curious. Ah, are
you saying that his language notes at the end of LotR use
pseudo-Finnish for the really old stuff, and pseudo-Welsh for the
not-so-old stuff? (I really must learn Welsh and Finnish.)
What I recall is that discovering the Kalavala, in Finnish, was an
inspiration for Tolkien at about 20 years old.
Vale,
Rip
(who is supposed to learn Old English so he can read Beowulf.)
--
Multiplication is not commutative before breakfast.
Richard I. Pelletier
NB eddress: r i p 1 [at] h o m e [dot] c o m
Dorothy J Heydt
Richard I. Pelletier <bitb...@home.com> wrote:
>Would you, could you, please elaborate on that? I'm curious. Ah, are
>you saying that his language notes at the end of LotR use
>pseudo-Finnish for the really old stuff, and pseudo-Welsh for the
>not-so-old stuff? (I really must learn Welsh and Finnish.)
Yup. Quenya is modeled on Finnish and Sindarin is modeled on
Welsh. The kicker is that in our world, Welsh is an
Indo-European language and Finnish is a Fenno-Ugric language and
they have as close to no relation to each other as makes no
difference. About all they have in common is that Tolkien
thought them beautiful and wanted to imitate them.
Now remember that he did the languages *first*. For fun. And
then started writing stories about the people who spoke them.
If you can get hold of it, there's an essay by Tolkien called
"A Secret Vice" (I think it may be in the same volume with
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"), about the joys of
construction your own languages.
>What I recall is that discovering the Kalavala, in Finnish, was an
>inspiration for Tolkien at about 20 years old.
That sounds about right. Early on.
ROU Evolution in Action
wonderful Matthew Malthouse <use...@calmeilles.demon.co.uk> asserted
>On Sun, 07 Nov 1999 19:38:33 GMT Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>wrote:
>}
>} >subdivisions.
>}
>} The last time I was at Borders, I saw that there's now an boxed
>} set of LotR done as one volume per book (for a total of six
>} paperback-sized hardcovers), with the books given their
>} original titles. And of course there's long been a one-volume deluxe
>} edition (I have a copy I bought when I was somewhere near the Golden
>} Age of 12, using a summer's pet-sitting earnings to do it.)
>
>I had the 1 vol p/b.
>
>I now have 6 vol - the 1 vol fffell to bits with so much reading I
>had to re-bind it. ;)
Me too. I had the one volume paperback, the three volume paperbacks, and
now I have the 1 volume (illustrated) hardback. Only the latter has not
worn out, mostly because I'm saving it for a special occasion 8>.
Interesting note: The original 3 volume hardbacks cost less (by a factor
of 5) than the average 1999 paperback does. (iirc they were a Guinea
each, i.e. £1.05, though it might have been 30shillings (£1.50)).
ROU Evolution in Action
Mark A Mandel
: >Dorothy J Heydt (djh...@kithrup.com) wrote:
: >
: >: of Old Solar (Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi) we get are related to
: >: Tolkien's Elvish languages.
: >Related to, or reminiscent of?
: Okay, if you want to pick nits, we don't know which. But there
: are some forms in common: _bor_ "red" and _cor_ "field" come to
: mind.
The forms are common, but the meanings...?
"Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi" is translated, IIRC, as 'language of the field of
Arbol', where "Arbol" is the name of the sun.
"Cor" 'field' is in "Cormallen", I guess, an allusion to the Field of the
Cloth of Gold.
But where do we see "bor" = 'red'? The usual Sindarin root is "ras"
(Caradhras < caran + ras). [Sorry, I can't remember where I read this
analysis.] Do we have a translation of "Boromir", for instance?
"Cele<bor>n" is irrelevant, being straightforwardly "Celeb-orn" without a
"bor" to its name: "celeb" 'silver' + "orn" 'tree'.
Mark A Mandel
: Richard I. Pelletier <bitb...@home.com> wrote:
: >Would you, could you, please elaborate on that? I'm curious. Ah, are
: >you saying that his language notes at the end of LotR use
: >pseudo-Finnish for the really old stuff, and pseudo-Welsh for the
: >not-so-old stuff? (I really must learn Welsh and Finnish.)
: Yup. Quenya is modeled on Finnish and Sindarin is modeled on
: Welsh. The kicker is that in our world, Welsh is an
: Indo-European language and Finnish is a Fenno-Ugric language and
: they have as close to no relation to each other as makes no
: difference. About all they have in common is that Tolkien
: thought them beautiful and wanted to imitate them.
Phonologically, IIRC. He loved the sounds (inter alia) of Finnish and
Welsh, and based the phonologies of Q. and S. respectively on F. and W.
But that doesn't touch the roots.
What I like is the way he snuck in historical "answers". ModEng "silver"
(OE "seolfor"), Ger "Silber", have no known Indo-European origin. I'm not
sure if there are any cognates outside the Germanic group; maybe some
Indic, but the origin is said to be non-IE, and I don't know if it's been
identified... except that, obviously, we got "celeb" from the Eldar!
-- Mark A. Mandel
Jens Kilian
> (I really must learn Welsh and Finnish.)
I'd also like to learn those. And Arabic, Basque, Japanese, Navajo, Swahili,
and quite a lot of other "interesting" languages. (Not Klingon.)
Fat chance :-(
Jens.
--
mailto:j...@acm.org phone:+49-7031-464-7698 (HP TELNET 778-7698)
http://www.bawue.de/~jjk/ fax:+49-7031-464-7351
PGP: 06 04 1C 35 7B DC 1F 26 As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
0x555DA8B5 BB A2 F0 66 77 75 E1 08 so is contempt to the contemptible. [Blake]
Dorothy J Heydt
Mark A Mandel <mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com> wrote:
>(Caradhras < caran + ras). [Sorry, I can't remember where I read this
>analysis.] Do we have a translation of "Boromir", for instance?
Borgil, Alpha Tauri, "red star."
Erich Schneider
> >What I recall is that discovering the Kalavala, in Finnish, was an
> >inspiration for Tolkien at about 20 years old.
>
> That sounds about right. Early on.
In the _Book of Lost Tales, vol. 1_, CJRT says that the earliest
"Qenya" lexicon JRRT wrote has an entry "Leminkainen" meaning "the
number 23", and speculates this was JRRT's age when he wrote it out.
--
Erich Schneider er...@caltech.edu Caltech Information Technology Services
Dorothy J Heydt
Erich Schneider <er...@caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>In the _Book of Lost Tales, vol. 1_, CJRT says that the earliest
>"Qenya" lexicon JRRT wrote has an entry "Leminkainen" meaning "the
>number 23", and speculates this was JRRT's age when he wrote it out.
Could be. Lemminka"inen (hope I'm approximating the correct
spelling) is one of the heroes of the Kalevala, of course. I'm
minded once more of the essay "A Secret Vice," where he tells in
passing of some childhood friends of his who had made up a
private language called "Animalic," wherein _Dog nightingale
woodpecker forty_ meant "You are an ass."
Jens Kilian
> spelling) is one of the heroes of the Kalevala, of course. I'm
> minded once more of the essay "A Secret Vice," where he tells in
> passing of some childhood friends of his who had made up a
> private language called "Animalic," wherein _Dog nightingale
> woodpecker forty_ meant "You are an ass."
God help me, I still remember the Limerick in Nevbosh(?)...
Jens "De volt fac soc ma taimful gyroc" Kilian.
Louann Miller
wrote:
>In article <FKwsJ...@world.std.com>,
>Mark A Mandel <mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>Dorothy J Heydt (djh...@kithrup.com) wrote:
>>: In article <19991107034652...@ng-fb1.aol.com>,
>>: Voyl <vo...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>: >And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom supposed to
>>: >represent Tolkien?
>>
>>: Oh, I think so. He's a philologist, and note that the few words
>>: of Old Solar (Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi) we get are related to
>>: Tolkien's Elvish languages.
>>
>>Related to, or reminiscent of?
>
>Okay, if you want to pick nits, we don't know which.
In Lewis' "That Hideous Strength," when Merlin and whatsisname
(current Pendragon of Logres) are swapping bits of mystical lore to
establish the Pendragon's bona fides, there are some references to
Numenor. Can't be more specific than that, haven't read the book in
ages.
Dorothy J Heydt
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>
>In Lewis' "That Hideous Strength," when Merlin and whatsisname
>(current Pendragon of Logres) are swapping bits of mystical lore to
>establish the Pendragon's bona fides, there are some references to
>Numenor. Can't be more specific than that, haven't read the book in
>ages.
With a slight misspelling. Ransom says to Merlin, of the Old
Solar language, "Not even in Numinor was it heard in the
streets." Merlin, taken aback, gives the countersign: "And what
is Numinor?" Ransom says "The true West."
And in the foreword to _THS_ Lewis says something on the order
of "Those who would learn more of Numinor and the true West
must await the publication of much that still remains in the
manuscripts of J. R. R. Tolkien." They'd been reading chapters
to each other at the Inklings' meetings, so he'd heard of Numenor
but not seen it written down.
Anton Sherwood
: In the _Book of Lost Tales, vol. 1_, CJRT says that the earliest
: "Qenya" lexicon JRRT wrote has an entry "Leminkainen" meaning "the
: number 23", and speculates this was JRRT's age when he wrote it out.
Bill Welden published in _Vinyar Tengwar_ his theory that
"lemin-kainen" means "five of the fourth (series of six)";
iirc "lempe" = 5 and "caine(n)" = 4.
--
Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* http://www.jps.net/antons/
Anton Sherwood
: > (I really must learn Welsh and Finnish.)
Jens Kilian <Jens_...@agilent.com> writes
: I'd also like to learn those. And Arabic, Basque, Japanese, Navajo,
: Swahili, and quite a lot of other "interesting" languages. (Not Klingon.)
: Fat chance :-(
You might enjoy a book that I got for my birthday, _An Introduction to
the Languages of the World_ by Anatole V. Lyovin (Oxford 1997; ISBN
0-19-508116-1). Besides brief summaries of all the families, it
has detailed descriptions of Russian, Finnish, Mandarin, classical
Tibetan, literary Arabic, Swahili, Hawaiian, Dyirbal, Yup'ik, Quechua
and Tok Pisin, with a passage in each of these languages analyzed by
morphemes. My only complaint is that the geographic organization
makes the chapters (one per continent) long and clumsy; it's hard to
find the endnotes relating to Romance, say, because they're hidden
behind the analysis of Finnish.
Anton Sherwood
: Phonologically, IIRC. He loved the sounds (inter alia) of Finnish and
: Welsh, and based the phonologies of Q. and S. respectively on F. and W.
: But that doesn't touch the roots.
He also adopted some inflexional features. Quenya, like Finnish,
uses suffixes (often containing a double consonant) where we'd use
prepositions. Sindarin has initial mutation like Welsh, and umlaut
resembling (at least in writing) that of Irish (I can't recall offhand
whether Welsh has it too).
: What I like is the way he snuck in historical "answers". ModEng "silver"
: (OE "seolfor"), Ger "Silber", have no known Indo-European origin. I'm not
: sure if there are any cognates outside the Germanic group; maybe some
: Indic, but the origin is said to be non-IE, and I don't know if it's been
: identified... except that, obviously, we got "celeb" from the Eldar!
Say rather that _celeb_ and _silver_ have a common ancestor with a
palatal consonant. Unfortunately the Germanic group is not _satem_!
(AHD says _silver_ comes from an Akkadian word meaning `refined'.
Ho-kay, what's the bang-path?)
Anton Sherwood
: >: ... and note that the few words
: >: of Old Solar (Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi) we get are related to
: >: Tolkien's Elvish languages.
: Mark A Mandel <mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com> wrote:
: >Related to, or reminiscent of?
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> writes
: Okay, if you want to pick nits, we don't know which.
: But there are some forms in common: _bor_ "red" and
: _cor_ "field" come to mind.
_cor_ means `circle' or `ring'; the field was so named from
the surrounding trees.
: Anyway, when we consider that Tolkien managed to document
: the descent of a language based on Welsh from an earlier
: language based on Finnish....
Quenya seems more conservative, but it's an aunt to Sindarin,
not a mother; the sound-changes make little sense if Quenya
is ancestral to Sindarin.
Anton Sherwood
: The last time I was at Borders, I saw that there's now an boxed
: set of LotR done as one volume per book (for a total of six
: paperback-sized hardcovers), with the books given their
Oh? I didn't know they had any.
Michael S. Schiffer
>Michael S. Schiffer <ms...@mediaone.net> writes
>: The last time I was at Borders, I saw that there's now an boxed
>: set of LotR done as one volume per book (for a total of six
>: paperback-sized hardcovers), with the books given their
>: original titles. ...
>Oh? I didn't know they had any.
They haven't been included with most published editions, but Tolkien
gives them in one of the letters printed in _The Letters of J.R.R.
Tolkien_. In that letter, the titles were given as:
The Ring Sets Out
The Ring Goes South
The Treason of Isengard
The Ring Goes East
The War of the Ring
The End of the Third Age
IIRC (though I may not, as I only glanced at them), these are the
titles used for the set I saw. However, Tolkien apparently gave other
titles to the books elsewhere. See
<http://x45.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=523766721> for more information (a
post from rec.arts.books.tolkien which helped restore my memory of the
book titles).
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS GURPS Alternate Earths 2 is out, featuring
ms...@mediaone.net six new alternate histories!
msch...@condor.depaul.edu <http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/altearths2/>
Richard I. Pelletier
(Anton Sherwood) wrote:
> Mark A Mandel <mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com> writes
> : What I like is the way he snuck in historical "answers". ModEng "silver"
> : (OE "seolfor"), Ger "Silber", have no known Indo-European origin. I'm not
> : sure if there are any cognates outside the Germanic group; maybe some
> : Indic, but the origin is said to be non-IE, and I don't know if it's been
> : identified... except that, obviously, we got "celeb" from the Eldar!
>
> (AHD says _silver_ comes from an Akkadian word meaning `refined'.
> Ho-kay, what's the bang-path?)
I love it when people push me beyond my own resources. All I can come
up with is that Akkadian is a Semitic language, and I can find "silver"
in a Hebrew Grammar book, but I _think_ it doesn't sound at all like
silver.
Buck's _Selected Synonyms ..._ only shows the IE variants, and no
derivation of the silver one.
Anyone else?
Vale,
Rip
Richard I. Pelletier
(Anton Sherwood) wrote:
> : "Richard I. Pelletier" <bitb...@home.com> writes:
> : > (I really must learn Welsh and Finnish.)
>
> Jens Kilian <Jens_...@agilent.com> writes
> : I'd also like to learn those. And Arabic, Basque, Japanese, Navajo,
> : Swahili, and quite a lot of other "interesting" languages. (Not Klingon.)
> : Fat chance :-(
>
> You might enjoy a book that I got for my birthday, _An Introduction to
> the Languages of the World_ by Anatole V. Lyovin (Oxford 1997; ISBN
> 0-19-508116-1). Besides brief summaries of all the families, it
> has detailed descriptions of Russian, Finnish, Mandarin, classical
> Tibetan, literary Arabic, Swahili, Hawaiian, Dyirbal, Yup'ik, Quechua
> and Tok Pisin, with a passage in each of these languages analyzed by
> morphemes.
Thank you.
I can add two books: _The Languages of the World_ by Kenneth Katzner
(Routledge, rev ed 1986, ISBN 0-415-04604-1), which sounds like
Lyovin's, except it seems to have more languages but less info on each;
and _A Guide to the World's Languages_ by Merritt Ruthven (Stanford,
1991, ISBN 0-8047-1894-6) which classifies the world's languages.
But I guess there's no substitute for grammar books and dictionaries of
foreign languages. Preferably cheap.
Now to find the time to read them ....
Mark A Mandel
: >analysis.] Do we have a translation of "Boromir", for instance?
: Borgil, Alpha Tauri, "red star."
Ahh, yes, indeed.
OK, now the other half. Since I haven't read the Peralandra 3logy in
LONNNG, where do we see "bor" 'red' and "cor" 'field' (or 'ring'?) in Old
Solar?
-- Mark
Mark A Mandel
: "Richard I. Pelletier" <bitb...@home.com> writes:
: > (I really must learn Welsh and Finnish.)
: I'd also like to learn those. And Arabic, Basque, Japanese, Navajo, Swahili,
: and quite a lot of other "interesting" languages. (Not Klingon.)
: Fat chance :-(
My motto:
De langues tant, de temps si peu.
-- Mark A. Mandel
hy...@tamu.edu
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> And in the foreword to _THS_ Lewis says something on the order
> of "Those who would learn more of Numinor and the true West
> must await the publication of much that still remains in the
> manuscripts of J. R. R. Tolkien." They'd been reading chapters
> to each other at the Inklings' meetings, so he'd heard of Numenor
> but not seen it written down.
I had always assumed it was an intentional misspelling,
indictating the vast time between the world of Tolkein
and that of Lewis. Both of these gentlemen knew more than
I of how languages change in time.
William Hyde
Dept of Oceanography
Texas A&M University
hy...@rossby.tamu.edu
d0rkyg...@gmail.com
and Tolkien wrote the hobbit (Tolkien won) and then later on in ww2 he wrote the lord of the rings in one book but had to put it into 3 as the was shortage of paper due to rationing.
hope this helps
Joel Polowin
Dimensional Traveler
--
The 'Enterprise' crew in the 2009 Star Trek are adrenaline addicted,
hyper-active teenagers with ADD whose Ritalin got replaced with
methamphetamine, displaying a level of discipline that a Somali pirate
wouldn't tolerate.
Dorothy J Heydt
>On 11/15/2013 8:59 AM, Joel Polowin wrote:
>> On 11/14/2013 4:40 PM, d0rkyg...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> im not sure but I think after the bet c.s. lewis wrote the lion, the
>>> witch and the wardrobe
>>> and Tolkien wrote the hobbit (Tolkien won) and then later on in ww2 he
>>> wrote the lord of the rings in one book but had to put it into 3 as
>>> the was shortage of paper due to rationing.
>>> hope this helps
>>
>> Something about trying to found religious sects?
>>
>That was L. Ron Hubbard's bet.
in the late 1940s, John W. Campbell, Jr., took a couple of his
authors to lunch. One was L. Ron Hubbard, who had written
prolifically for _Astounding_ and _Unknown_ before World War II
broke out, but had spent the interim in the Navy. The other was
also a veteran, newly come to publication: Randall Garrett, who
had lied about his age to get into the Marines. (This explains
the item that sometimes appeared in biographical blurbs: "He
carries around a small talisman that no one has ever seen.")
As usual, Campbell did most of the talking, but at one moment
(perhaps while Campbell was swallowing), Garrett remarked, "There
are two ways to make lots of money in the United States. Form a
new religion, or a new branch of psychiatry."
And Hubbard didn't say a word, but a couple of years later
"Dianetics" appeared as a lead article in _Astounding._
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.
Dorothy J Heydt
represented in trn by a pair of empty parentheses.
The last time I saw that happen, someone had sent an email to
someone else, who pushed the wrong button and posted it.
So I'm not sure what the OP was asking. The way I heard it -- I
can't find an explicit text reference at the moment -- it was
less of a "bet" than "Hey, let's each try writing a fictional
story!" "Very well, what kind?" "Well, I'll do science fiction
and you do fantasy."
Lewis proceeded to write _Out of the Silent Planet_, for which I
can't find a date of composition, but it was pubnlished in 1938.
Tolkien's _Autrou and Itroun, if I can believe The Tolkien
Gateway, was written in 1930, never finished and finally published
in 1945.
DID anyone see the original post??
Joel Polowin
> In article <528652E...@hotmail.com.invalid>,
> Joel Polowin <jpol...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:
>>On 11/14/2013 4:40 PM, d0rkyg...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> im not sure but I think after the bet c.s. lewis wrote the lion, the
>>witch and the wardrobe
>>> and Tolkien wrote the hobbit (Tolkien won) and then later on in ww2 he
>>wrote the lord of the rings in one book but had to put it into 3 as the
>>was shortage of paper due to rationing.
>>> hope this helps
>>
>>Something about trying to found religious sects?
>
> I didn't see the original post in this thread, which is
> represented in trn by a pair of empty parentheses.
I should have marked it more clearly -- was a response to the
original message in the thread... posted in 1999. It's not
surprising that your newsreader can't cough it up.
> So I'm not sure what the OP was asking. The way I heard it -- I
> can't find an explicit text reference at the moment -- it was
> less of a "bet" than "Hey, let's each try writing a fictional
> story!" "Very well, what kind?" "Well, I'll do science fiction
> and you do fantasy."
>
> Lewis proceeded to write _Out of the Silent Planet_, for which I
> can't find a date of composition, but it was pubnlished in 1938.
> Tolkien's _Autrou and Itroun, if I can believe The Tolkien
> Gateway, was written in 1930, never finished and finally published
> in 1945.
part by you) were along similar lines, back when the thread was
current.
Dorothy J Heydt
it. Thanks for clearing that up.
pete...@gmail.com
- start quote -
Voyl
11/7/99
Some time ago I heard that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had a gentleman's
wager to see who could write a better trilogy. As a consequence of this wager,
Lewis produced _The Cosmic Trilogy_ while Tolkien wrote _The Lord of the Rings.
Is there any truth to this anecdote? Did they communicate with each other about
their literature? And, while we're on the topic, is Lewis's Ransom supposed to
represent Tolkien?
All input is appreciated.
-- Anton Voyl
- end quote -
Gene Wirchenko
Heydt) wrote:
[snip]
sual, Campbell did most of the talking, but at one moment
>(perhaps while Campbell was swallowing), Garrett remarked, "There
>are two ways to make lots of money in the United States. Form a
>new religion, or a new branch of psychiatry."
>
>And Hubbard didn't say a word, but a couple of years later
>"Dianetics" appeared as a lead article in _Astounding._
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
erilar
and it struck me as a cross between hypnosis and psychiatry.
--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist
Robert Carnegie
the first graph in the book that clearly didn't support the
claims being made.
I think the claim to be a religion is because that's the
standard excuse in America for otherwise unreasonable and
outrageous behaviour, such as playing with venomous snakes.
I don't consider it a good excuse.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
--
I'm serializing a new Ethshar novel!
The fourteenth chapter is online at:
http://www.ethshar.com/ishtascompanion14.html