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- Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
- Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!nntp.Stanford.EDU!alderson
- From: alderson@cisco.com (Rich Alderson)
- Subject: Re: Elven Anatomy
- In-Reply-To: mozart@coos.dartmouth.edu (Sting)
- Message-ID: <1993Jan4.015238.18695@leland.Stanford.EDU>
- Originator: alderson@leland.Stanford.EDU
- Sender: ?@leland.Stanford.EDU
- Reply-To: alderson@cisco.com (Rich Alderson)
- Organization: Cisco Systems (MIS)
- References: <92366.102452IO10407@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> <1993Jan1.064511.27715@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
- Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 01:52:38 GMT
- Lines: 20
-
- In article <1993Jan1.064511.27715@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>, mozart@coos (Sting) writes:
- >In <92366.102452IO10407@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> ROB <IO10407@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:
- >
- >> This past weekend a friend and I had an argument over whether or not
- >>Tolkien's Eldar had pointed ears or not
- >
- >
- >I have noticed that in Tolkien's glossary of the elven language (which occurs
- >in the Silmarillion, as well as various further works by other authors), the
- >words for "ear" and "leaf" are closely related in Elven, which would suggest
- >that they probably had something of a leaf-shaped ear.
-
- No more that the fact that "corn" and "horn" rhyme, and horns grow near the
- ears, and the units of growth of corn are called "ears." Tolkien was a much
- better linguist, both more clear and more subtle than that.
- --
- Rich Alderson 'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take
- such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
- --J. R. R. Tolkien,
- alderson@leland.stanford.edu _The Lost Road_
-