• @[email protected]
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    1135 months ago

    What should we call this being so powerful and mysterious as to be completely unaffected by the one ring?

    Tom

    • synae[he/him]
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      535 months ago

      How about this really old talking tree guy?

      Treebeard!

      And the huge volcano mountain that is the source of the evil artifact?

      Mount Doom, naturally

    • @samus12345
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      335 months ago

      To be fair, he has other, more exotic-sounding names. Tom Bombadil is the name the hobbits gave him.

    • @Stamau123
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      105 months ago

      Like how lob is an old name for spider. Shelob is just ‘she-spider’ or spider lady

    • @[email protected]
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      85 months ago

      There is a new version for the Hobbit in spanish, ilustrated and annotated that explains it this way

  • @yggdar
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    515 months ago

    He also called them mûmakil in elvish. In my mind, when the Hobbits call them oliphaunts it is because a long time ago someone talked about elephants, and over the years the correct pronunciation was lost.

    • @[email protected]
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      515 months ago

      Other way around. Oliphants before elephants. When we call them elephants it’s because a long time ago someone talked about oliphants etc.

    • @Akasazh
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      75 months ago

      Olifant is what they are called in Dutch, so it is likely is something like that in south African, where Tolkien was born.

  • Caveman
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    415 months ago

    Maybe because elephants are based on oliphaunts

    • @[email protected]
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      175 months ago

      The idea is that it’s a translation, so some words are just modern ones used in place of what the ‘real’ ones are.

    • Lux
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      135 months ago

      Tolkien’s books are essentially english/European mythology, so it kind of sort of makes sense

    • @[email protected]
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      45 months ago

      I believe there’s a whole section of one of the books devoted to the in world-calendars and their relation to the Gregorian one.

  • @[email protected]
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    5 months ago

    It sent me on a trip and in the end to Hittite 𒆷𒄴𒉺𒀸 (laḫpaš, “ivory”) 3700 years ago

    I love etymology honestly and how it is all connected. I am really curious about onomatopoeias.

    For example is ‘hmmm’ used in many unrelated languages just because it has a soothing vibration? Why do we have same onomatopoeias in cultures that never met?

    Is there a language that is closest to interpreting the brain signals if we consider onomatopoeias to be a part of the language?

    Perhaps some primitive pre language consisting of grunts without words. Then the evolution comes into play and animal communication.