Hobbiton Linguistics

[Korah]

So I really want a Lord of the Rings tattoo. I'd like to get the line "Even darkness must pass." But I want it to be linguistically correct and I don't know how to find out what the correct way is. Honestly I haven't read through the trilogy because I get distracted very easily and have to restart it so I don't know who says the line in the book. I'm pretty sure its a Hobbit. Maybe Sam maybe not. I want to be sure that whatever race said it, I get the correct punctuation and all. But the main thing I worry about is the "a" and "e." How do I tell if the a's or e's in the line need the punctuation over them? I'm not sure how the punctuation is used. Can anyone tell me?

 

[Deleted member 12094]

There exists no such sentence neither in LotR, nor in TH, nor in the Silmarillion, nor even in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth. The only text that comes half-way close to what you propose is a quote from Faramir: "Éowyn, Éowyn, White Lady of Rohan, in this hour I do not believe that any darkness will endure!" (Book 6 Ch. 5 The Steward and the King").

The sentence does however appear in the movie "The two Towers", and indeed spoken by Sam, at the moment when Faramir keeps Frodo and Sam captured in Osgiliath where he is about to release them (though images are shown of Isengard meanwhile...!). In the books, Frodo and Sam have never been in Osgiliath.

As for the punctuation which you probably saw in the movies as well: also these are complete nonsense phantasy invented by PJ, as so much else there. Your only real source of relevance is probably LotR Appendix E: Writing and Spelling.

In conclusion, this phrase is a very dubious tribute, far more to PJ than to JRRT's works...! Just my opinion.

 

[Elthir]

(...) But the main thing I worry about is the "a" and "e." How do I tell if the a's or e's in the line need the punctuation over them? I'm not sure how the punctuation is used. Can anyone tell me?

If I guess correctly what you mean by punctuation here, the three dots are one way to denote the vowel a in an Elvish script Tolkien invented; merging this with the Roman alphabet is another film invention though.

If you still want the film look, I guess put an Elvish a (three dots) over any aze in your English ("aze" being my invented plural for the Roman letter a). But this decoration is certainly not needed, and as Merroe already noted, makes no sense really.

Presumably this was done in the films for some kind of visual connection to the Elvish script. Without diving into "modes" here, *Westron was written with the Elvish letters, but Roman letters did not yet exist in the imagined time when Hobbits walked the Shire.


__________
*in theory the Hobbits spoke their brand of a language called Westron, translated into English for the books, except for a light smattering of Westron words and names. For one example of a translated name: Ban "Sam" is short for Banazîr "Samwise" (which means halfwise).

 

[Deleted member 12094]

Galin indeed puts the "dots on the i's" very nicely...!

Dear Korah, something else crossed my mind later about this, so let me just write it down here too.

As said, the sentence "Even darkness must pass" is a PJ invention, and as usual when he tries to be a second JRRT he is far off the mark. This time for the following reasons.

Throughout LotR the narrative is profoundly impregnated by fear that darkness may actually last and clear knowledge that Sauron is close to achieving this. Here’s a quote from Gandalf: “The Enemy still lacks one thing to give him strength and knowledge to beat down all resistance, break the last defences, and cover all the lands in a second darkness. He lacks the One Ring”. Or Galadriel: “your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all”.

Galadriel goes on, very significantly saying: “Yet hope remains while all the Company is true”. “Hope” is an important, often returning theme… but I’m gliding away from your subject now.

Fact is: PJ’s invention that, in the middle of the story line, a main character would suddenly ascertain that this darkness must pass is an abomination to the very spirit of these books.

This said, Korah: I greatly appreciate your stepping by in this forum for the questions that you had!

If only we could convince you to actually read the books, we would offer you a quite unique literary experience…! ;-)

 

[Korah]

If only we could convince you to actually read the books, we would offer you a quite unique literary experience…! ;-)

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate the help. I knew Sam and Frodo never went to Osgiliath in the books. I didn't know though, that the speech Sam made wasn't in the books at all by anyone. I still want that tattoo though because those words (Tolkien's or not) mean a lot to me because of the struggles I've went through. And they are still part of LotR in my eyes, in that they were part of the movies. I really do want to read the books entirely. I adore Middle Earth and since the Lord of the Rings movies are my favorite movies I imagine the books will be my favorites as well. I just bought The Silmarillion and read a little of the beginning of the creation of the world and it is absolutely beautiful! But I need to take my ADD medicine and focus on the other books so I can be a true fan! Anyways, thanks again for all the input!

Presumably this was done in the films for some kind of visual connection to the Elvish script.

Thank you for your help! I thought Tolkien had all of the different languages and the way they are written and ALSO had them written with the Roman alphabet. Like Japanese has Kanji. But I guess it makes sense that they only did that for the movies so the audience could actually read it. I really appreciate your help though and can't wait to get the tattoo!

 

[octoburn]

I don't recall exactly where it is, TTT or ROTK, but this is a quote from Sam's inner thoughts, that I think is closest to what he said in the film.

"in the end, the Shadow was only a small and passing thing."

this may be as close as you get to that quote, being from the books...

 

[Elthir]

Thank you for your help! I thought Tolkien had all of the different languages and the way they are written and ALSO had them written with the Roman alphabet. Like Japanese has Kanji. But I guess it makes sense that they only did that for the movies so the audience could actually read it. I really appreciate your help though and can't wait to get the tattoo!

To be clear, Tolkien did partially invent several languages and various writing systems, and wrote Elvish (Quenya and Sindarin for examples) with the Roman alphabet as well... but what he didn't do, and what the films did do, was decorate Roman-written English with an Elvish diacritic for the vowel a.

I mean, English readers can already read the word darkness without the dots

but the films did this
:.
darkness

Well, I couldn't pile on the three dots correctly here (imagine them over the a, and written more correctly)... but anyway.

Unless maybe you're talking about something else, like Elvish written in Roman letters
with a diaeresis (the two dots) above some vowels, like with Eärendil or namárië...

... but your quote above is English, so that doesn't seem to be in question. Anyway, you don't need to use the diaeresis for Romanized Elvish, even though Tolkien himself sometimes did.

 

[Korah]

I mean, English readers can already read the word darkness without the dots

That's basically all I wanted to know haha. I am not a linguistic and as I said, I haven't read through all the books so I wasn't sure how it worked. I appreciate all the pointers.

 

[Elthir]

Ahh. Okay. No problem of course. I can see how the films can confuse folks there.