grammar + ancient greek

tartapplesauce:

betweencrossedblades:

ok so after having read a few fics in the silmarillion fandom for the first time in literally years…. I remember now why I could only very rarely find fic I liked. it’s the language.

there’s always the danger when you’re writing fic for something where the author has such a distinctive voice: you can either try to emulate it - and potentially fail - or not bother, and potentially sound odd and anachronistic. I get it! it’s hard!

but. guys.

I mean this gently. but so much fic attempting to copy some hint of tolkien’s style fails so very miserably. so. so badly. you can use your own voice - that’s absolutely fine, and often indeed the wiser choice - but if you do choose to try and sound like tolkien….here is a post tailor made for you.

first of all, let’s look at the difference. why does this -

But Annatar paid heed most of all to their lord.

sound more tolkien-y than this -

To their lord the most ardent of his attentions were given.

?

(the second is a real sentence from a fic. the first is one I have ‘tolkienised’ myself.)

*deep breath*

tolkien was VERY aware of the provenance of certain words and has characters talking in VERY distinct registers at different times for specific purposes. and different styles of speech and word order and language (french/latinate vocabulary versus old English/germanic vocabulary). any unsuccessful attempt is thus extra jarring, because language isn’t only a signifier for specific social groups in-universe - he also uses it at the level of the text.

and yes maybe I’m extra salty about this because I’m a linguist and have Actually Studied the history of English as well as old English and an EXTENSIVE amount of comparative germanic languages…but here goes.

to highlight the difference in how tolkien uses different words from different sources, I’m going to compare the difference for example between the language used in the lament for the rohirrim vs the song of eärendil

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?

VS

In panoply of ancient kings,
in chainéd rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm from him;
his bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony;
of silver was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword of steel was valiant,
of adamant his helmet tall,
an eagle-plume upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.

maybe not the best comparison because significant parts of the latter also exhibit a) very germanic vocabulary ‘to ward all wounds and harm from him’ and b) lots of fun alliteration / stress / metre / cool half-rhyme/assonance stuff and c) VERY germanic syntax ‘he armoured him’ where ‘him’ = ‘himself’ - but compare the words for talking about armour, for example.

panoply, habergeon, ebony, valiant, adamant, eagle-plume, chalcedony versushelm, haubert, horse, horn, hand…

when tolkien uses excessively germanic old-english-y things he does so deliberately. when he uses excessively middle english french chivalric language he does so deliberately.

he’s making a point. do you think that people really spoke like that when he was writing the books? compare the language merry and pippin use to that in the oath of fëanor! he is aware of the effect different words have, and the power language holds. if he uses a word like puissance,it’s going to be used to deliberate effect, because the majority of the REALLY archaic vocabulary in his works is germanic, not latinate. (and I’m not talking first age, I’m talking…early stuff, things like the story of kullervo, which uses a different ridiculously archaic word for ‘fence’ or ‘glade’ every single fucking page and is written with syntax that hasn’t been used for hundreds of years). not latinate. it’s not french. it’s GERMANIC.

and this is difficult because it goes against everything most of us are used to in daily life. the majority of most ‘higher’ vocabulary came from the dual sources of the liturgical (latin) and the socially superior (norman french). to this day we can find many examples of ‘simple’ vocabulary like handortoothand more specialised, more formal vocabulary - like the equivalent manualordentist.and of course tolkien uses french and latinate words like the rest of us - it’s impossible not to. there are different levels of loanwords, and powerreads far more naturally than puissance.

but tolkien chooses often instead to use might.

we’re..less familiar with this. we are! there’s no question about it. every book or article we read is stuffed full of french and latinate stuff. so I think what people aim for is like…Vaguely Old-Worldly. but the problem is they don’t think about what that means. it doesn’t mean the same for tolkien as other writers. he isn’t chaucer. he isn’t shakespeare. he can and he does wield germanic vocabulary for incredibly specific, often archaic purposes. most fic writers will struggle with that.

similarly important and very related: one of the things that marks Tolkien’s writing as so spectacular is his use, at times, of INCREDIBLY SIMPLE narration. he can and does do otherwise, but SO much of his writing has this clarity to it. a simplicity. and this is deliberately stylistic too! look at this passage when théoden leads his armies into battle:

And darkness was removed and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them

thisand, and, and…is a very common structure in old oral epic: a lot of epics would start every new line with and. it’s simple, but incredibly powerful: and terror took them, and they fled, and died. isn’t that enough? doesn’t that say everything? terror took them, and they fled, and died. what more is there?

another thing is sentence structure. you guys. my dudes. once again, much of tolkien’s sentence structure is far simpler than you think. I don’t mean all of it - think again of the oath of fëanor - but most of it really is quite simple. what makes it ‘hard’ and ‘confusing’ is similarly its germanic-ness: structures like yet naught was seen orto the mountains they had fled feel archaic to us, but all they are is ever so slightly more germanic than we are used to. which in turn is not the same thing as complex - as all readers of modern day German with its love of 12-comma sentences and paragraphs spanning more than one page know.

look at this description:

All about them were small woods of resinous trees, fir and cedar and cypress, and other kinds unknown in the Shire, with wide glades among them; and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs. The long journey from Rivendell had brought them far south of their own land, but not until now in this more sheltered region had the hobbits felt the change of clime. Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers opening in the turf, birds were singing. 

yes, it’s long. yes, there’s a lot going on. but look at the structure. if you simplify it it’s something like there were trees; and there were shrubs. the journey brought them south, but not until now had they felt the change of clime. here spring was busy; plants were X, and birds were Y.

this is literally just coordination - the most basic of structures. the not until now part is the sort of thing that throws people off, because it’s not a structure we’re so used to seeing. but this is nota complex sentence structure, it’s just ordered a bit different.

with all that in mind, I want to revisit quickly a few of the sentences to give a proper example of what I mean. here are some parts - just a few examples - of what bugs me about much fic

But where ordinarily such words would have stung, they would have seemed barbed and venomous and Celebrimbor would have replied with acrimony in kind, …

One subtle curl of puissance and he could have this elf lord on his knees.

To their lord the most ardent of his attentions were given, and often he could be found at Celebrimbor’s side if he was not otherwise occupied. Though at first they fenced about each other, their conversations thrust and parried as do all fledgling friendships forged in uneasy times, as the days rolled by a true sense of camaraderie began to unfurl between them.

I’m not talking about the quality of the writing, let others judge that - I’m talking SOLELY about the types of words used. notice anything about the words I’ve bolded? yeah. those are all latinate/french.

let me rewrite a few of these sentences. I’m Not Saying look I can write better but guys. if you are trying to write Like That then…take a few of the tips above, and it might just sound less anachronistic.

Such words from another would sting; but Celebrimbor’s answer would come swift and sharp.

But Annatar paid heed most of all to their lord. Often they walked together through the great forges of Eregion, and took delight in each other’s wit.

As the days passed the friendship between the two men grew.

once again. I’m not saying these are Better Writing. but they exhibit the principles I talked about.

which are:

1) utilise words that stand out to the modern reader, yes, but for specific purpose and effect. if you’re going to use puissance,recognise that it stands out and is oddly formal, and use it in an appropriate context. where you don’t want that effect, use something more neutral (powerormight)

2) archaic words are germanic more often than latinate/french. obscure latinate/french vocabulary, as above, is used for very specific purposes.

3) simple narration, simple sentence structure and simple vocabulary. write with clarity. write as if it’s meant to be read aloud. look at the landscape description above; it’s measured, and well-balanced. there’s no need for purple prose.

4) germanic sentence structure - yes! very complex sentence structure - no. look at the sentence you wish that I had gone in his stead orhe paid heed most of all to their lord. the separation of those two elements - and therefore greater flexibility - is more representative of an older stage of the language. more archaic canmean ‘sentence with twenty clauses’, but it usually doesn’t. not here.

5) pay attention to the conventions of epic and oral story-telling. you can start sentences with ‘and’ and ‘but’ more than your english teacher probably allowed.

6) where are your characters from? if you are trying to use regional language or slang - do your research. the hobbits use a lot of West Country Somerset / Wiltshire language, for example

….

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Puissance is absolutley the wrong word there, might is what is needed.  It’s hard to express what the difference it - don’t they both mean power? - but it’s a real difference, and this post is a marvellous resource in explaining why.

From an unsent draft of a letter in response to criticism of ‘archaism’ in the prose style of The Lord of the Rings:

But a real archaic English is far more terse than modern; also many of things said could not be said in our slack and often frivolous idiom. Of course, not being specially well read in modern English, and far more familiar with works in the ancient and ‘middle’ idioms, my own ear is to some extent affected; so that though I could easily recollect how a modern would put this or that, what comes easiest to mind or pen is not quite that. But take an example from the chapter that you specially singled out (and called terrible): Book iii, “The King of the Golden Hall’. ‘Nay, Gandalf!’ said the King. ‘You do not know your own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall in the front of the battle, if it must be. Thus shall I sleep better.’

This is a fair sample — moderated or watered archaism. Using only words that still are used or known to the educated, the King would really have said: ‘Nay, thou (n’)wost not thine own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall …’ etc. I know well enough what a modern would say. ‘Not at all my dear G. You don’t know your own skill as a doctor. Things aren’t going to be like that. I shall go to the war in person, even if I have to be one of the first casualties’ — and then what? Theoden would certainly think, and probably say ‘thus shall I sleep better’! But people who think like that just do not talk a modern idiom. You can have ‘I shall lie easier in my grave’, or ‘I should sleep sounder in my grave like that rather than if I stayed at home’ – if you like. But there would be an insincerity of thought, a disunion of word and meaning. For a King who spoke in a modern style would not really think in such terms at all, and any reference to sleeping quietly in the grave would be a deliberate archaism of expression on his part (however worded) far more bogus than the actual ‘archaic’ English that I have used. 

…I can see no more reason for not using the much terser and more vivid ancient style, than for changing the obsolete weapons, helms, shields, hauberks into modern uniforms.

‘Helms too they chose’ is archaic. Some (wrongly) class it as an ‘inversion’, since normal order is ‘They also chose helmets’ or ‘they chose helmets too’. (Real mod. E. ‘They also picked out some helmets and round shields’.) But this is not normal order, and if mod. E. has lost the trick of putting a word desired to emphasize (for pictorial, emotional or logical reasons) into prominent first place, without addition of a lot of little 'empty’ words (as the Chinese say), so much the worse for it. And so much the better for it the sooner it learns the trick again. And someone must begin the teaching, by example.

tuulikki:

chiakiakito:

tuulikki:

chiakiakito:

tuulikki:

thinksandthings:

elf

Elves are fun because there are so many vastly different interpretations. Everything from Santa’s toymakers to Elrond and his court qualify into our concept of elven forms.

Generally speaking, we might define elfas being a “spirit, sprite, fairy or goblin; some kind of usually mischievous supernatural creature.” This same definition existed for the Middle English term elf,alternately recorded as alfeorelfe.In Old English, the word was ælf,still retaining its meaning of “sprite, incubus or fairy,” but specifically with a masculine connotation. The feminine version of the word was ælfen, which interestingly is the predecessor to our modern adjectival form elven.

The word branches out of the Germanic family, and we can point to some other connected words in Old High German, like alp which meant “nightmare.” There is actually an Old English cognate which is ælfádl, also meaning “nightmare,” but more literally, “elf-disease.” Another interesting elf-induced sickness was though to be hiccups, which is reflected in the OE translation ælfsogoða.

Beyond this era of the Old English and German there is some debate about where the words originally sprouted from. The trail may be related to albusoralphoúsἀλφούς, the Latin and Ancient Greek terms for “white” respectively. The cultural theory implies that elves were considered beings of light, brightness and beauty, and thus as this concept evolved from those ideas, so did the English form out of the adjectives.

I think Calvert Watkins maybe specifically theorised that it came down to the Germanic languages from Proto-Indo-European *albho- (white), rather than being borrowed from a sister language family.

Still not sure how well this light/brightness/beauty theory plays with svartálfar and all the hostile qualities of elves, though. That makes me a little hesitant, idk

I’m actually soing my thesis on elves!

Re: origins, the most accepted theory is the one with *albho- for brightness. There’s another hypothesis (actually the only theory cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, even though it’s more of a stretch) that links them to Vedic deities through the word *rbhu (with a sonant r, but I’m typing from a phone). See Kazanas for a paper on the subject, I believe it was called Indo-european deities and the Rg Veda.

As for svartalfar and such: kee in mind that the main source of that classification is Snorri Sturluson, who was writing from a Christian perspective and trying to make elves more similar to angels and devils. There is no mention of dark elves in earlier Scandinavian sources.

Most early Scandinavian evidence points to elves being seen as minor deities, possibly linked to fertility and prosperity. They received some sort of sacrifice (not much detail on this in Skaldic poetry, but an “alfablót” is mentioned once and Kormaks saga talks about pouring bull’s blood on a mound where elves live) AND were linked to the sun through the poetic metaphor alfrodhull (literally “elf’s wheel” or “elf’s glory”, meaning sun. Again, missing accents here, sorry). Human warriors and kings were also described as metaphorical elves in poetry, most notably Norwegian king Olafr Geirstadhalfr “the Elf of Geirstadhir”, named after his burial site, who was also sacrificed to in order to secure prosperity.

Also, the meaning of alfr (the Old Norse elf) is a lot less clear than it looks. It was probably not a “race” of beings as we might conceptualise today. More likely it had a range of meanings, possibly as wide as “any being capable of giving supernatural blessings” or at least “any semi-divine creature”. Medievam folk did not have a concept of taxonomy and as such did not classify things the way we do.

In the elder Edda, elves are routinely paired with the Aesir in poetic formulae, possibly with the meaning of “all divine creatures, from gods to elves”. In at least a few songs (esp. Lokasenna) they seem to be synonymous with the Vanir (Freya is said to have slept with “all Aesir and elves”, which Loki says is incest, apparently because she’s an elf and her brother is too?). Freyr especially is linked to the elves through Alfheimr, the elf-realm which he is said to have been gifted with. This association is however not present in other songs, where vanir and elves are mentioned side by side as though they were different groups (see for instance Skirnismal and Alvissmal).

The only elf character in the Edda may be Volundr, who is said to be alfa ljodhi (ambiguous, possibly “of the elf-people”) and visi alfa (leader of the elves)in Volundarkvida. This is weird because Volundr is a very popular character with equivalents in Anglo-Saxon Weyland and German Wieland, but this is the only source calling him an elf. Here the term may have been a way to classify him as an ethnic Other (being a Sami prince) and carries implications of dangerous beauty. There’s a very good paper on him, called The extreme emotional life of Volundr the Elf.

The earliest of these sources date back to the Ninth century. Note that nowhere are elves described as being specifically diminutive in size, invisible or whatever. That is likely the product of later shifts in meaning or belief, possibly linked to Christianization and merging with other supernatural beings, such as dwarves (as in the aforementioned svartalfar, which are described as being black as coal and are also apparently dwarves, at least according to Snorri), and landvaettir (nature spirits). Terry Gunnell has done a lot of work on this, check out How Elvish were the Alfar? (2007).

Anoyher good source is the work of Alaric Hall, esp. Elves in Anglo-Saxon England (2007). The book focuses on old english but also goes over Scandinavian evidence.

Might share more sources later once I get to my computer if anyone is interested.

Oh my gosh, please please please share sources! I got so excited over this that it literally raised my heart rate. Thank you for sharing all this knowledge!

The tags warm my heart. Thank you for giving me an excuse to write up my bibliography for this chapter, which I was neglecting to do.

So! Be warned, these are all academic studies so they can be a bit dry to sift through if you’re not familiar with the topics discussed.

Books to check out:

• R. Simek, 1993. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. (pages 73-74 are about Elves but this is generally a great source to look things up and get a broad overview).
• T.A. Shippey et al. The Shadow-Walkers. Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous. (a collection of essays about re-examining Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, which was a foundational work for modern mythography. The introduction is great to understand why early philological efforts relied on biased assumptions, and the essay about elves, also by Shippey, looks at English and Scandinavian folklore as seen through a Christian light).
• A. Hall. 2007. Elves in Anglo-Saxon England. (As I mentioned above, a very in-depth look at the meaning shift of the Elf-word in English. The book is an update and expansion of Hall’s PhD dissertation, which is free online if you can’t find the published version.)

Papers and articles (links are all open access, except maybe the one to JSTOR, but I can access it with a student account ay my uni):

• On the alternate etymology of “elf”, ṛbhu: N.D. Kazanas. 2001. Indo-European deities and the Rgveda. Journal of IndoEuropean Studies. (x) 
• On the shifts in meaning of “alfar” in Norse folklore: T. Gunnell, 2007. How Elvish were the Álfar? in A. Wawn et al., Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth. Essays in Honour of T.A. Shippey. (No link, but I mailed Dr. Gunnell and he was very happy to share the material with me. Here’s his website with all his articles)
• On Volundr and elves in the Edda in general: Á. Jakobsson. 2006. The Extreme Emotional Life of Vǫlundr the Elf. Scandinavian Studies. (x)
• On why it’s a bad idea to categorise medieval supernatural creatures with modern taxonomy: Á. Jakobsson. 2013. The Taxonomy of the Non-existent: Some Medieval Icelandic Concepts of the Paranormal (x)

Go forth and read about elves!

This is incredible, thank you so much!

Oh my goodness, I love you all so so incredibly much, this is so amazing and absolutely fascinating!!!!

linguisticfishstick:

sweetgrass-soul:

There were many reasons why I stepped away from archaeology & academia just 16 months post-PhD but the one that still angers me most today has to be the ways in which the Institution™ categorizes folklore vs science when it comes to Indigenous people. Ancestral knowledge of the ‘Old World’ is seen as a form of early science—curiosity leading to rigorous study and eventual advancement—with their fairytales and folklore viewed as purposefully allegorical. The Indigenous people of Africa, Turtle Island, and the rest of the so-called Americas never got that same respect. Outside of a handful of tokenized and understudied societies, most Indigenous ancestral knowledge is viewed through the lens of folklore—and no grace is given to allegory or metaphor or philosophy, either. The assumption is that our people can only think in literal, concrete terms. And it’s fucking insulting. There’s this joke in academia that if archaeologists don’t know an artifact’s usage they’ll deem it as ‘ritualistic purposes’; and it’s funny or whatever but nine times out of ten those artifacts are from [insert literally any Turtle Island or Mesoamerican nation] and not from much-older Greek civilizations. But it’s not well-studied because we’re not well-respected, and therefore nobody bothered to ask our still-living people who are very much aware of what said artifact was meant for (spoiler alert: not ritualistic).

Early on in my first Master’s program I got into a huge fight with a white professor who wanted to use a widely misinterpreted SuPeRsTiTiOn from MY tribe as an example of a persistent folktale. The folktale being that: Chiricahua Apache women don’t take baths during pregnancy bc we think the water is evil. It is true that, after being moved onto the rez, birthing + postpartum women were becoming ill when they bathed. This isn’t some ancient happening stoked by mythology—this is 100 years ago to recent times; midwives saw it happening and acted by cautioning against bathing. My grandmother, an Indigenous midwife, saw it play out and is very hesitant to recommend bathing to birthing women on the rez today. This isn’t because she or any other Chiricahua thinks water is evil; it’s because water quality has been so horrific that it quite literally was infecting the womb at its most vulnerable time. Had this been a European society, this knowledge would be considered evidence-based but since we’re Indigenous, they slap some contrived faux folkways mythos onto it and call it superstitious.

This is just one example of what happens on a constant basis when it comes to communities who are being oppressed by the same systems that set the standards for what science, history, and art are.

It’s maddening and sickening to me to this day.

(Tangentially, the next time I see a non-ndn upload or reblog our artifacts and crafts and tag it as “primitive art”, I’m going to scalp you. You’ve been duly warned)

I would urge you to remain in the field to help bring awareness to these issues. I’m going into historical linguistic anthropology (the study of and restoration of dead and dying languages) and a very similar issue comes up in this field. However, I definitely understand how stressful and frustrating it would be to stay, it’s your choice ofc

Oh hey, fellow historical linguist! Assyrian philology was my niche. I’m still finishing the book I was writing and I occasionally do consulting work within the field, but I have no interest in ever stepping back into academia in a full-time, tenure track role. I was so deeply drawn to archaeology + ancient history and entered into college truly believing that I could help change the field from the inside, but after years of disillusionment and abuse I came to understand that inherently colonialist + white-supremacist systems can’t be altered in any significant way by working within that system’s framework. Of course I support people from marginalized communities choosing to pursue academia and fight for our voices to be heard, but the onus of Changing Things isn’t on us. We didn’t build these systems of oppression and the responsibility of fixing something broken shouldn’t be left to us. Academia is tough on everyone but it’s downright humiliating for people who don’t toe the party line. Ultimately this is work for white settler descendants to take on. Personally, I have found it much more meaningful to devote my education + skills directly to Indigenous communities (e.g. I’m currently working with the language preservation council of my own tribe to restore + make our endangered dialect more accessible to members; and my ambition is that someday this could be a pan-NDN program). Strengthening Indigenous ancestral knowledge + systems is now my priority.