Talk:Noldor/Archive 1

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Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move to Noldor. Joelito (talk) 23:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Ñoldor → Noldor – Tolkien used both terms, but the latter seems to occur more frequently. ▫ Urbane Legend ^chinwag 16:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Support ▫ Urbane Legend ^chinwag 16:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Support I believe Ñoldor is the author's final intent, but Noldor is far more common. As such that is where the article should be. -- Jordi·✆ 16:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Support As I've argued at some length here and elsewhere, the "Noldor" spelling feels both more familiar and less pretentious to me, and it's the one that Tolkien used in LotR.--Steuard 16:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Support - I think either is workable, but the 'N' form will be more familiar to most people. --CBD 22:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Support. But then I generally disagree with non-English diacritics in article names, yet we see them more and more. --Dhartung | Talk 06:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Support Most probably, many readers of Tolkien's writings – including myself – which "only" read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion and maybe a few of the Unfinished Tales and History of Middle-Earth sections will appreciate to see the very unfamilar version "Ñoldor" changing to "Noldor", *even* if the "Ñ" spelling *was* technically correct, because in those more commonly known publications the tilde version simply doesn't appear that often (for reasons which have been discussed already) to produce any familiarity to the reader. -- Dirk Stegemann 03:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Eldest comments

Why is it Ñoldor and not just Noldor ?

"Noldor (meaning Those with knowledge) are those Elves who initially followed Finwë as their King."

Actually, according to Cuivienyarna (in War of the Jewels), the Three Kindreds were already formed before Finwe, Elwe and Ingwe went with Orome to Valinor. They became the leaders of the kindreds only after they returned to Cuivienen. The first leaders of the three Elven tribes were Imin, Tata and Enel (which are actually not real names, just numbers). This makes sense, as, for example, Elwe and Olwe must have been born to be brothers.

The Noldor are those Eldar of Tatarin stock. In Quendi and Eldar, a very late work by Tolkien, Eöl the Dark Elf for example is made into an Avar of Tatarin descent: he is thus of the same proto-people as the Noldor.

Finwë was indeed the leader of the Tatari during the March, but he cannot be the same Elf as "Tata" (Two). — Jor (Darkelf) 20:25, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

i have some related questions:

This article apparently decides to use the later spelling Ñoldo throughout. Why is this is not the case elsewhere?
Why is this article not at Ñoldor?
Ñoldo, Argon etc. — what is the policy on using post-LOTR material here?

Thanks Anárion 19:41, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We generally use later texts as canon rather than the published Silmarillion. The spelling Noldor, however, is used in various articles throughout Wikipedia... If we were to change it, to be consistent we would have to change it in all of them. Ausir 20:35, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)~

I'd like to see chapter and verse evidence for the tilde in Ñoldor - didn't see any such after studying a bit. If it only appears in a draft or something, then we should stick with the tilde-less version, and discuss in this article, rather than change it everywhere, which misrepresents which is the common form. Stan 19:35, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Quickrefs:

Morgoth's Ring, Section 4, Note 2: "The name Noldor is here written with a tilde, Ñoldor (representing the back nasal, the ng of king; see IV.174). This becomes the normal frm in all my father's late writings (…)". The references is to a discussion of the word golodh as the Sindarin form of Quenya ñoldo, from Common Eldarin ngolodō.
idem, Atrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth — Glossary;
Part two of The Peoples of Middle-earth: as far as I can check all references to Ñoldo/r include the tilde.

I do not have access to the early parts of the HoMe at the moment, but I recall many more references. The tilde was introduced in the rewritings following publication of the LotR and followed whenever Tolkien had access to a typewrite with tilde (or wrote by hand) after. Aná rion 20:04, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The canon policy referred to below says that TH and LotR are canon, and S is canon except where "corrected" (i.e. where CJRT messed up?) in HoM-e, but that changes in later writings are not usually counted as canon. This argues in favor of no tilde. Moreover, as I have said elsewhere (and been directed here), the vast majority of readers will never see Ñoldor in any text by Tolkien they ever read. And since they'll know ñ from Spanish, they'll almost certainly pronounce it wrongly anyway. JulianBradfield 10:30, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Most readers (and probably the overwhelming majority of casual readers) are going to mispronounce names from Tolkien's works anyway, no matter what we do. (Not that this is a good argument either way, but it's worth remembering.)

The ng pronunciation is actually quite early. I don't know how it got to n and then back to ng (written ñ), but Etymologies has quite a few N entries listed as Ñ—ñoldor actually comes from the stemp ÑGOLOD- (the ÑG apparently represents a distinctive symbol). This is very definitely pre-LotR work. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 23:57, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think you're perhaps confused about various meanings of early. Let's use Iearly/Ilate for "early/late Internally to the history of Middle-early", and Eearly/Elate for "Externally early/late in Tolkien's life/development of the mythology". It was Ealways the case that the word Noldo derived from an Iearly (Proto-Eldarin) form in ÑG, i.e. back velar pre-nasalized stop. It was also Ealways the case that by the Itime Q(u)enya was a separate language, Iearly in the First Age, the ÑG- had become ñ, hence ñoldo. Now, at the Etime that Tolkien wrote LotR, it was his view that in the Itime of the Third Age, initial ñ in Quenya had become n in pronunciation: hence he wrote noldo in LotR. (Although probably still at that Itime, noldo would actually be written with the tengwa noldo, not númen.) It is not clear that he ever changed his mind on this: most of the later writings in which Ñoldo appears concern First Age events, in which the change ñ -> n had not yet taken place. It is at least defensible, then, that if we take LoTR Itime as the canonical point of reference, Noldo is and Ealways was the correct form. JulianBradfield 17:47, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In general, I would tend to support the use here of spellings and name forms from LotR over those from other writings in cases where there are conflicts. (That's consistent with my perspective on Middle-earth canon in general, and as far as I can tell, not too far from Tolkien's own treatment of such issues either.) Given JulianBradfield's comments here, it seems like there's even a reasonable way in which Tolkien's varying usage can be seen as self-consistent. With all that in mind, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the recent push toward the ñ spelling. Any chance we can work out a consensus on this?--Steuard 16:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I would rather support the version Ñoldor from the earlier Ages, because this article mainly deals with these, and the Third Age is only mentioned in one paragraph. Here the term Ñoldor even is used to explain which version of words should be used. Galadh 10:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Amendment: In the following section I (user Galadh) have been convinced that the spelling Noldor is a good possibility as well, and I now agree to use it instead of Ñoldor. Therefore (particularly if you support the spelling Noldor) you may have nothing to add and can skip the following section. --Galadh 13:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

My argument for the "Noldor" spelling is mainly that it's more familiar to, well, pretty much everyone. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't mention the "Ñoldor" spelling and its history (inside and outside the story), but I simply don't see the value in using the obscure spelling generally. (If you can see a way that using the accented spelling adds value to the article, I'm all ears.) As for the statement on the Middle-earth WikiProject page, it's only been there for a month (it showed up after my comment above, in fact), there wasn't any particular discussion of the policy, and I'm currently debating it on the talk page there.--Steuard 03:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I now read the comments on the talk page. The comment of CBDunkerson seems to contradict JulianBradfield's opinion. (One states that Ñoldor only appears in later writings while the other states that Ñoldor was always used in texts about the earlier Ages) Could anyone verify which of the opinions is correct, probably by quoting from HoME? -- Galadh 07:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Both are correct... Tolkien's later writings were primarily about the earlier ages of Middle-earth. Thus, all uses of 'Ñoldor' appear in texts about the earlier ages... but not in all such texts. The 'ÑG-' form in the root goes back to very early texts and was well established by 1937. However, Tolkien continued to use 'Noldor' through ~1954 at which point he transitioned over to 'Ñoldor' and then used that exclusively or nearly so. This is not generally apparent though because in the texts from that time period which Christopher Tolkien incorporated into The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales he edited it back to 'N'... for consistency with The Lord of the Rings and the earlier texts also used to construct those posthumous books. Hence Steuard's point about most readers being unfamiliar with the 'Ñ' form - it appears only in the last three (of twelve) volumes of the History of Middle-earth series while most people stop at LotR, Silm, or UT. I think it really then becomes another debate over whether we should use the form Tolkien apparently settled on or the one most readers are familiar with... for plot details I strongly favor the former, but for spelling I don't think it is as crucial. However, I think people will figure it out either way... though some explanation in the article itself might be appropriate. --CBDunkerson 10:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I hope I am getting it right now: The pronounciation of the word never changed, but the spelling did change from N to Ñ in Tolkien's late life? If this is the case I think we can also use Noldor without a tilde.--Galadh 13:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Conrad, I haven't had time to do any sort of thorough search through the texts, but you might know: was there any indication that the 'Ñ' pronounciation shifted to 'N' between the First Age and the Fourth? That rang a bell with me when JulianBradfield suggested it earlier, but I'm not sure where to look to check. I'm not sure whether something like this would have been mentioned in App. E or F, but if not there then I guess it could only be in HoMe X-XII somewhere (if it exists at all). In any case, this seems a bit different than the usual "more familiar vs. more final" debate: unlike (say) the ancestry of Gil-galad question, the debate here is between "late usage" and "LotR usage". That gets into considerably messier "canonicity" territory, since most accept LotR pretty strictly as canon.--Steuard 21:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I have dug around a bit, but found no indication of an 'in story' explanation for the switch. --CBD 22:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Canon policy

As for our canon policy, see: Talk:Middle-earth. Ausir 21:31, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Or rather the new article Middle-earth canon. Aná rion 20:34, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Diacritic mark

Hm,,, i don't know if it's my browser or something, but i always thought Noldor is spelled with a double acute accent, not a tilde. -Shandris 07:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

When spelled with a diacritic mark, it's definitely supposed to be a tilde. But when spelled in LotR, it's not supposed to be anything at all. I'm pretty strongly opposed to using the spelling with the tilde for general use in Wikipedia (as I mentioned in an earlier section).--Steuard 13:29, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Noldor vs Ñoldor

Maybe I'm showing my ignorance, but I notice no difference when pronouncing Ñoldor (with the back nasal ng), and Noldor (without). ▫ Urbane Legend ^talk 14:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Compare the sound of canon (as in Canon law) vs that of cañon (canyon). Or with Ñoldor: Nyoldor. There is a slight nasalization of the N which comes from the "lost" G. -- Jordi·✆ 15:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I know how ñ sounds in Spanish and in canyon, but that's not the phoneme Tolkien is using ñ to represent: Morgoth's Ring, Section 4, Note 2: "The name Noldor is here written with a tilde, Ñoldor (representing the back nasal, the ng of king; see IV.174). Ñoldor is clearly not supposed to be pronounced Nyoldor. I notice no difference when saying Ngoldor (with the ng from king) and Noldor. ▫ Urbane Legend ^talk 09:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right, completely forgot that. Still there should be a difference, which I find hard to describe since I don't know IPA and English is not phonemic at all. Maybe some IPA buff can step in? Surely you see there's a difference in the 'n' sound in kingly and kinship? This is like the difference between the n and ñ of N(g)oldor. -- Jordi·✆ 10:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not an IPA buff, but would say that the ñ sound is 'ngh' rather than 'nuh'. It's a 'nasalized g' rather than an 'n'. That is, make the 'guh' sound of 'g', but then repeat it while adding nasalization (expulsion of air/vibration through the nose)... this is the sound of 'ng' in 'king'. Another way of describing it is to make the 'n' and 'g' sounds simultaneously... they are produced differently ('g' by mouth and tongue, 'n' primarily by the nose) and thus can be combined. The 'ng' in 'king' is not two different sounds as in 'key-nuh-guh' but rather one sound as in 'key-ngh'. --CBD 12:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I still don't notice the difference when pronouncing Ñoldor/Noldor. The nasal ng doesn't seem to alter the sound when it's at the beginning of the word. Perhaps this is the reason Tolkien stopped using Ñ!▫ Urbane Legend ^chinwag 15:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Dunno, _I_ notice the difference. The "n" is produce more at the front than the "ng" sound, and for the "ng" my mouth is completely open, whereas for the "n", the tongue and the upper part of my mouth touch. --OliverH 18:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There is definitely a difference. It's just that English doesn't have initial [ŋ], so if it's your native language you may have problems producing or recognizing it. The same problem exists with final [h] (occurs in Primitive Quendian). Double sharp (talk) 09:41, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

By the way, we should perhaps weigh merits of having the diacritic in place or not. I have not encountered Ñoldor much outside isolated circles and it may be best to follow the mainstream Noldor spelling in the Wikipedia, as long as the Ñ spelling is referenced in the article. Thoughts? -- Jordi·✆ 15:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

As in previous discussions on this issue (such as the one above) I don't have a strong opinion either way. After further review I continue to lean towards the 'Noldor' spelling... especially as Christopher Tolkien seems to have edited almost all instances of Ñoldor to 'N' in his texts. Thus, only those who are familiar with linguistic texts or the passing explanation of the change in Morgoth's Ring are likely to be familiar with it. --CBD 22:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the Noldor spelling would be best. I've wanted to see it changed to this for ages, but never really understood the issues until reading discussions like this. One thing we could do is replace all the N/Ñ bits with a template type thing, and then this could be switched back and forth by future generations of Wikipedians... (only joking)! Seriously, how best to change all the uses of the word Noldor? Carcharoth 00:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

A bot? Otherwise just edit edit all links to it. If there is consensus to change to either version I'll gladly start doing my part, but first this article needs to be moved (if the Noldor spelling wins which seems final), or it will look silly. That is why I reverted the recent sneaky edit which introduced the N spelling: whichever spelling we use is where this article should be. -- Jordi·✆ 14:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This page is now listed on requested moves. ▫ Urbane Legend ^chinwag 15:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree to this decision wholeheartedly. It's just about 2 month ago I became an excited "Wikipedian" after discovering that this is a great resource for all kind of Tolkien stuff. But the "Ñoldor" spelling always disturbed me, although I knew about the word's ngol origin from reading Silmarillion and parts of History of Middle-earth. I guess, many people will appreciate to see "Ñoldor" changing to "Noldor", *even* if the "Ñ" spelling *was* technically correct. I'd be glad to help changing articels – most part of my contributions have been fixes of typos and diacritical marks anyway. -- Dirk Stegemann 20:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the Ñ spelling as it clearly was Tolkien's later preference, but don't really feel strongly either way. Clearly redirects should be in place as both are common. The IPA character is ŋ, by the way. I find it rather difficult to pronounce because ŋ doesn't occur initially in English, but I also pronounce my username ['ɜl-u-tʃɪl] instead of [el'u-χi:l] :-) Eluchil404 17:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Finwe

Could anyone point me to the source of the statement that Finwë was not allowed bodily form again??? --OliverH 11:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It's in the long discussion on the Statute of Finwë and Míriel. Since normally an Elf may have only one wife, but Finwë effectively divorced Míriel after her "suicide", it was judged Finwë and Míriel would not be allowed to both be incorporated. After Finwë was murdered by the Morgoth he chose not to be incorporated again, instead allowing Míriel to take up her body again. I can't look up a more precise reference right now, it's probably in HoMe X. -- Jordi·✆ 13:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a very volatile issue in my eyes. I found the statement, but it is included only in the first version of the story of Finwe and Miriel. In the second, he simply states that Miriel joined Vaire. Christopher remarks concerning FM 4 ($8) the spirit of Miriel 'passed in silence to the keeping of Mandos, and abode in the house of Vaire' (see note 4 above); and in $18 'Vaire with whom Miriel dwelt made known to her the doom.' After Miriel's refusal of return 'she went then to the Halls of Waiting appointed to the Eldar and was left in peace' ($21), but (according to the footnote to this paragraph) 'after a time she was permitted to return to the house of Vaire.' Thus in this final text it seems certain that Vaire in some sense dwelt apart.:

"Very curiously, my father subsequently bracketed the footnote and wrote against it 'Omit', commenting beside it: 'Alter this. What happened when Finwe came to Mandos?' Yet he had already answered this question very fully in Laws and Customs, where indeed it was the very fact of the coming of Finwe to the halls of Mandos that led to the release of Miriel and her admission to the house of Vaire."

This is all good and fine by Christopher, but he overlooks in that instance that his father revised several aspects of "Laws and Customs" pertinent to this issue, most notably the issue of re-birth. So taking for granted things from the first version of the legendarium is playing with mines, really. Tolkien clearly had second thoughts and NOT made up his mind with the second version as to what happened when Finwe came to Mandos. --OliverH 21:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Finwe is stated to be the High King of the Noldor. If this is the case what other kings is he the High King over? To the best of my knowledge none of his sons had claimed a kingdom in Aman, and I can not think of any other Noldor outside of his family who ever claimed a kingdom. I always thought that the High Kingship was created after the death of Feanor, when Finwe's descendents made their own Kingdoms in Arda.

Top message

There is a link to the "Concept and creation" section, which does not currently exist. I would change it myself if I were certain as to where to point it. -- Jao 14:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Why does this have its own page?

Is this really important enough to have its own page? Tolkien dweebs, yell all you want, but it just seems anything but notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.59.89.53 (talk) 08:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge Thrall-Noldorin

This article seems to be an unneccessary derivative article per Wikipedia:Notability_(fiction)#Derivative_articles, and has no sources to it. At the very least it should be merged into Noldor. Any objections?Sadads (talk) 04:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

After some editing I cheked the books, and Tolkien does not use "Thrall-Noldorin" in his works. The language is called "mulanoldorin", and these Elves are called "thrall Gnomes". Laurifindil (talk) 20:12, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Clan?

What's up with the use of the word Clan? In the Silmarillion these were called houses, not clans. Rwflammang (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

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"Thrall-Noldorin" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Thrall-Noldorin. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 20#Thrall-Noldorin until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hildeoc (talk) 23:15, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Interview trivia

I'm afraid I do consider a discussion in part of one TV chat show trivial; it's not a scholarly matter, nor are any new facts, etymologies or anything else actually being introduced: we're just being told that at such a time, an actor had a chat about something to do with his character. That's pretty much the definition of chat-trivia, I'm afraid. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:14, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

In consulting the Manual of style guideline about "In popular culture" and "Cultural references" material, it suggests that matters of this nature is "not categorically trivial" and I quote: Media coverage of a topic is generally encyclopedic information, helps establish the topic's notability, and helps readers understand the subject's influence on the public (and often vice versa), though it does proscribe that short cultural references sections should usually be worked into the article's prose. In response to your edit summary, I'll explain what the segment was about and what the source actually said: during the segment itself, it wasn't the actor who was reminiscing about the role; it was Colbert the host who used a greeting in Quenya as an icebreaker with Pace (who was completely caught off guard), and then proceeded to explain to the actor's bewilderment that he wouldn't have understood it because the character he played was a Sindar who is supposed to speak Sindarin and not likely have understood Quenya. Does that demonstrate the host as a quirky and unashamed enthusiast of Tolkien's writings (aka superfan)? Yes, but his show or platform also has an average viewership of 3.46 million people in the US, and covers a very broad range of topics which extends beyond pop culture.

I actually don't mind if the incident itself isn't described in the article (although the source itself is already used to fill in the knowledge gap for two other statements in the article per the author's analysis). The rationale behind it though, is that it is helpful to demonstrate that the question of notability about Tolkien's writings outside of his two biggest fiction works is not confined to special interest or niche publications like Mythlore, which I understand is the sentiment held by some editors as a yardstick to determine whether it warrants inclusion on Wikipedia in the first place based on the nebulous idea of "real world notability". One could even argue that an influential media personality like Colbert highlighting or explaining the differences between the elven kindreds or languages in one minute makes a better case for the notability of Tolkien's writings about the sundering of the elves as a topic on Wikipedia, due to the broad international audience he reaches as part of the mass media apparatus, then a German metal band album dedicated to the Silmarillion (which, as cool as it is, may be derided as niche or obscure by detractors annoyed by their perceived quantity of Middle-earth articles existing on Wikipedia). Haleth (talk) 13:17, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

In the context of a serious article about a Middle-earth race, none of this convinces me that the chatshow mention is anything except trivial; it doesn't add anything to the coverage that could remotely be considered encyclopedic. In contrast, the definite mentions in the German band's album, and the naming of moth species after various Noldorin folk, are a clear indication of the propagation of Tolkien's mythology into European culture: I'm sure Tolkien would have been delighted. I think the coverage we now have makes excellent sense, and it was good work finding it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:12, 9 March 2021 (UTC)