The Name Thing

[Agan]

Feb 2, 2009 23:21:26 GMT khazarkhum said:

I've never been certain of what East he's supposed to be:

Proud warrior with a carefully curled beard & turban, a la the Turks?

Assyrian, violent and warlike?

Mongolian, like Ghengis?

"Easterling" is such a vague term indeed. He could also be Hunn or Goth, or Russian, or Persian, or Chinese, or Indian, or even Japanese ;D. I guess it is a matter of your own choice ...

I initially thought of Genghis-Khan -like guy, but now I invision him as somebody more sophisticated and cultured, more "with a carefully curled beard & turban" type of guy.

[Elfhild]

This site studies the Black Speech words in the canon - folk.uib.no/hnohf/orkish.htm I am uncertain where Tolkien's breakdown of the word "Nazgul" appears in the text, but it is in one of the books. I remember a passage somewhere where the meanings of both "nazg" and "gul" are given.

Now, I haven't found an incident of Tolkien spelling the word "Nazghul," but Minas Morgul was once spelled Morghul (see The War of the Ring). I believe this was when he was still playing with the spellings of names. An early spelling of "Nazghul" would be very appropriate, since "ghul" is the original Arabic word for "ghoul." Maybe Tolkien had this word in mind when he came up with the Nazgul, although perhaps he should have incorporated the "ghul" spelling, as "gul" in Arabic means flower. ("Nazgul" means shy flower) There is also an old Gaelic word, "nazg," which means ring. When working on the Oxford Dictionary, Tolkien would have come across many root words from various languages, which probably inspired his own languages. Therefore, it is possible for Tolkien's fictional words to have simularities to real world languages, even though the Professor never actually studied them.

Here is an article I found about a possible etyomology of Khamul:

lingwe.blogspot.com/2007/09/khaml-whats-in-name.html

I always thought of Khamul as a Turkic type, with reddish brown hair and slightly slanted eyes. Not completely Mongolian, but one of the many peoples of Central Asia. (Red/blonde hair and green/blue eyes can be found among these peoples. The appearance also ties into Vartang in Second Darkness, who was a redhead. He also claimed he was a descendant of Khamul... of course, so did many others who wished to impress the lords of Mordor. ;D )