Tag: Commercialism

Pilfering Tolkien Linguistics

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Cartoons with a Message, Humor, J.R.R. Tolkien, Likely Useless Trivia, Middle Earth, Modern Life, Words, Writing7 Comments

When a great author, say of the magnitude of J.R.R. Tolkien, creates ingenious new words, and even entire languages, there are several common reactions. Most readers simply respond with silent awe. Others are inspired to emulate their efforts. A small number reuse those very words as a sincere homage. 

And a handful of “admirers” go so far as to “appropriate” the words themselves, for their personal benefit.

C.S. Lewis, no mean linguist himself, recognized his friend Tolkien’s brilliance. In his preface to That Hideous Strength he praised Tolkien’s yet-to-be-published Silmarillion. In a 1951 letter he mentions misspelling the word Numenor.

My Numinor was a mispelling: it ought to be Numenor. The private mythology to which it belongs grew out of the private language which Tolkien had invented: a real language with roots and sound-laws such as only a great philologist could invent.

He says he found that it was impossible to invent a language without at the same time inventing a mythology.

J.R.R. Tolkien was an internationally renowned philologist, and his impressive skill is one of the great wonders we encounter in Middle Earth. A number of words from his created languages – particularly his ethereal Elvish tongues – have been lifted to be used in commercial activities unconnected to Tolkien’s interests.

For example, Palantir. This was the word for the “seeing stone,” which played a prominent role in The Two Towers. In light of Tolkien’s love of nature, and corresponding suspicion of technological advancement, it is especially odd that the company adopting this label is on the leading edge of Artificial Intelligence.

Perhaps Tolkien’s dread would have been dispelled by one of Palantir’s disarming mottos: “We believe in augmenting human intelligence, not replacing it.”

A combat veteran of WWI, like his fellow Inkling C.S. Lewis, Tolkien was appalled by war’s horrors. Even in the War of the Rings, with its moments of glorious heroism and sacrifice, the bloody heart of Mars remains nearly invincible. Because of this mixed attitude toward war, some have wondered how he would have felt about a defense (i.e. military) corporation adopting one of his creations.

Andúril was the name of the most important weapon forged in Middle Earth. It was actually reforged from the broken fragments of Narsil, the longsword which defeated Sauron by severing the One Ring from his hand.

While this description from the Anduril company resonates with our modern ear, I am not convinced that it sounds very Tolkienesque. Anduril: “Transforming defense capabilities with advanced technology. The battlefield has changed. How we deter & defend needs to change too.”

For an article about a billionaire investor who is consumed by mining Tolkien’s tomes for the businesses he founds (PayPal excepted), check out “The hidden logic of Peter Thiel’s ‘Lord of the Rings’-inspired company names.”

C.S. Lewis’ Unconscious Sharing

In a 1965 letter, written after Lewis’ death, Tolkien commented on how his friend had used subtle variations of several Elvish words in several of his fictional works.

Tolkien says Lewis “had the peculiarity that he liked to be read to. All that he knew of my ‘matter’ was what his capacious but not infallible memory retained from my reading to him as sole audience.” Thus, he surmises that:

C.S. Lewis was one of the only three persons who have so far read all or a considerable part of my ‘mythology’ of the First and Second Ages, which had already been in the main lines constructed before we met. . . . His spelling numinor is a hearing error, aided, no doubt, by his association of the name with Latin nūmen, nūmina, and the adjective ‘numinous.’

Lewis was, I think, impressed by ‘the Silmarillion and all that,’ and certainly retained some vague memories of it and of its names in mind. For instance, since he had heard it, before he composed or thought of Out of the Silent Planet, I imagine that Eldil is an echo of the Eldar; in Perelandra ‘Tor and Tinidril’ are certainly an echo, since Tuor and Idril, parents of Eärendil, are major characters in ‘The Fall of Gondolin,’ the earliest written of the legends of the First Age. But his own mythology (incipient and never fully realized) was quite different.

An Entertaining Diversion

Years ago I linked to an entertaining game that plays on the linguistic eloquence and mystery Tolkien exhibited in naming his characters. I was delighted to see now that it is still available online.

Antidepressants or Tolkien challenges players – you can play solo, but it’s more fun with others – to guess if a given word is an antidepressant drug or the name of one of Tolkien’s characters. Don’t expect to score 100%, but do expect to smile at some of the examples.

It’s Still Christmas

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Christian Life, Christianity, Classics Worth Revisiting, Great Authors, Great Authors, The Ancient Church10 Comments

nativity iconMerry Christmas!

One of the sad things about living in a secular nation is that people understand very little about the real meaning of Christmas. For example, many people take their trees down on 26 December, mistakenly thinking Christmas is “over.” In reality, the Christian celebration of the Nativity of Jesus only begins on Christmas Day!

The commercial world celebrates the season of Advent and deceptively calls it “Christmas.” These weeks, which should mark a spiritual preparation akin to Lent, are instead transformed into a frantic race to accumulate the perfect gifts to show others just how much we value each of them. And, since we love our family and close friends, there is a constant temptation to be far more extravagant in our gift giving than we can afford.

Returning to the season of Christmas, in which we find ourselves this day . . . we discover a brief occasion to focus our spiritual reflections on the singular Christmas miracle, the Incarnation. God becoming a human being. The Word through whom all things were created, becoming a mortal like the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve fashioned in his own likeness.

Christmas is, indeed, a glorious season.

C.S. Lewis had many insights into the Incarnation miracle. It is most certainly worthy of our serious attention. If it did not actually happen, Jesus should be dismissed altogether, for he claimed to be one with our heavenly Father. However, as Lewis declared in Miracles, “If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth.”

One of the great literary treasures of the world is a precious book written before the year Anno Domini 318. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a treatise called “On the Incarnation,” which makes great reading and is readily available online. A fairly modern translation was written by Sister Penelope Lawson, an Anglican nun.

Sister Penelope prevailed upon C.S. Lewis to write an introduction to her translation, in which he said, “This is a good translation of a very great book.” The full volume, complete with Lewis’ outstanding preface, is available. Here is just one of his gems:

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions.

Still, as wonderful as Lewis’ introductory comments are, the greatest treasures here are the bishop’s teachings about Jesus. To whet your appetite, taste the following wisdom from Athanasius’ own introduction to his work:

You must understand why it is that the Word of the Father, so great and so high, has been made manifest in bodily form. He has not assumed a body as proper to His own nature, far from it, for as the Word He is without body. He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men. We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.

You can read the entire work at this site. Have a blessed Christmas season!