The book naturally continued in use, and many entries (virtually all of those in the second part of the alphabet) are later than this first layer, though nothing more definite can be said than that all entries belong to the period of (or not long preceding) the Lost Tales.
The words in QL are arranged according to ‘roots’, and a note at the beginning states:
Roots are in capitals, and are not words in use at all, but serve as an elucidation of the words grouped together and a connection between them.
There is a good deal of uncertainty, expressed by queries, in the formulation of the roots, and in the ascription of words to one root or another, as my father moved among different etymological ideas; and in some cases it seems clear that the word was ‘there’, so to speak, but its etymology remained to be certainly defined, and not vice versa. The roots themselves are often difficult to represent, since certain consonants carry diacritic marks that are not defined. The notes on names that follow inevitably give a slightly more positive impression than does the book itself.
The other book is a dictionary of the Gnomish language, Goldogrin, and I shall refer to this as ‘GL’ (Goldogrin, or Gnomish, Lexicon). This is not arranged historically, by roots (though occasionally roots are given), but rather, in plan at least, as a conventional dictionary; and it contains a remarkable number of words. The book is entitled i·Lam na·Ngoldathon (i.e. ‘the tongue of the Gnomes’): Goldogrin, with a date: 1917. Written beneath the title is Eriol Sarothron (i.e. ‘Eriol the Voyager’), who else is called Angol but in his own folk Ottor W
The great difficulty in this case is the intensity with which my father used this diminutive b1ook, emending, rejecting, adding, in layer upon layer, so that in places it has become very hard to interpret. Moreover later changes to the forms in one entry were not necessarily made in related entries; thus the stages of a rapidly expanding linguistic conception are very confused in their representation. These little books were working materials, by no means the setting-out of finished ideas (it is indeed quite clear that GL in particular closely accompanied the actual composition of the Tales). Further, the languages changed even while the first ‘layer’ was being entered in GL; for example, the word mф ‘sheep’ was changed later to moth, but later in the dictionary uimoth ‘sheep of the waves’ was the form first written.
It is immediately obvious that an already extremely sophisticated and phonetically intricate historical structure lies behind the languages at this stage; but it seems that (unhappily and frustratingly) very little indeed in the way of phonological or grammatical description now survives from those days. I have found nothing, for instance, that sets out even in the sketchiest way the phonological relations between the two languages. Some early phonological description does exist for Qenya, but this became through later alterations and substitutions such a baffling muddle (while the material is in any case intrinsically extremely complex) that I have been unable to make use of it.
To attempt to use later materials for the elucidation of the linguistic ideas of the earliest period would in this book be quite impractical. But the perusal of these two vocabularies shows in the clearest possible way how deeply involved were the developments in the mythology and in the languages, and it would be seriously misleading to publish the Lost Tales without some attempt to show the etymological connections of the names that appear in them. I give therefore as much information, derived from these books, as is possible, but without any speculation beyond them. It is evident, for instance, that a prime element in the etymological constructions was slight variation in ancient ‘roots’ (caused especially by differences in the formation of consonants) that in the course of ages yielded very complex semantic situations; or again, that an old vocalic ‘ablaut’ (variation, in length or quality, of vowels in series) was present; but I have thought it best merely to try to present the content of the dictionaries as clearly as I can.
It is noteworthy that my father introduced a kind of ‘historical punning’ here and there: so for instance the root SAHA ‘be hot’ yields (beside saiwa ‘hot’ or sбra ‘fiery’) Sahуra ‘the South’, and from NENE ‘flow’ come nen ‘river’, nйnu ‘yellow water-lily’, and nйnuvar ‘pool of lilies’—cf. nenuphar ‘water-lily’, modern French nйnufar. There are also several resemblances to early English that are obviously not fortuitous, as hфr ‘old’, HERE ‘rule’, rыm ‘secret (whisper)’.
It will be seen that a great many elements in the later languages, Quenya and Sindarin, as they are known from the published works, go back to the beginning; the languages, like the legends, were a continuous evolution, expansion, and refinement. But the historical status and relationship of the two languages as they were conceived at this time was radically changed later on: see p. 51.
The arrangement of the material has proved difficult, and indeed without a better understanding of relationships and their shifting formulations co1uld scarcely be made satisfactory. The system I have adopted is to give etymologically-connected groups of words, in both Qenya and Gnomish, under an important name that contains one of them; to this entry other occurrences of a word in the group are referred (e.g. glor- in Glorvent, Brбglorin is referred to the entry Laurelin, where the etymological associations of Qenya laurл ‘gold’ are given).* Every name in the Lost Tales of this volume is given—that is, if any contemporary etymological information is to be found concerning it: any name not found in the following list is either quite opaque to me, or at least cannot be identified with any certainty. Rejected names are also included, on the same basis, but are given under the names that replaced them (e.g. Dor Uswen under Dor Faidwen).
The list of secondary names of the Valar which is written out on blank facing pages in the tale of The Coming of the Valar (see p. 93) is referred to as ‘the Valar name-list’. The sign < is used only where it is used in the Gnomish dictionary, as alfa < alchwa, meaning that the one was historically derived from the other: it is not used in this Appendix to refer to alterations made by my father in the dictionaries themselves.
Ainur Among the original entries in QL are ainu ‘a pagan god’ and aini ‘a pagan goddess’, together with бye ‘hail!’ and Ainatar ‘Ilъvatar, God’. (Of course no one within the context of the mythology can call the Ainur ‘pagan’.) GL has Ain: ‘also with distinctive masc. and fem. forms Ainos and Ainil, a God, i.e. one of the Great Valar’.
Alalminуrл See Aldaron, Valinor. In QL Alalminуrл is glossed ‘Land of Elms, one of the provinces of Inwinуrл in which is situated Kortirion (Warwickshire)’ i.e. Alalminуrл="Warwickshire" (see p. 25). Gnornish words are laln or larm, also lalmir, ‘elm’.
Aldaron In QL is a root ALA ‘spread’, with derivatives alda ‘tree’, aldлa ‘tree-shadowed’, aldлon ‘avenue of trees’, and alalmл ‘elm’ (see Alalminуrл). In GL this name of Oromл appears as Aldor and Ormaldor (Oromл is Orma in Gnomish); ald ‘wood (material)’, later altered to вl.