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Darkstone
Immortal
Dec 11 2013, 3:27pm
Views: 1131
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Re whether the name 'Gondor' had been suggested by Gondar in Ethiopia:
Outside the inner historical fiction, the name was a very early element in the invention of the whole story. Also in the linguistic construction of the tale, which is accurate and detailed, Gondor and Gondar would be two distinct words/names, and the latter would have no precise sense. Nonetheless one's mind is, of course, stored with a 'leaf-mould' of memories (submerged) of names, and these rise up to the surface at times, and may provide with modification the bases of 'invented' names. Owing to the prominence of Ethiopia in the Italian war Gondar may have been one such element. But no more than say Gondwana-land (that rare venture of geology into poetry). In this case I can actually recollect the reason why the element *gon(o), *gond(o) was selected for the stem of words meaning stone, when I began inventing the 'Elvish' languages. When about 8 years old I read in a small book (professedly for the young) that nothing of the language of primitive peoples (before the Celts or Germanic invaders) is now known, except perhaps ond = 'stone' (+ one other now forgotten). I have no idea how such a form could even be guessed, but the ond seemed to me fitting for the meaning. (The prefixing of g- was much later, after the invention of the history of the relation between Sindarin & Quenya in which primitive initial g- was lost in Q: the Q. form of the word remained ondo.).
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May 1910: The Nine Kings assembled at Buckingham Palace for the funeral of Edward VII.
(From left to right, back row: Haakon VII of Norway, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, Manuel II of Portugal, Wilhelm II of Germany, George I of Greece, and Albert I of Belgium. Front row: Alphonso XIII of Spain, George V of England, and Frederick VIII of Denmark.)
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See Letter #324
