What does the text on the Door of Durin mean?

A

Alyssius

Registered User
On the door of Durin (gate to the mines moria) what does the text/writing above the arch mean?
This is the door in which Gandalf uses to enter the mines of moria the classic scene "Speak, friend, and enter."


I am a HUGE Tolkien fan, an old Ringcon vet and am finally getting a j.r.r. tolkien tattoo but i want to be proud of it and able to translate to curious people =)

Thank you very much i hope this is the right forum if not im more than happy to move it


Alyssius-
 
"Speak, Friend, and enter."

It's all found right in the text, both the Elvish and the translation. Specifically, the letters read:
Top line (larger letters) - Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno.
Bottom line *smaller letters) - Im Narvi hain echant: celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin.

The translation (trying to be literal, but my Elvish is quite poor):
Top line: Doors (of) Durin Lord (of) Moria: speak friend and enter.
Bottom line: I Narvi them made: Celebrimbor of Eregion [Hollin] drew the signs here [drew these signs].

Interesting selection for a tattoo! Where are you placing it?

(And welcome to TORn!)
 
It depends on how you translate pedo. The Sindarin word means both 'speak' and 'say', depending on context. The gag in the story is that Gandalf slightly mistranslates, and then spends hours trying to come up with the password implied by 'speak', when the password - 'friend' - was right there on the inscription.

Why have a password in the first place and then publish it in stone? "More trusting times" says Gandalf. Tolkien wants to make a little linguistic joke, says I - or possibly the Elves believed that evil races confronted by the closed doors could never bring themselves to pronounce an Elvish word...

Interestingly, the Quenya root for 'speak, say' is quet-. Thus the root word for the race of Elves, the Quendi, means the 'speaking ones', and Quenya itself means 'the speech' or 'the language' and Quenta Silmarillion means 'Tale of the Silmarils'.

Sindarin differs from Quenya due to a large number of sound-changes, such as occur in any language over time. Tolkien wanted to explore how two imaginary languages could be accurately related along those longitudinal lines (over time, like Latin becoming Italian) rather than through latitudinal dispersion (like the cousin languages Spanish and Italian). This drove his story of the Elves: those who were left behind in changeable, mortal Middle-earth developed Sindarin from the common language they had all shared in the beginning, while those who went on over the Sea to immortal lands maintained the original Quenya. Thus most of the Elvish place names in The Lord of the Rings' Middle-earth are in Sindarin; while the Silmarillion, whose heroes are from Elvenhome but in exile in Middle-earth, is chock full of Quenya. Quenya is called the ancient and little-used "High Elvish" in the Lord of the Rings.

Right. So one of these sound changes is that qu- in Quenya becomes p- (or b-) in Sindarin. Thus the derivation of ped- as the root for pedo - it's the same word as the Quenya quet-. (all this from the handy-dandy Quenya dictionary in the back of the Silmarillion).
 
Your post made me try to remember uses of Quenya in LOTR. There's Frodo talking to Gildor and the elves at Woodhall ("a star shines on the hour of our meeting", I think? Can't remember the actual Quenya), and there's Frodo in Torech Ungol: "Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!"("hail Eärendil, brightest of stars" is the translation usually given, though "elenion" is the "stars" part, right? so maybe "...of stars, brightest" is more literal).

Those are the only two incidents I remember for sure. Doesn't Galadriel sing in Quenya as the Fellowship leave, too?

Oh, and Aragorn's quote of Elendil's words ("Et Eärello Endorenna utulien".. don't remember the second line. "from the sea to Middle-earth I have come", etc.)? That looks like Quenya too from the little I can tell the difference. :)
 
true friends from lying enemies. Would it open for an enemy who declared himself a friend? I wonder. Remember how the elvish rope responded to Sam when he said he needed it?
 
Obviously we can postulate as much magic in these affairs as we like. Everybody on these boards has a different threshold of belief (or desire to believe).

If the doors can distinguish friend from foe, why bother with a password? The watchers at Cirith Ungol don't use a password, and Tolkien says they can certainly distinguish friend from foe. Nor, in your example, does Sam have to call the rope out loud. Words and names have power in Middle-earth except when they don't.

Tolkien loves doors and gates and the deep symbolism associated with them, but he's not particularly consistent or logical in applying his magic gags to them. That's why, even though I could imagine the Moria gates having a publicized password, but in Elvish so that orcs or bad guys couldn't speak it, I don't hesitate to ascribe the entire affair to Tolkien's sense of linguistic fun rather than any well-thought-out story design.
 
If the doors can distinguish friend from foe, why bother with a password?
Click to expand...

Originally you asked why have a password if you print it on the door. Effectively, there is no secret password. So why have a password at all? Maybe the password isn't the point. Maybe, as you note, this is a good version of the evil Silent Watchers.
 
I would agree that the password isn't the point, except that Gandalf has to say it for the doors to open. If this was a Silent Watcher analogue, the doors would open when any friend approached them. Or something.

It is interesting that the Watcher in the Water - also silent and evil, by the way - only attacks after Gandalf speaks the password and opens the doors. Like the creature has been told to attack only the "friends" of the Elves and Dwarves, who must declare themselves as such in order to enter.
 
Thanks alot to all for the advise, ill be getting it on either my side or just below the nape of my neck =) i thought about having that original text changed to the tolkien quote "not all those who wander are lost" in tengwar

What are your thoughts on altering the original design? i feel a little guilty lol and do you know a good place to have the quote transcriped?
 
...that you can go to this site, and select one of the Tengwar styles on the left for transcribing any phrase into its equivalent Tengwar letters.

Just remember to take into consideration how long the phrase is and how much space you have for placing it. And be sure to post us all a pic when you've had it done! [:)]
 
Maybe the "say Friend and enter" is just an instruction, not really a password at all. The door designers decided to use the word Friend as their trigger, I'd theorize, to honour the friendly relations between Elves and Dwarves that this door symbolizes. They weren't trying to exclude anyone who could read the instructions, because (like the inventors of the internet) they hadn't imagined that trolls and other nasties might come and invade their ordered world.

And the word they chose at least makes more sense than having a Start button that you have to use for both starting and exiting Windows!
 
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