Talk:The Etymologies (Tolkien)

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The most significant weakness of this article from the p.o.v. of an encyclopedia is how "closed" it is - the etymologies are their own little universe, within the Tolkien canon, and I don't know of any secondary literature about them. All an encyclopedia entry can do is discuss what they are and how they relate to the greater whole. The etymologies are, to make matters worse, not 'fixed' in any way - they underwent a constant state of flux for the entire time Tolkien nibbled at them. Because there was never a canonical Elvish language, there isn't any way to do normal literary criticism of how the layers emerged into a finished product. The article needs to explain why the etymologies were never finished. Scott1329m 12:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to do a major rewrite to this, but still don't know how. Maybe we should make an article referring to the 'external' history and then something about the 'internal sundocarmë' would be the best, isn't it? What I really suggest is to write it from the very beginning. --Neigel von Teighen 13:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)