# Stump my friend with Tolkien....

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stump-my-friend-with-tolkien/69501>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 20, 2001, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stump-my-friend-with-tolkien/69501 "2001-06-20T18:02:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2001, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stump-my-friend-with-tolkien/69501/61 "2001-07-27T17:24:19Z")

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\*I’m not the only one to note close resemblances between Elvish words and similar words from RW languages.

The webicle [“Tolkien’s Not So Secret Vice”](http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/vice.htm) by Helge Kåre Fauskanger lists plenty of them:

> [@](#):
>
> Many “Elvish” words turn out to be picked from a wide variety of sources: _Pé_ “mouth” is Hebrew, _lá_ “no, not” is Arabic, _nér_ “man” from the reconstructed Indo-European language, _ken-_ “see” is similar to Chinese kan, and _roch_ “horse”  
> is reminiscent of the Hebrew verb _râkháv_ “ride”. The stem **ÑGAR(A)M** “wolf” yields (besides Quenya _narmo_ and Sindarin _garaf_) the Doriathrin word _garm_, Garm being one of the names of the monstrous Fenris-wolf haunting Norse mythology. Not just Old Norse, but also modern Scandinavian languages seem to be represented: Quenya _varya_ “protect” is suspiciously similar to Norwegian _verge, verje_; “arrow” is _pil_ in Scandinavian and _pilin_ in Quenya, and while Quenya _mat-_/Sindarin _medi_ means “eat”, Norwegian/Swedish _mat_, Danish _mad_ means “food”! […] The Black Speech word _nazg_ “ring” (as in _Nazgûl_, Ringwraith) seems to be an unconscious  
> borrowing from Gaelic _nasc_ of the same meaning (Letters p. 385).

Fauskanger went on to say “Tolkien willingly admitted that he did not try to avoid the influence of real-world languages.”

The fact that Fauskanger and I came up with two completely different sets of linguistic coincidences suggests that there are more out there waiting to be discovered.

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**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2001, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stump-my-friend-with-tolkien/69501/62 "2001-07-27T18:00:28Z")

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What was Tolkien’s first published work?

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2001, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stump-my-friend-with-tolkien/69501/63 "2001-07-28T01:57:57Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Munch \*  
> \*\*What was Tolkien’s first published work? \*\*

My guess is his portion of the _Oxford English Dictionary_. Unless you count as “published” some of his poems that were printed in high school & college literary magazines. Like “Goblin Feet”. 😛

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