Talk:Ambar
Languages and Cosmology
OK guys, need some help here. Turambar should be a Sindarin name since it comes from Beleriand in the First Age when just about everybody spoke Sindarin (including Túrin). The root tur means the same thing in both Quenya and Sindarin, but ambar seems to be Quenya, which makes no sense. Am I missing something here, or was this one of Tolkien's occasional slip-ups?
Getting back to ambar, somebody needs to write a cosmology section. The name Cemendur derives from kemen which loosely translates as earth, but has a lot more meaning. The closest thing seems to be the second meaning of ambar, which is kind of confusing. Anyone want to tackle the cosmology, since it's not my best topic? Thanks for the help. --Ebakunin 19:08, 13 June 2006 (EDT)
- Well, I'm no expert, but I can tell you that several names were derived from both Quenya and Sindarin (there was one in particular, but I can't remember it now. O yes, Fëanor, but I'm sure there was another. . .). According to the wikipedia article, it means "master of doom" in Sindarin. So, is ambar "doom" in Sindarin also? Many words were similar that way. --Narfil Palùrfalas 22:24, 13 June 2006 (EDT)
- Both Noel's The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth and Fauskanger's "Quenya Corpus Wordlist" list Turambar as Quenya :( --Ebakunin 22:53, 13 June 2006 (EDT)
- The Encyclopedia of Arda states that it means "Master of Fate", but doesn't give which language. I don't know if that helps. I'll look into it a bit more. --Narfil Palùrfalas 09:34, 14 June 2006 (EDT)
- I think it's not unusual to take a title from a "higher" language, a "learnéd" language. --Earendilyon 14:22, 14 June 2006 (EDT)
- That might be, but Túrin was a bit of a renegade, of course ;) --Earendilyon 16:02, 14 June 2006 (EDT)
Term is (stated) to be confused
PE17 specifically calls this word out to have confusion around it:
There was confusion or interplay between 3 different stems: √MBAR, dwell; √BAR-AT/AD, lofty, high; MAR(AT)/MBART 'doom, fate'. Hence Q ambar, world, stem ambăr-; ambar 'fate, doom', stem ambart- = S amarth as in Amon Amarth; marto 'tower' = S barad. The initials m/b/mb are often interchanged.
Tolkien then goes onto about six pages (103-10) of explanation for how these terms got jumbled up. Interesting read, and definitely more complex than we have so far. Oberiko (talk) 01:37, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
