lhûn

lhûn

applied to rivers always full of water, at all seasons draining from mountains, as ringlo, gwathlo.  

lhûn

Lhûn

topon. . This gloss was rejected.

lhûn

place name. Deep of Water

The Sindarin name of the river Lune (LotR/1134).

Conceptual Development: When this name first appeared in Lord of the Rings drafts from the 1940s, N. Lhûn was translated “Blue River” (TI/124), clearly based on the Noldorin word for “blue”: lhûn (Ety/LUG²). Tolkien later changed the Sindarin word for “blue” to luin, so this derivation no longer worked. At one point he even considered renaming the river to Sîr Luin, but decided against it since Lhûn already appeared on the published maps of The Lord of the Rings (VT48/28).

In notes on the nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings from 1966-7, Tolkien considered a variety of derivations for this name (PE17/136-7), ultimately connecting it to the root √(S)LOW “flow freely (fully)” from which l(h)ô “flood” was derived, as well as Q. lóne “(deep) pool”. He translated the name as “deep of water”, saying that the name originally applied to the gulf rather than the river. Later Tolkien invented another derivation, from the Dwarvish words sulûn/salôn “fall, descend swiftly” (VT48/24).

A fuller discussion of these developments can be found in Patrick Wynne’s article “The Problem of Lhûn” (VT48/26-29).

lhûn

deep of water

n. deep of water. Tolkien notes that this word was "applied originally to the Gulf".

lhûn

making sound

(a speculative interpretation of this adj.) lhûn, lenited ?thlûn or ?lûn (the lenition product of lh is uncertain), pl. lhuin. Verb

lhûn

making sound

lenited ?thlûn or ?lûn (the lenition product of lh is uncertain), pl. lhuin. Verb

elu

adjective. (pale) blue

luin

adjective. blue

luin

blue

adj. blue. . This gloss was rejected.

luin

jhJ5 adjective. blue

Examples: Ered luin, Helluin, Luinil, Mindolluin

luin

adjective. blue

lô

blue

adj. blue. . This gloss was rejected.

romru

noun. sound of horns

rû

noun. loud-sound, trumpet-sound

lammad

sound of voices

pl. lemmaid. May also be spelt with a single m.

law

noun. sound

luin

blue

luin (no distinct pl. form, as demonstrated by the name Ered Luin ”Blue Mountains”) (VT48:24)

nellad

sound of bells

(pl. nellaid);

romru

sound of horns

pl. remry (idh remry) for archaic römry;

whal-

verb. to wash

A neologism for “wash” coined by Gilruin posted on 2024-10-10 in the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), based on √SWAL of the same meaning. Gilruin originally suggested hwal-, but I prefer whal- as more consistent with Tolkien’s orthography in the 1950s and 60s.

lhûn

adjective. blue

lhûn

adjective. (unknown meaning)

This word, which also appears on the map of Middle-earth in LotR, is glossed as "blue" in The Etymologies, but Tolkien later rejected this meaning (as luin was already used in that sense). He then proposed several explanations for it, including the possible adaptation of a Dwarvish name into Sindarin, but he apparently never reached a definitive solution.

lhûn

place name. Blue River

rhû

noun. loud-sound, trumpet-sound

elw

adjective. (pale) blue

nella-

verb. to sound (of bells)

rhomru

noun. sound of horns

lúnë

blue

lúnë (stem *lúni-, given the primitive form ¤lugni) adj. "blue" (LUG2, LT1:262; later sources rather give luinë, with pl. form luini_ in Namárië)_. According to VT45:29, lúnë in the Etymologies was changed by Tolkien from lúna.

Illuin

blue

Illuin place-name, name of one of the Lamps of the Valar; apparently incorporating the element luin "blue" (Silm): hence *"all-blue"?

hlón

sound

hlón noun "sound", "a noise" (VT48:29). Also hlóna. The stem of hlón is apparently hlon- if hloni "sounds" in WJ:394 is its plural form.

hwal-

verb. to wash

A verb for “wash” appearing in the phrase hwalilmien “we wash ourselves” from Eldarin Pronouns, Demonstratives, and Correlatives (EP1) from the early 1950s (PE23/126), based on the root √SWAL of the same meaning (PE23/122).

lamma

sound

lamma noun "sound" (LAM)

luinë

blue

luinë adj. "blue", pl. luini (PE17:66, VT48:23, 24, 28, Nam, RGEO:66). Common Eldarin luini- would also be the stem-form in Quenya (VT48:24). Compare luinincë. Apparently -luin in Illuin, the name of one of the Lamps of the Valar (q.v.), Helluin, name of the star Sirius, and Luinil, name of another blue-shining star (or planet). (SA; Luinil is tentatively identified with Neptune, MR:435). Cf. also menelluin "sky-blue", used as noun = "cornflower" (J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator p. 193).

luinë

adjective. blue

láma

noun. sound, sound; [ᴹQ.] ringing sound, echo

láma#

noun. sound

sound

ninwa

blue

ninwa adj. "blue" (LT1:262)

slōno

place name. Lhûn

luy

root. blue

The Elvish words for “blue” remained very similar throughout Tolkien’s life, but underwent a number of minor conceptual shifts. The word ᴱQ. lūne “blue, deep blue” appeared in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s in a collection of words along with ᴱQ. lūle “blue stone, sapphire”, but no root was given (QL/55). The word for “blue” in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon was G. luim (GL/55). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, the root for “blue” was ᴹ√LUG with derivatives ᴹQ. lúne and N. lhûn (Ety/LUG²).

Meanwhile, the root ᴹ√LUY appeared in The Etymologies with derivatives ᴹQ. luina and Dor. luin “pale” (EtyAC/LUY), probably connected to ᴱN. Draugluin “Werewolf Pale” from the Lays of Beleriand of the 1920s (LB/205). But in The Etymologies the root ᴹ√LUY was rejected, and Dor. luin “pale” was reassigned to ᴹ√LUG² and then revised in form to Dor. lūn (Ety/LUG²; EtyAC/LUG²).

In addition, there was already evidence of a conceptual shift in the Noldorin words for blue in the 1930s, with the name N. Eredluin “Blue Mountains” being given as an alternative to N. Lhúnorodrim and N. Lhúndirien “Blue Towers” (Ety/LUG²), the latter appearing as N. Luindirien in contemporaneous Silmarillion narratives (LR/267). By the 1950s and 60s, the Sindarin and Quenya words for “blue” had firmly become S. luin (Let/448; S/54; UT/390) and Q. luinë (LotR/377; PE17/66, 71). The root √LUY “blue” appeared in notes from the late 1960s serving as the new basis for these “blue” words (VT48/23-24, 26).

All this made a mess for the river name S. Lhûn (LotR/1134) from The Lord of the Rings which was a remnant of Tolkien’s earlier ideas, and he struggled to find a new basis for that name as discussed by Patrick Wynne in his article on The Problem of Lhûn (VT48/26-29).

lugni

adjective. blue

luini

adjective. blue

swal-

verb. to wash

thas-

verb. to wash

ulban

adjective. blue

luinë

adjective. blue