nightingale
Sindarin
tinúviel
feminine name. Nightingale, (lit.) Daughter of Twilight
Cognates
- Q. Tindómerel “Daughter of Twilight” ✧ PE19/073; SA/tin
Derivations
- ✶Tindōmiselde “Nightingale, (lit.) Daughter of Twilight” ✧ PE19/073
Element in
- S. le linnon im Tinúviel “*to thee I sing, I, Tinúviel” ✧ LB/354
- S. Narn e·Dinúviel “Tale of the Nightingale” ✧ MR/373
Elements
Word Gloss tinnu “*twilight, [N.] (starry) twilight, dusk, early night (without moon)” -iel “daughter; feminine suffix” Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources ✶tindōmi-sel(dĕ) > tindúmhihel > Tinnúviel [tindōmiselde] > [tindōmihelde] > [tindōmihelðe] > [tindūmihelðe] > [tindūmihelð] > [tindūmielð] > [tindūmiell] > [tinnūmiell] > [tinnūviell] > [tinnūviel] ✧ PE19/073 Variations
- Tinnúviel ✧ PE19/073
Tinnúviel
noun. nightingale
le linnon im tinúviel
*to thee I sing, I, Tinúviel
The fifth phrase of Lúthien’s Song (LB/354). Three translations of this phrase are:
Patrick Wynne: “✱to thee I sing, I, the Nightingale” (NTTLS/11)
David Salo: “✱I sing to you, I, Nightingale” (GS/211)
Bertrand Bellet and Benjamin Babut: “✱to thee I sing, Tinúviel myself” (GTLC)
The first word is the 2nd-person-polite pronoun le “thee”, with its use as the indirect object “to thee” implied by its position before the verb, as suggested by Wynne and Salo (NTTLS/10, GS/213). The second word linnon “I sing” is the present 1st-person-singular form of the verb linna- “to sing”. The third word is the first person or reflexive pronoun im “I, myself”. The last word Tinúviel is the other name of the speaker, Lúthien, usually translated “Nightingale”.
Element in
dúlin
noun. nightingale
dúlin
noun. nightingale
A word for “nightingale” appearing in The Etymologies of the 1930s as a combination of N. dû “night” and N. lhinn “tune” (Ety/DOƷ, Ety/LIN², TIN). It appeared as both dúlinn (Ety/LIN²) and dúlin (Ety/TIN). In The Notion Club Papers of the 1940s, Tolkien instead gave duilin “nightingale” as a derivative of primitive ᴹ✶dōmilindē, demonstrating a phonetic development whereby the ancient m became v and then vanished after the u, but the medial i was preserved. However, Christopher Tolkien used the form dúlin in The Silmarillion appendix (SA/dú), and that form is thus better known.
Cognates
- Q. lómelindë “nightingale, (lit.) dusk-singer” ✧ SA/dú
Elements
Word Gloss dû “night, dimness; dim, dark, night, dimness; [N.] night-fall, late evening; [S.] dim, dark” lind “song, chant, singing; singer, song, chant, singing, [N.] air, tune; [N. and S.] singer”
tinúviel
nightingale
(”daughter of twilight”, a poetic kenning) (i** dinúviel, o thinúviel), pl. ?tinúvil (i** thinúvil), coll. pl. tinúviellath** **(MR:373, WJ:62)
dúlinn
nightingale
1) dúlinn (i dhúlinn) (dusk-singer), same form pl. except with article (i núlinn) (SD:302). 2) merilin (i verilin), no distinct pl. form except with article (i merilin), coll. pl. merilinnath. Suggested Sindarin form of ”Noldorin” ”moerilind” = mörilind. 3) tinúviel (”daughter of twilight”, a poetic kenning) (i dinúviel, o thinúviel), pl. ?tinúvil (i thinúvil), coll. pl. tinúviellath (MR:373, WJ:62)
dúlinn
nightingale
(i** dhúlinn) (dusk-singer), same form pl. except with article (i** núlinn) (SD:302).
merilin
nightingale
(i** verilin), no distinct pl. form except with article (i** merilin), coll. pl. merilinnath. Suggested Sindarin form of ”Noldorin” ”moerilind” = mörilind.
The name that Beren gave to Lúthien, translated “Nightingale”, more literally “Daughter of Twilight” (S/165), a derivation of the primitive form ✶Tindōmiselde (PE19/73). It is essentially a combination of tinnu “twilight” and the suffix -iel, except that the archaic final -v lost in tinnu was preserved in the compound.
Conceptual Development: This name first appeared as G. Tynwfiel in the earliest Lost Tales, probably a Welsh-like spelling of the name, but this was revised to Tinúviel (LT2/41), the form Tolkien more or less retained thereafter. The translation “Nightingale” for ᴱN. Tinúviel emerged in the Lays of Beleriand from the 1920s (LB/153). In The Etymologies from the 1930s, N. Tinúviel had the same derivation as given above (Ety/SEL-D, TIN).