Building on Tolkien: Dáinic Lenition

[sasasha]

I like how patronising Pedant of Gondor is. Full marks on the pretending to be a dickhead medieval linguist front.

The history is rather exciting, and is already succeeding both in adding a whole other dimension to Ëa, and whetting my appetite for more.

I absolutely love those noun classes and their plural forms. Looking forward to seeing more nominal morphology.

[Vardelm]

I absolutely love those noun classes and their plural forms. Looking forward to seeing more nominal morphology.

Agreed. The classes are spectacular, especially since they fit the lore so well.

[Pedant]

I like how patronising Pedant of Gondor is. Full marks on the pretending to be a dickhead medieval linguist front.
The history is rather exciting, and is already succeeding both in adding a whole other dimension to Ëa, and whetting my appetite for more.
I absolutely love those noun classes and their plural forms. Looking forward to seeing more nominal morphology.

Well, thanks! I'll see what I can add!
Next up:

MANHIRI: VERBAL MORPHOLOGY AND BASIC SYNTAX

Noun Classes and Syntax
Basic syntax is, in theory, SOV, with VSO occurring in relative clauses.
It gets more difficult from there.
There are two main types of verbs in Manhiri. Pedant of Gondor calls these the cariquettar tanala "demonstrative/descriptive verbs," which take the place of adjectives in English as well as states of being, and the cariquettar naiti "true verbs", used for actions. The conjugation requirements for both are unique, although aspect and volition are encoded the same way in both.
Where the nouns in Manhiri are marked only with class and number, the verb fills in most if not all of the syntactic information. Word order follows a strict animacy hierarchy; the prefixes must follow the order provided by the noun class system. Even in a sentence like "the oliphaunt sees the elf," the word order will still be shaknar mumak wumukur, quite literally "the-elf-3 the-oliphaunt-4 3-OBJ-4-SUBJ-see".
Verbal morphology does, of course, include references to the class system. The following chart lays out the prefixes and infixes accordingly:

Class No.	1st Person	2nd Person	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Subject	u-	a-	yu-	wi-	sha-	nu-	ha-	hu-	na-	shu-	wa-
Object	wu-	ya-	ru-	li-	sa-	mu-	ja-	ju-	ma-	su-	la-

Note that number is not encoded on the verb; this is assumed to be covered by the noun. Note also that the subject and object prefixes must remain in their correct order in the verb, but they reflect different ways the nouns interact with the verbs.

• Experiencer nouns are marked by the object form (e.g. nupar "[the river] ends").
• Agentive nouns are marked by the subject form (e.g. shuyam "[the round tool] rolls").
• Transitive clauses are marked as you would imagine, with the subjective and the object forms used correctly (e.g. ruwikur "the woman sees the man"--more literally "the man is seen by the woman").
• There is a special marker, -ir, which is used to mark the second feature as the topic (e.g. ruwikurir "it is the woman who sees the man"); likewise there is a marker -ur used to topicalize the first feature (e.g. ruwikurur "it is the man who is seen by the woman"). They can be used in ditransitive verbs as well (e.g. urutapur hahnap "[we] give [them] a rabbit").
• The markers are useful in causative conjugations, where both the cause and the agent are placed in the subject form (e.g. yuwikurir "she makes him see" vs. yuwikurur "he makes her see").
• When both noun forms are in the object form, they form a reciprocal construction; neither party is dominant, both are recipients of the action (e.g. mumtap "the two oliphaunts (or groups of oliphaunts) give things to one another"). Of course, it is possible to isolate one from the other as the instigating or major (but not dominant) party, and again the suffixes -ur and -ir are called into play (e.g. sajuyam "[the plant] rolls away with [the elf]".

Aspect
The basic or imperfective aspect of the verb is conveyed through the unadorned root; for example, the imperfective form of TAP- "give" is tap. This represents a simple or ongoing action (e.g. rulitap would mean "he and she give things to each other".)
The perfective aspect, representing a completed action (whatever the timeframe), is conveyed through reduplication of the root vowel. Thus, tapa means "has given, finishes giving", while rulitapa is translated as "he and she have given [things] to each other".
The inchoative aspect, representing an action that is about to be committed to (again, regardless of actual time), is conveyed by prefixing the root vowel (preceded by a glottal stop). Atap would be "is about to give, begins to give", while rulyatap (sometimes rendered ruli-atap or even just ruliatap) would mean "he and she are about to give things to one another."
The gnomic aspect is used for Manhiri's irrealis moods (frequently used in storytelling), and involves prefixing and suffixing the root vowel, then applying syncope to the original vowel. Thus, atpa means "gives without beginning or end; may give, would give", and rulyatpa (or ruli-atpa) would mean "he and she may give to one another".
(How does this match with the topic suffixes? Curiously, the suffixes are incorporated into the root, the suffixed vowel following the topic marker. Thus rulyatpura "she gives unto him and receives in return" is perfectly reasonable.)
The topic suffix -ur can also be used on nouns.

Descriptive Verbs
Descriptive verbs work slightly differently.
For starters, they are the ones that most often take the relative clause prefix (al-, becoming ar- before r). For another, they have a limited set of conjugation prefixes, all in the object form: 1st person (u-/wu), 2nd person (a-/ya-), Classes 1/2 (i-/yi-), Class 3 (sa-/la-), Classes 4/5 (ja-/ha-), Class 6/8 (su-/lu-), Class 7 (na-/ma-), and Class 9 (ji-/hi-). For a third, they are separated into three broad subtypes (placed in sentences after the noun in the order below):

1. Verbs of Construct, roughly covering adjectives of size, shape, and origin (nti- "to be big");
2. Verbs of Quality, covering adjectives of age, colour, and opinion (e.g. ngka- "to be true, be truly X"); and
3. Verbs of Value, covering adjectives of material and purpose (e.g. put- "to be wooden", from the root PUT- "tree that is not useful while alive").

Numbers, by the way, precede the noun, and take the same class suffixes as other descriptive verbs: e.g. hayan haka "one snake", from the root YAN- "one".
Descriptive verbs, like true verbs, are altered to show aspect, for example the root NTI "size; to be big" can be used in its form ntiyi- "to have been big" in the sentence hahnapur jantiyi jangka "that was one heck of a big rabbit".

Verbal Markers
There are three basic verbal markers still in use in Manhiri:

1. -an or -na is used to mark a negative verb (e.g. Nuyaman "[the river] does not flow").
2. -uj or -ju is used to mark a question (e.g. Nuyamuj? "does [the river] flow?").
3. -it or -ti is used to mark a negative question (e.g. Nuyamit? "does [the river] not flow?").

Case Construction
There are four case markers in Manhiri:

• -ash is the essive-formal marker. Attached to a noun it suggests a similarity (e.g. Mumakash hahnap "a rabbit is like an oliphaunt", or else mumak hahnapash "an oliphaunt is like a rabbit"). With either the verb waj- "to be more than, be as but greater" or the verb jar- "to be less than, be as but smaller" following the nouns, it can be used to suggest a comparison. (E.g. Mumak hahnap intihash hajajar "a rabbit is smaller than an oliphaunt".) When suffixed to verbs of construct it conveys size; verbs of quality, opinion; and verbs of value, purpose.
• -ak is the instrumental-comitative marker, roughly equivalent to "with" in English (e.g. Mumakak hahnap "the rabbit is with the oliphaunt"). When suffixed to verbs of construct it conveys shape; with verbs of quality, colour.
• -ut is the possessive marker, used for alienable possession, as well as with locative constructions (e.g. mumak ngushuwut "the oliphaunt in the river", literally "the river's oliphaunt"; compare mumakut ngushu "the oliphaunt's river", unambiguously a possessive use.)
• -ip is the exclusive marker, roughly equivalent to "without" in English, as well as having some use in ablative constructions (e.g. mumak ngushuyip numupuju "the oliphaunt ran away from the river"; compare mumak ngushu numupuju "the oliphaunt ran alongside the river"). It can also be used as a negative comparative, for example mumakip hahnap "a rabbit is not like an oliphaunt".
• -in is the genitive marker, used for inalienable possession (which in Manhiri is often used for less obvious terminology; compare mumakut ngushu "the oliphaunt's river" to mumakin ngushu "the elephant's bloodstream", for example).

NOTE: unsuffixed forms of the descriptive verbs represent the remaining types. So the sentence Mumak hampi means "the elephant is the colour of bronze"--i.e. gleaming like the noonday sky.

[WeepingElf]

I very much like what I have seen here so far. The language rocks! Keep it up!

[alice]

If JRRT were alive today... I think he'd be quite tickled by this, actually.

[Pedant]

If JRRT were alive today... I think he'd be quite tickled by this, actually.

...I think that’s the highest praise anyone’s ever offered me. I have no choice but to treasure it for the rest of my life.

[Pedant]

Up next, something a little different:

THE NINE RACES OF MEN

At the beginning of the Second Age, says the story of the Akallabêth, the Edain were the only ones who had fought tirelessly and truly against the power of Morgoth. Even at the beginning, the Eldar say, while the rest fell under his spell, the ancestors of the Edain sought in the uttermost West for a light that the Darkness could not dim. For this, they were rewarded not only with a land untouched by the dark of their very own--Andor, upon which was built the Kingdom of Númenórë--but also with "wisdom and power and life more enduring than any others of mortal race have possessed."
And yet no-one among the Valar could have believed that this was sufficient, to keep a small spark of "pure" Men close to them while the rest of the world suffered. Even with the great ships of Númenor travelling to all corners of the world, this would not be enough Light at all times to bring them peace.
The story of the Akallabêth, and the Quenta Silmarillion itself--they are told with an eye to the world the West knew, a world that the West wished to ignore.
True, none besides the Edain had made any real progress when it came to traipsing West to find the Untouched Light. Some had indeed fallen under Morgoth's spell, following him under fear as much any other reason, and fighting fervently that they might not meet his wrath, and spreading discomfort and evil to other Men. But after Morgoth's fall those Men went back to their old tribes, those who remained uncorrupted by Morgoth and yet did not think it wise or safe to seek light or dark and expose themselves to the Great War that took so many of their own. For this the Akallabêth calls them "wild and lawless"; but perhaps it is truer to say that what laws they had, good or bad, they made for themselves; their wildness was in their adherence to and rejection of light and dark alike, equally and at once.
There is another book from Númenorean lands, translated by the 11th Century Andalusian scholar Hamid Al-Baseera (Alvocera in European texts, and apparently given the name Satar by the elves of Tol Eressëa, as he came after Ælfwine of England), called the Natannawî or "The Nine Races of Man". It tells a tale that must, I fear, be truncated somewhat, for it is prefixed with attempts to reassure the reader that he had not, in fact, gone mad, but that "the djinn of the West, beings created afore us and of fire instead of earth, saved me and spake unto me, telling me tales of their battles against afārīt and shayāt'īn--that they called orcor and valaraucar--of the angels they followed, and the One God, whom they call First and Fatherless, whom they follow still." For more on Al-Baseera's journey, see any copy of the Kitāb al-Jinni al-Gharb.
The rough translation (my Arabic's not very good) proceeds thus:
After the Council of the Valar had blessed the Atani with their Gifts, there came a protest from Oromë. For it was in his nature to seek out and destroy the Dark, and preserve the light wherever it could be found. The race of Men had been secured, he said, in but a small part; the rest of Arda was still shrouded in darkness. Not only this, but there were still those who were untouched by the Light of the West, for they had not sought it, but did not deserve the Dark left behind by Melkor through his servants. "Thou hast given them thy blessing, Manwë, through Eönwë's deeds," he said. "But I beg thee to let me send messengers of my own to some people in the Far East, that the Darkness may yet be hunted down and destroyed in all places through their doing." In this his sister Nessa joined him, and her husband Tulkas. Nienna spoke next; she saw much grief in Middle-Earth, grief of Elves and Men and Maiar and Dwarves, families torn apart by conflicts bigger than themselves. Time to heal, she said, would be best; perhaps there were those who could yet learn her craft. Aulë and Yavanna, protectors of the earth's riches and its inhabitants, hoped to seek to enlighten their own humans; for Aulë was closest in mind to Melkor, and believed his protection would sway them away from the tendencies that oft befell his own, while Yavanna dreamed of finding a race of Men who would see as her Children saw, and protect her works. On this Vána agreed. Irmo and Estë were of one mind in this also; there was so much potential in their minds for more, they said, that it would be foolish to deny them true dreams and healing hands, for these are the best remedies against oppression and evil thought. Ulmo gave no reason. "They are the Children of Eru, and we their guardians," spake he. "And we have lost too many children." Only Námo and Varda did not seek champions of their own; Námo knew not of their Doom and could not impose himself upon them, while Varda felt her work to be complete (for she had given them stars and sun and moon). Manwë, too, had sent a messenger unto the Númenoreans; he did not wish to send Eönwë forth a second time.
And so there was a gathering of the Maiar, and eight messengers were sent forth. They would come to watch over their people, and as Uinen and Eönwë were beloved of the Númenoreans so too would they become holy in the eyes of those they visited.
These are the Nine Races, called in Adûnaic the Natannawî and in Quenya the i Cailë Atani "the Chosen Men", as distinct from the Atani or "Edain":

1. Eönwë, herald of Manwë, came to the Isle of Númenor and found there the Edain, and gave them wise heads and tall shapes, and a span of years five times the length of mortals elsewhere; and to their kings were given four hundred years instead of three, that they might live and govern the longer. For a long time their capital was in Númenor, and they were closest to the Valar; later, they founded the kingdoms of Gondor and Árnor, among their lesser brethren.
2. Salmar, he who makes the Horns for Ulmo, sought at the behest of his Vala to the east, and there found the Rathrim or Shore-Dwellers, and to them he gave compassion and the strong, long bodies needed to swim, and an unerring sense of direction when in contact with rivers or the sea.
3. Angano, the spirit of iron-working and a servant of Aulë, looked to the South of Middle-Earth, where no Dwarves had awoken, and there he found the Dáin or Smiths. And to them he gave diligence for their work and strong bodies that could endure most hardships; and to their chiefs he gave immunity to fire and heat, that they might be protected against the darkness wrought by Melkor beneath the earth or the dragons that still roamed free.
4. Coirië, maiden of spring, went forth for Yavanna and Vána to the heart of the North, where the cold was greatest and the nights darkest; and though the heat of summer would never truly fall upon the people there she blessed the Forodwaith all the same. And to the strange, stocky people she gave the patience they would need until the sun drew nearer to them again, and a love of community both among Men and among the kelvar and olvar. But the best gift of all she gave to the shamans, who could draw to themselves the skins of animals and walk within them; and though this was a gift found elsewhere in the world, as a power of good and evil alike, here alone were they given also the ability to speak with the animals, and for this reason did not harm them, and bade them thrive in their lands.
5. Irmo's messenger was Enellenyo, who draws memory of many places past and future to aid in dreaming; he went East to the lands of Hildórien, and found there the Coer or Shelterers, those who hid from the darkness of Melkor and did not trust the light in the west. And he gave to them peace, and endurance through many things; but to a chosen few he granted sight beyond the walls of Arda, as they would see once they had passed, and the scope of the wide world, and in this way they do not yet fear death, for dreams of other worlds yet to be explored sing them to easy slumber when the time comes.
6. Estë's chosen was Malië, who loves best healing through rebirth; and she was of both Estë and Yavanna, and was sent forth with the blessing of the two. To the north of Harad she came, along the Harnen river that runs from Mordor to the Bay of Umbar, for if any land was most in need of healing it was that dry desert. And so she met the Sentair, the Gardeners, along the River. Their strength was in building, and yet compassion enough was there within that she could strengthen; a love for the land and its creatures, and joy at their resurrection after a flood. To their terraced gardens she gave joy and beauty, and taught them to cultivate it; but to their priests she gave healing hands, that could close any wound and break any ill, until the last breath. And this they were said to use not only on themselves--that they might complete their span at a time of their own choosing, free from ailments that might stay their passing--but on the great spirits, the oliphaunts and ents and even lions and crocodiles, who visited their rivers.
7. Nienna sent forth Fellë, her most patient spirit, to the West. Furthest from the Great Sea she found Men who travelled along the rivers leading to the Sea of Rhûn, and who felt not evil (for theirs had been a race that fell under Morgoth's sway early, and chased the Edain to the west) but guilt, seeing about them the wreckage of the world. For their suffering and grief she gave the Rynainn or Redeemers quiet fortitude, the bravery to believe that they could yet be forgiven in the eyes of the world. And to those who felt most deeply she gave the power not to heal, but to wash away grief and darkness in others by their presence and comfort, that they may learn to live again. Many were killed, when Sauron came; but the line remains, and many more have been born.
8. Ombor, the servant of Oromë who knows all tongues of living beings, found himself on the Great Steppe south of the Sea of Rhûn, where Sauron would later turn to farmland for his armies. And he saw that the hunting of darkness had not yet ended; for though many races of Men had turned in fear to the Servants of Melkor who fled to the east, yet there were those who had banded together, seeking out horses and riding down the worst of the new chiefs--and orcs besides. Ombor gave the Rechyn or Riders strength of body and stubbornness of mind, that they may seek out their enemies more thoroughly. To them also he gave greater and stronger senses, that they might know what and who surrounded them, with some individuals for miles on end. Thus they knew and could sense dark things coming even when they made as though to hide, and could hear the whispers of their enemies. The strongest of these are truly terrifying to behold; and it is from this stock that the Variags come, and the Nazgûl known as Khamûl.
9. Hófarano, loved and taught by Tulkas and Nessa both, sought out not the strongest people but the happiest, those who despite never finding the light were unburdened by cares. These he found: the Gladhrim, in the far south of the world, a race of men to whom laughter came easily and dancing even more so. Hófarano gave them courage, and strengthened their joy at the light in the south of the world; but the greatest gift he gave unto them was the speed of Tulkas and Nessa. The Gladhrim are the Running Men, faster than any horse can go, and for longer; they chase down their prey, be it food or enemy, with barely a glimmer of sweat. Dark as night they are, open of face and strong of fist; and their sworn enemies are the Slave-Makers, who sit in halls of gold and capture people from tribes across the continent as servants--or as sacrifices to the forces of darkness.

All the Nine were blessed; and to all the Nine did Sauron give rings that would amplify their powers, and so enthralled them to become his Nazgûl.

[WeepingElf]

Wonderful! I like both the idea of an Arabic Ælfwine and what he writes about the Nine Races of Men. This is a great bit of mythopoeia; Tolkien would, as alice would say, be tickled by it. It is one of the best pieces of Tolkien fan fiction I know of.

[Vardelm]

What amazes me is that the tone fits in so well with Middle-earth & Tolkien's writing. I really like the link between the djinn and the orcs & balrogs. It's like you're seeing the "truth" of Middle-earth's history, but from a completely different vantage point than the English one set by Tolkien. Just really good stuff.

[Yalensky]

I've recently started a re-read of Tolkien's major works, which I must've last read 15-20 years ago. I've finished The Hobbit, and am now in the first book of Fellowship, so it's a great treat to read this thread on the side. I have to second Vardelm's compliment on your tone: it really nails Tolkien! I'll admit I was somewhat skeptical at first reading this thread since Tolkien is so rooted in the mythologies of northern Europe, but even your Arabic version of a Red Book of Westmarch feels so well done. (After all, why shouldn't other nearby cultures have preserved something of that mythic history?)

I'm definitely looking forward to more of this.

And of course as soon as I read "nine races of men" I knew each one would contribute a Nazgul.

[Ares Land]

I'm definitely looking forward to reading more.

[Pedant]

Another fun bit of work…

THE RATHRIM

(Summarized from Chapter 3 of the Kitab Al-Jinni Al-Gharb)
The Maia known as Salmar by the High Elves was best by them for his making, by time and patience, the great conches upon which Ulmo makes his music. Not for him the flutes of Manwë, or the harps of Yavanna, or the voices raised in song of Aulë; his songs are long and melancholy, speaking of the depth of the sea in which any creature may be lost, and yet all the more beautiful for it. And Salmar came to Middle-Earth to herd the creatures that would make these shells, and they prospered under his watchful eye and made innumerable shells of all shapes and sizes and colours. There are no halls of Ulmo, for all of Ekkaia the Outer Ocean is his home, never mind that it has since become merely the Encircling Sea; and so the conches are stored safely in caches across the world, some on the ocean floor, others along forgotten coastlines or on unknown isles. It is Salmar's duty to seek these out; like Ossë and Uinen, he too came close to the shores of Middle-Earth, many a time.

Salmar is quiet but joyful; his purview is the great snails that forge the beautiful shells of their own bodies, and he delights in the vast variety and ingenuity, both of the snails and those who seek them out. His work is pleasurable; often in the deep past he sang into being new creatures with unusual shapes, that a new song might be played upon them and the ocean enriched. Ulmo delights in his labour and company.

And it came to pass, at the beginning of the Second Age, that the Enrichment of Men had begun under the guidance of the Valar. And Ulmo sent forth Salmar; for he knows all songs that come from his shells, and sought after those who would call upon them not for war alone, but for the joy of their music. Manwë had chosen the West, closest to Valinor, so Ulmo bade Salmar to seek in the east, "where Elves and Men alike awoke, near the lapping of the sea." Salmar passed along the coast, listening with keen ears stronger and more subtle than those of any living thing.
And near the shores of Hildórien itself, he found Men who had found creatures of his own devising, and used their shells as horns. But not only for combat; for the music they played was sweet and powerful, and though a poor imitation of the songs Salmar had made still held a power of their own. Upon the land they faced their own kind whom Melkor had taken; and these petty lords hated the sounds of the conches, for their allies--all manner of ghastly beings, orcs and trolls and enormous serpents--felt the power of the shell-songs.

And Salmar came ashore; and he was mighty in form, a being of water incarnate; and with the cry of his horns the monsters shrank back; for the sound was one of the beauty of the sea, the glistening of the foam on the waves as they rushed against the shore, the inevitable tide that cleansed the land of all filth. And many among Men were afraid; but some stepped forth, and played their shells in kind. And their leader was Halu-Yora, that is "warm silver light"; but the Elves called him Lōkajilya.

"I can give you no place of refuge from the dark," said Salmar, whom they called Kanima (for that was his name in the tongue of the Valar). "You have awakened to a world already torn between the dark and the light; and the light in the west is far from you. But I can give you safety in the waters, safety that should have been yours long before, that you might use it to escape to some safer place." And Salmar made their shoulders broader, their legs slimmer, and the delight they had in the waves and waters was increased tenfold. And he gave them shells of his own devising, which amplified the music they played and gave great peace to those who heard them. And Salmar gave them one more gift; that all their kin should know where they were in the world, so long as they were in contact with the waters. They would know the distance from the places they left to the places they came to, and would need not stars nor machines to do so.

Salmar stayed with the Rathrim for fourscore years, enough time for a whole generation to grow up around him; and his passing was greatly mourned. And so they set out to find him, and hear again the sound of his horns that gave strength to their own calls against the dark.

Thus it was that the Rathrim (in their own tongue the Hara-Hara) came to build great boats upon the water, and sailed across the east and south of the world; and they lived, when they could not live in boats, on the shores of beautiful islands left behind by the Breaking of the World, islands that stretched in a great chain from the north to the south. They were not of one king; instead, many chiefs lived among them, children of great mariners. Their homes and tongues were many; some lived in-stilt houses and fished from poles, others lived in green lands but made pilgrimage to the sea, and others still never left the water but made their living as divers and sailors for other peoples.

Ever they looked to the Evenstar for hope and as a father; for Salmar, or Kanima, or Kanimadâz, had told them much of the history of the world (though he used his own tongue and theirs, not those of Elves or of the Men of the Light), and they called him kin as a sailor upon the winds. And they were known across the East as traders, founding ports and harbours long before the Númenoreans arrived. They had no letters as we would know them; the Lekaleka or Speaking Pictures they had, descending as they did from the symbols of accounting made by Sauron for tribute to Angband. And these were not alike to those on the continent, carved into wood instead of painted on grass stalks, rounded and lengthened and fashioned into the shapes of fish or men or fires; but in their own way they were beautiful, and printed upon clothes they spoke secret spells to give guidance to the wearer. And to the time of the Númenoreans they lived, and were prosperous and content with their lot; and like as not they lived past the Downfall, though they too must have wept to find the waters that touched Valinor to be lost to them forever.

To the Rathrim also were given the Dayashilim, the Great Pearls, fashioned and bequeathed by Salmar's brother Lano; but that is a tale for another time.

[elemtilas]

I continue to be enamoured of this, in particular the history and geopoetry!

[Pedant]

Many thanks, Elemtilas! I'll try not to disappoint…
Next up (because now that I've established the Nine Races I have an order to keep to):

ON THE LAMPS OF THE DÁIN AND THE STORY OF INGO THE LION
On the Arrival of Angano

Angano was a spirit in the service of Aulë, and was known among the Noldor; his name means "man of iron", for this was the metal he worked best with, but he taught them much else, and learned as much and more from his brethren and high lord. And not only with iron did he love to work, but also with mithril (in Donaba niirè-bèng "snow iron" and other metals, and most of all with light.

When he first came to the shores of Harad, there was no great desert there; instead, much of the land was covered with grass, and there roamed the greater mûmakil, called uchuridò by the natives, earth-spirits as Angano was and yet in the service of Irmo lord of dreams. But it was in the shadow the Grey Mountains that he found what he sought: a tough, hardy race of men, who mined gold from the hills and yet loved the sun and stars.
Among them Angano lived as a smith, not the first but the best, and started many a ritual concerning the appeasement of the spirits who lived within the hills and in the forges. And he made their bodies stronger, and their energy boundless; and to the strongest, who worked hardest under his tutelage and made the most intricate crafts, he gave invulnerability to any fire or heat that Elf or Dwarf could stand, and hotter. The iniirèyè, they were called, the Men of Iron; for they could place their hands--or their heads--into the heart of a flame, and still feel cool. These things Angano gave to them, and as many skills as he could provide; for Aulë had compelled him to seek out those who could be kin to the Dwarves, and teach them that they might join their cousins in smith-craft in the south. Here alone in the South was the mining of mithril commenced, for the ores of true-silver ran deep within the Grey Mountains, and though many blessings were needed to pacify the mountain spirits for its taking there was no great shortage.

But the greatest gift by far that he gave was the making of the okôduchi. Far in the north the Noldor and Khazad had learned to trap the light of stars and sun and moon--light birthed from the Two Trees in some part or another--in crystals of a material unknown to later and lesser smiths of any land. These shone with a pale light of their own, and when brought into the light and hallowed by rituals of the smithy sparkled and gleamed as reflections of the light itself--smaller and earth-bound and yet as pure and precious. So it was in the north; and in the south, where Arien passed directly overhead, and the stars of North and South alike could be seen, such light was there to capture that it was as though the Silmarils were made again, or the Arkenstone given its long-lost kin.

And by all the tribes across the mud-plains and mountains were these revered, as the okôduchi took their place as kings-in-light by right of the gems wrought by the Family. There are many spirits revered in these lands, and many metals given shape and form. But most of all the kings of the south revere Irduyèdò, lord of the earth, and his servant Iniirèyè-waba, Father of the Iron Men.

On the Story of Ingo the Lion in Darkness (Part I)

An old chant among the Iyuro (technically the Ijin-Iyuro "children of the yams") was recorded by an Umbarian traveller in the late 19th Century of the Third Age. Records are scanty; the Iyuro only developed a writing system of their own once they came under Sauron's control for the second time, and few put their history into words that Sauron might steal--and there were a great many araynu-n-ihirdu (bards or "word-smiths") killed under his rule, their words replaced with stories from the Dark Lands. But this, among others, survived: the story of Tomuri-hinggo, the Lion in Darkness, set over three and a half thousand years before the telling of the tale.

Originally called Tumaadong-è-hinggo, the Lion By Labour, his family ruled the city of Kôdunu-Hadu on the shores of Lake Jumaloka, formed from the streams from the Grey Mountains. A trading city, to be sure--and yet a prosperous one, for it also was the source of much gold, panned from the river or mined from the hills. Tumaadong-è-hinggo was no prince, at least not at first; he was a lesser son of a lesser son of the old clan chief. And yet a great many paths were open to him in this way. He had talent enough for smith-craft, and indeed did learn--enough to give him favour in the eyes of the king, and stoke the fires of envy in others of purer blood (for his was a mixed heritage, his mother a woman from the Gladhrim in the far south). And so he was sent forth on a mission that many called impossible: to seek out the Pygmies who were born the Children of Irduyèdò, into the cold lands of the north. Duujaka, the Land of Shadow, they called that place, for in the Grey Mountains the capital of the Iron Men was set at a place where at noon the sun cast no shadow save beneath, and because of this those Men called themselves blessed. And he took with him eleven lamps of purest sunlight, forged in his own forge (with the aid of his wife and sons) under the glare of the noonday sun as it passed overhead on the Spring Equinox.

Long did he wander, first through his own lands, then through the kingdoms of Manhir and Iflak and Harad, and finally to the shores of Eriador where the Númenoreans had made their camps. He fought bravely against an incursion from Westernesse in the lands around Umbar, coating his naked body with oil and setting himself alight before charging into the fight with mace and spear and shield. (The traveller speculates in the margins that he may be the incarnation of the famed and feared Man of Fire and Iron from Umbarian folktales, born in the deep south of the world, whose skin burned with demonic flames and whose iron-tipped spears never missed their mark.)

It was a full year of travel by boat and foot before he came to the "mountains north twinned with mountains south, the mirror of the world we know, the homes of the Children of Irduyèdò". And to the Children he gave one of his eleven lamps, and they welcomed him as a long-lost fellow. Yet he was disappointed, the legend says. The Children of Irduyèdò (they called themselves haza) were indeed pygmies, and pale as albinos but with hair of fire and obsidian, and beards like shamans. And their craft, such as he saw, was great--but not so great as the crafts left behind him, when the legends had talked of halls hollowed out of mountains and lit by lamps such as his own. He learned of their history, and a little of their smithing-methods, and learned also to love the intricate designs they wrought. But to learn more, they told him, he would have to leave the Blue Mountains, and travel to the First Home, Hazadò, to learn more from observing the dwarves at work there.

"And who lives in the lands between your mountain and theirs?" he asked.

"Urusaji," they told him. "They call themselves the Elida. They are not Men or Pygmies, but they were the first to wake on Middle-Earth. They, too, have mighty smiths; and there are secret crafts they keep now that they will not share with us or anyone else. Nor are they the crafts known to the Dwarves of old, but something new. There are some of our kin in the east who have benefitted from their learning, it seems."

And the Lion-By-Labour was curious, and anger arose in his heart; for what right did any have to learn such powerful things that did not come from Irduyèdò?

Therefore he agreed to walk with the dwarves on the road to Hazadò; but secretly he planned to visit the urusaji and beg an apprenticeship of them, in exchange for a lamp of sunlight.

Long did they travel, across green fields of short, sweet grass, through forests darker and drier than any seen in the South. And when they came to Eregidò [poss. Eregion?] the Lion-By-Labour found the halls of the uhusaji open to him. And in those halls he found many smiths, as great as any Pygmy he had met before; but he also saw a great spirit, pale as milk and yet more powerful than any being he had encountered. And to him he bowed, not the urusaji, and the Lion-By-Labour offered him the lamp, and told him of his far country and their blessing by Irduyèdò, Great Lord of the Earth.

That spirit was Lekidòyè, Giver of Great Gifts, brother of Iniirèyè-waba. And he spoke to the Lion-By-Labour, explaining that it was the duty of all good followers of the Lord of the Earth to spread his might and power wheresoever they could, that those unblessed by him might benefit. For this reason, he said, he had come to the urusaji--to grant unto them knowledge that might enrich all of the world. And of course he would teach him; if he so desired, he could have any smith-craft under the sun. "Seek me out once you have tired of the dwarves," he said, "and as did my brother before me I will give your people a great gift. But keep my knowledge hidden; it is taboo to speak of the Elder Children of Irduyèdò in front of the Younger, and they would cast you out and steal the lamps you have laboured so hard to create. It is one thing to give willingly; quite another to have it snatched brazenly from you as punishment for breaking a custom you knew nothing of."

And the Lion-By-Labour thanked the great spirit, and the spirit gave unto him an armband that would allow him to find even the smallest sources of mithril for his lamps. Hensilith he called it, the Silver Eye, but the Lion deemed it Dangikeng-masu, the Second Gift [the traveller notes that the first lamps that once shone in the halls of Kôdunu-Hadu before the Nazgûl attacks were called the First Gift]. And he came to scorn the urusaji as did the Pygmies in their own way, but for different reasons; for he saw that they believed their craft all their own, and sought to make something other than the Giver of Great Gifts decreed. But naught he told of his thoughts, until he returned home and bade the minstrels sing his story.

[Yalensky]

Can you say any more about the Dain's (and the Rathrim's) language? Is it related to Manhiri?

I assume Lekidòyè is a calque of Annatar and that the "armband" is the ring of power.

And I love how you've adapted "Khazad-Dum" and "Eldar". But what is the etymology of urusaji? I can't tell if it's meant as a native Dainish word or as a borrowing from Khuzdul.

[Pedant]

Can you say any more about the Dain's (and the Rathrim's) language? Is it related to Manhiri?

I assume Lekidòyè is a calque of Annatar and that the "armband" is the ring of power.

And I love how you've adapted "Khazad-Dum" and "Eldar". But what is the etymology of urusaji? I can't tell if it's meant as a native Dainish word or as a borrowing from Khuzdul.

In order:

1. That I can! I'll get to both of those quite soon, but suffice to say they are as separate from Manhiri as they are from Adûnaic to the north. Dáinic uses infixes, suffixes, consonant lenition, vowel reduplication, and vowel-switching to mark various forms of nouns and verbs, while Rathrimi languages tend to be quite isolating but use various forms of reduplication to mark aspect and number, with a whole full class of auxiliary verbs. Just a touch of fun, really, and like I said I absolutely will get around to putting stuff up; I'm quite pleased with the way Dáinic turned out.
2. The first is absolutely right! Lekidòyè is quite literally leki- "to give, provide, bestow" + -dò "augmentative suffix" + yè "person marker", so "person who gives greatly". But Dangikeng-masu (from the same root as leki-, to give you some idea of just how fun the language can get) is not one of the rings; that comes later in the tale. The legends are actually unclear as to whether Sauron himself made the armband (and it is an armband, not a finger-ring), or whether it was made by an Elvish smith and Sauron merely appropriated it. Whatever the case, although lost around the Ninth Century of the Third Age, it was considered an heirloom of one of the great families there, who showed no more inclination to follow Sauron's will than any other family did (which, admittedly, counted for quite a few families--especially when stories of Lekidòyè the Second Son of Irduyèdò became more popular in the south).
3. That one was a little tricky. It's actually from Neo-Khuzdûl huzad, which apparently means "predecessor" and is used of elves. I thought it probably the best to use in this context, as Ingo doesn't meet any elves in the story and in any case the opinion of the dwarves is more highly revered, sharing the same Vala as they do.

[Pedant]

Next up, a short exploration of part of the Dáinic language:

DÁINIC LENITION

On the Dáin

The Dáin (singular Dân), or as they call themselves the Irdum ("all the smiths as a group", from irdu "smith"), are the most prominent branch of the House of Sima ("fire"), who in the earliest days of the First Age wandered far to the west and then south, turning as they did to the purest and strongest sunlight they could find. Like many a group of Men Melkor made efforts to convert them to his rule, but the fiery gaze of Arien could not be blocked, so deep in the centre of the world. Best of all do the Dáin love the light of the dawn, for this they sought at the beginning--and this is the light that is best unblocked, for they live in the shadow of the Grey Mountains, and the sun sinks behind those walls of stone as though through the bars of a fortress. And yet it is these mountains that they came to draw their chief characteristic from; for the rivers brought forth gold, and deep within the mountains lay vast reserves of copper and silver and iron--and mithril, too, though only Aulë and his followers knew how to work it.
Pedant of Gondor writes, cataloguing information (he tells us) gathered both from documents in the Great Library of Minas Tirith and from his own travels in Manhir:

The eastern side of the Grey Mountains receives much nourishment from the eastern sea, and the winds blow ever west as they follow the path of the sun. Verdant grassland abounds, with patches of dense rainforest scattered across the lowlands--though this is less than it was in the Second Age, and the blights which turned the grass of Near Harad to dust reaches ever southwards. Rivers from the mountains coalesce into enormous lakes; Lake Jumaloka is large enough to swallow the whole of Rohan, and there are two others of similar size, Numujolirang ("it is full of reeds") and Fanu-ji-Hôdu ("mirror of the sun"). The area used to be divided into several kingdoms, each with their own unique dialect; it was said you could pass from village to village across the grasslands, and that (as is observed among the Orcs) you could eventually come to a point where no speaker would be intelligible to one from the other end of the chain. In recent centuries, however, the disparate and disjointed tongues have been united under the rule of the Family of the Lion, Inggo-ru-Hama [italicizations added]. They claim a three-thousand-year descent from the Lion-by-Darkness, one of those now numbered among the Nine, and bear a mithril armband as apparent proof of this. They stand opposed, as far as one can tell, to Sauron's forces; yet there are many among their people who are the offspring of Trolls and Men forced together, black as coal and disfigured in face, who rule over petty states by means of their great strength and apparent invulnerability, and who come when Sauron calls. They do not walk in the direct light of the mid-world sun, instead covering their heads with red veils; and they are feared and hated by the Men they rule.
(There is some claim that the Dáin, the noblest of their savage people, know the crafting and smithing of mithril, although translations from the Númenorean make no mention of such works, and indeed it would have been prime reason to set up colonies on the other side of the hills. As is stands, the Númenoreans, even the Black ones, did not much explore the eastern side of the Grey Mountains, preferring to set up colonies and raid settlements in the foggy deserts on the other side.)
The Dáin are the greatest of those from the fabled House of Sima, and are quite short, though not as short as dwarves, but are wiry and muscled. Their skin is burnt brown, their teeth and eyes whiter than snow. They hunt best with spears or javelins, tipped with iron (among the elite) or simply sharpened and hardened by exposure to fire. Fire is what these people love best, it seems; many claim some imperviousness to flame, and while this has yet to be demonstrably proven their craftsmanship (such as it is) is famed throughout the whole of Harad. There are tales of fire-breathers, fire-walkers, healers who cleanse themselves by burning their bodies, smiths who may hold molten metal in their lands as though cool clay and bend it and shape it to their liking. The veracity of these claims has not been verified by Númenorean accounts, although they too heard of the legends.
They build no pyramids, but are famed best for their walls. In Dáinic life, it seems, the circle is everything; the king resides in the centre of his palace, in the centre of the market, in the exact centre of his city with towering domes. Much is made from the mud of the plains, freshened by water from lakes or rivers and then baked; the white-washed city walls are perfectly circular, if the stories are true, with new walls built when necessary.


Phonology and Lenition

The standard dialect spoken in Gumuudo, set right at the equator (where at noon the only shadow lies beneath one's feet, which is a wonderful feeling when it comes to keeping away demons), has twenty-one consonants and seven vowels, the latter in short and long varieties.

• Consonants: m p b f w n t d s z l r ny /ɲ/ ch /tʃ-tɕ/ j /dʒ-dʑ/ y /j/ ng /ŋ/ k g kh /ɣ/ h
• Vowels: a /a/ aa /a:/ e /e/ ê /e:/ è /ɛ/ èè /ɛ:/ i /i/ ii /i:/ o /o/ ô /o:/ ò /ɔ/ òò /ɔ:/ u /u/ uu /u:/

Syllable structure is remarkably simple, only allowing the structure (C)V(F); final (F) consonants are limited to m n ng w s z r h.
Many Dáinic dialects have a pitch accent; in the Gumuudo dialect, the high pitch is on the first long syllable of a root, or else the first syllable of that root (e.g. Irduyèdò /íɾdùjɛ̀dɔ̀/ "Aulë", tumôdang /tùmó:dàŋ/ "masterpiece, work demonstrating mastery of a craft" from TOODA "to work, toil").
Both nouns and verbs take lenition, apparently due in the proto-language to the presence of preclitics marking different states (still found in some dialects). In the Gumuudo dialect, these have simplified into fortis and lenis varieties. Fortis in verbs marks the energetic mood, conveying emphasis (as well as strong belief and sometimes aggression, although the latter has a separate form in most dialects), and in nouns the comment case (the standard form of the noun marks the topic). Lenis in verbs, meanwhile, marks the irrealis (used for commands, propositions, and wishes), and in nouns the construct form (used as the second half of compound words).
The layout is as follows:

Root

m/p

b

n/t

d

l

r

s

z

ch

j

ng/k

g

Fortis

b

m

d

n

d

z

z

nz

j

ny

g

ng

Lenis

f

w

s

z

h

kh

h

kh

s

z

h

kh

Other consonants maintain the vowels of the original preclitics; vowel-initial words maintain the consonants (the Iphànu dialect cluster in the southeast has absorbed the consonants as a form of tonogenesis instead).