non fiction meta by hennethgalad

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Summary:

a theory of the etymology of 'Arvernien' 

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Chapters: 1 Word Count: 214
Posted on 24 November 2018 Updated on 24 November 2018

This fanwork is complete.

Chapter 1

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  'ar' also means 'noble, royal' as in Aradan, Arwen, Aragorn, Ar-Pharazôn etc. 

 

the Mouths of Sirion is an interesting name in itself. in 1903 the book 'The Riddle of the Sands' was published. it was set off the coast of Germany, about two intrepid young English men in a small yacht who knew their way across the shifting sandbanks well enough to stumble on early German invasion boats. 

   Tolkien, with his enthusiasm for his anglo-saxon forebears, would have been interested in the places described in the book. 

 

   such shifting sands move like the waves of the sea, rippling and weaving patterns, and swallowing the unwary. the fact that they shift so frequently may account for why Tolkien used the plural 'Mouths' instead of Mouth. 

   are any other rivers so described ? 

 

the 'ver' part may be Vairë, the weaver, who is weaving not merely images but the world itself. that would give 'land of the noble weaver', the Vala, the elemental force which shapes the land, shifts the courses of the river and turns the sands into a riddle. it may be a warning to be wary not only of the sands, but also of the inscrutable purposes of Vairë and the Valar. 

  a heads-up, and up...

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I am assuming that the questions you pose aren't rhetoric, but actually questions! If I am wrong in this, feel free to ignore or delete my response.

Other rivers that are described as having "mouths" are the Siril (in Hyarrostar, Númenor), Baranduin, Entwash and Anduin. The idea is that the river doesn't flow into the next bigger body of water in one singular channel (a single mouth) like, for instance, the Thames, but in several spread-out distributaries like the Danube or Nile - in modern English we would use the Greek word "delta" to describe it, but perhaps Tolkien felt that "delta" would have sounded too technical.

Tolkien himself translated Arvernien as "land beside the Verna" (Parma Eldalamberon 17), which suggests that "ar" isn't the royal title (derived from "aran") but rather the prefix "ar" denoting "near, next to, beside" (derived from "ara").

As for Verna, nobody knows anything for certain. Strictly speaking Vairë should turn into Bêr- (we see this consonantal shift from /v/ to /b/ in Q Valar = S Belair, Q Varda = S (El-)bereth, Q Voronwë = S Bronweg, etc.), but the prefix Ar- may trigger mutation from /b/ to /v/. Not sure where the /n/ should come from, though; Arvêrien would be a more likely name if Vairë were somehow involved.

Other theories assume that Verna is simply a place name related either to the root WER "winding" (suggesting the riverbed of Sirion) or PHER "beech" (perhaps as an alternative name for the beech-forests of Nimbrethil).

I've also seen suggested (by David Salo I think) that Arvernien may originally have been coined to recall the French Auvergne (just as Beleriand was inspired by Broceliande), but of course that needn't mean Tolkien didn't put additional thought into the etymology! :D

OK, shutting up now! Thanks for the food for thought.