Felingil
New Member
I’ve been doing a bit of speculation in regards to the term ‘Black Breath’, a term which I have never really wrapped my head around. This is by no means a proper theory and it would surely not hold up to any form of academic scrutiny, but I just thought it might be interesting as a point of discussion.
The frame narrative of the Lord of the Rings establishes that the text is translated from Westron into English, therefore the words ‘black’ and ‘breath’ would not actually be used for the phenomena. It’s impossible to know what the term would have been in Westron, since there is very little information about the language. However as Westron has some Sindarin influence perhaps an elvish translation would suffice? I believe that the original term would have been something like ‘Sûl vorn’ or ‘Morsûl’.
In Silmarillion the name Súlimo is defined as “'Lord of the Breath of Arda' (literally 'the Breather')”. The same elvish root can be found in Amon Sûl, a place name which is translated as both ‘Weathertop’ and ‘Hill of Wind’. Is it possible to then infer that the Elvish word ‘Sûl’ could be translated interchangeably as any of the words breath/weather/wind in English?
If one considers Sparrow F. Alden’s theory about hyphenated words, the word ‘weather-wind’ from Tom Bombadil’s song may also indicate that there is a close connection between these concepts in Middle Earth.
Could we then gain some insight into the Black Breath phenomena by applying the alternative translations Black Wind or Black Weather?
Since ‘black’ and ‘dark’ are both used as translations for the Sindarin word ‘mór’. (Mordor - Black Land, Morgoth - Dark Enemy) Could we then also have alternative translations like Dark Wind and Dark Weather?
The frame narrative of the Lord of the Rings establishes that the text is translated from Westron into English, therefore the words ‘black’ and ‘breath’ would not actually be used for the phenomena. It’s impossible to know what the term would have been in Westron, since there is very little information about the language. However as Westron has some Sindarin influence perhaps an elvish translation would suffice? I believe that the original term would have been something like ‘Sûl vorn’ or ‘Morsûl’.
In Silmarillion the name Súlimo is defined as “'Lord of the Breath of Arda' (literally 'the Breather')”. The same elvish root can be found in Amon Sûl, a place name which is translated as both ‘Weathertop’ and ‘Hill of Wind’. Is it possible to then infer that the Elvish word ‘Sûl’ could be translated interchangeably as any of the words breath/weather/wind in English?
If one considers Sparrow F. Alden’s theory about hyphenated words, the word ‘weather-wind’ from Tom Bombadil’s song may also indicate that there is a close connection between these concepts in Middle Earth.
Could we then gain some insight into the Black Breath phenomena by applying the alternative translations Black Wind or Black Weather?
Since ‘black’ and ‘dark’ are both used as translations for the Sindarin word ‘mór’. (Mordor - Black Land, Morgoth - Dark Enemy) Could we then also have alternative translations like Dark Wind and Dark Weather?
