User talk:Hyarion

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Latest comment: 13 June 2011 by Morgan in topic Dictionary-style searches
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Welcome to Hyarion's talk page.

valimar

Hi Hyarion, I'm one of the Founders & Bureaucrats of valimar (and also one of the admins in Persian Wikipedia). I'm glad that you setup us as your sister-site. I'll setup reciprocal links to TG articles as soon as possible. Best Regards -- PHoBiA 19:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC) ``Reply[reply]

Missing Gandalf edit in recent changes

The database seems to have behaved strangely when I edited Gandalf. I removed the occurrences of the word "human" from the article, and couldn't load the page. However, looking in the article history, my edit is there, but it doesn't appear in "Recent changes". And strangely enough, a search for "human" on TG still yields the article "Gandalf", although the word "human" cannot be found (any longer) in the article. Maybe the issue will disappear once the database reloads or refreshes! :-) --Morgan 23:11, 24 April 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

While you're at it, another strange page is the Portal:Locations/Category Tree. This page, which has been changed to a redirect, still seems to carry an imprint in the database somehow. E.g., searching on "human" on TG makes "Portal:Locations/Category Tree" show up. --Morgan 23:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

what is a Tolkien Mile ?

It seems to me that there is something wrong with using a standard (english) mile for Tolkiens Maps. The result is a Middle Earth which is too small. Tolkien used a lot of History and Myth from other parts of Northern Europe. Could Tolkiens Mile actually be the 'Irish' mile which was used by the English in Ireland for centuries. I will get more detail if needed but I think 1 'irish' mile is equal to 1.27 'english' miles. If this were the case Middle Earth would be 27% greater in size which would be an improvement as there are a number of references to distance which only make sense if the 'english' mile is increased substantially. The 'swedish' mile is equal to 6 'english' miles which is too big. Unsigned comment by Nuadamor (talk • contribs). (00:01, 22 May 2011).

If I remember correctly he used a fictional mile, the Númenorean mile. I don't remember how big that is (but I think it was, the Númenorean feet at least was), but I think it can be found at Unfinished Tales. --Amroth 14:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
At Oxonmoot some years ago Alex Lewis actually gave a talk saying he thought that the scale of the maps was incorrect (sadly, I can't remember by how much, or indeed, in which direction). The Númenóreans had the lár which was very slightly shorter than our league (three miles); there is no indication that Tolkien intended to use anything other than the English statute mile (defined in law since 1592) in the maps.
(I should point out, there is the "Old English mile" which was variously longer than the statute mile - about 1.3 statute miles - but why would Tolkien logically use a different measure?) --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Tolkien’s discussion of the Númenórean league refered to by Amroth can be found in the appendix ‘Númenórean linear measures’ in J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Unfinished Tales, "The Disaster of the Gladden Fields" - it is 5000 rangar of about 38 (imperial) inches, and therefor nearly equal to one statute league of 5280 yards (= three statute miles). It seems this can be taken as evidence that, certainly around the time of the revision of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was regarding distances in his legendarium as described (approximately) in statute leagues and miles.
However, in Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (eds), The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, (on pp. 22-23 in the 2005 hardbound edition), Tolkien’s notes on two attempts at devising a Hobbit system of linear measures can be found. In one of these attempts he arrives as longest measure at a ‘long mile, or gait mile’, or ‘yong-mile or longmile’ of 2,304 imperial yards. That is certainly very nearly equal to 1.3 statute miles, and so these attempts may be related to the ‘Old English mile’ mentioned by Mith. (There is also a ‘(short) mile, or pace-mile’ of half this length, 1,152 imperial yards.)
But in the other attempt he arrives at a different type of mile, namely one of 1,600 imperial yards, thus being somewhat shorter than the statute mile. And it is only in this attempt that the term ‘league’ is mentioned as containing 3 of these miles. That is in my opinion an obstacle to any supposition that a ‘long’ or ‘Old English’ mile could have been intended in the text of The Lord of the Rings. In fact, all linear measures used in that work are such as were in normal use in the imperial system when Tolkien grew up: inch, foot, ell, fathom, furlong, mile and league; and of these only foot, mile and league turn up in his attempts at a Hobbit system of measures.
And finally, I have never found any reason to consider Tolkien’s Middle-earth as mapped too small. I would be interested in knowing why Alex Lewis thinks so (or at least thought so a couple of years ago). In fact had Mith said so a week earlier, I would have asked Alex, since I had ample opportunity to discuss it with him over the last weekend. — Mithrennaith 04:39, 27 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would have been unable to posts that had not yet been made! --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 17:38, 27 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, of course! I was trying to imply that I wished Nuadamor had posed his question earlier, and you had then replied as promptly as you in fact did, but I got a bit convoluted and cut too much from my sentence. — Mithrennaith 04:17, 28 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

TG is a thoroughly enjoyable read!

Hyarion, just wanted to say that this is an excellent Tolkien site and it has been a pleasure to read some of the articles I have come across so far. I can see that a great deal of time and effort has gone into making the site what it is today, a professional-looking, informative and well-built engine of encyclopaedic Tolkien knowledge. I have even been inspired for my own wiki (not Tolkien related) by the way articles and templates have been put together. The skin is amazing too; wish I had something unique instead of the plain vector skin.

Do keep up the good work. Kerchi 10:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Kerchi, thanks so much for your compliments! It's in feedback like yours which makes it all worth it. We look forward to seeing you around. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to let me know. --Hyarion 22:02, 30 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You're welcome. I can see that quality has been an important driving force for those who have put this site together and believe me I know how difficult it can be what with running my own wiki, so I intend to keep having a look around and read a few more articles. --Kerchi  talk | contribs | edits 22:54, 30 May 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dictionary-style searches

Being able to search for the English translation of a specific Elvish word (or in any other invented language) would be very useful! Would it be difficult to implement something like this?

To exemplify: let's say I wanted to know if Tolkien invented some word for "alphabet". I just type "alphabet" in a search box, which would take me to a "disambig" article suggesting me to read either an article on Noldorin tiwdi or on Quenya tengwanda.

Perhaps we can implement this in the current "disambiguation" system (but we would get a huge amount of disambig articles, though!)?

--Morgan 11:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]