Subject: Right, well.
Author:
Posted on: 2022-02-05 18:43:07 UTC

Eldamo helpfully provides a Semantic Category page, so let's look at the category for flowers. I've looked at the Neo-Sindarin page, because mature Sindarin has like... two real flowers.

The neo-language has lots! Roses, lilies, irises, daisies, poppies, dandelions, daffodils, buttercups. Add in elanor, alfirin (aka simbelmynë) and niphredil, and glance at a few other categories to pull out things like sedge (lisg), hawthorn (tadhos), teazle (tuthlos), cornflower (menelluin), and of course snowthorn (aeglos), and you've got a tolerable set.

Quenya adds a few more - I see hyacinth, pansy, violet, clover, bluebell, and anemone. It might be possible to reconstruct the Sindarin form of these words.

There are also a few flowers that have no analogues in our world; Tolkien Gateway throws up lissuin, mallos, and seregon. You can have athelas, too, though I don't think it's said to have flowers. There might be a few more in Numenor, though as I recall they're all trees.

How you then create a language out of those (other than by directly cribbing a Victorian list)... well, I'm not really sure. ^_^ Out of my wheelhouse, I'm afraid.

hS

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