Dunedain, Dunadan?

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Gordis

Why not read the thread above?

"Adan" - means man, singular
"Edain" in "Dunedain" means Men, plural.
Both words are Sindarin -Elvish

These are called inflections: signals that the word is singular or plural; male, female, or neutral; or that it is a subject, an object, or serves some other function; or represents action, being, or some other existence or transience; and so forth. The Wikipedia article is decent. (Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, but it is probably a good start for many subjects). Verbs are conjugated; nouns are declined. (In English, most declensions have been lost, but they remain in the pronouns: e.g., I, thou, he/she/it; we, you, they; and I, me, mine; & cet.)

Tolkien knew all about inflection: it was not lost in Anglo-Saxon literature, but during the late Middle-Ages and Renaissance. Shakespeare and the King James Bible use few declensions outside pronouns; most educated English speakers – those with a real mastery of the language – can still read the original Chaucer, which is generally regarded as the first true English literature; but earlier documents require either scholarship or familiarity with a more modern version of the text. For example, declensions remain in Wycliff’s English translation of the Bible in the late 1300s, the first such translation into English from Latin, the old vernacular:

In the firste made God of nouyt heuene and erthe. The erthe forsothe was veyn with ynne and void, and derknessis weren vpon the face of the see; and the Spiryt of God was born vpon the watrys. And God seide, Be maad liyt; and maad is liyt. And God sawy liyt, that it was good, and deuydid liyt fro derknessis; and clepide liyt, day, and derknessis, nyyt. And maad is euen and moru, o day. Seide forsothe God, Be maad a firmament in the myddel of watres, and dyuyde it watres fro watrys. And God made the firmament, and dyuydid watris that weren vndre the firmament fro thes that weren aboue the fermament; and it is maad so. And God clepide the firmament, heuene. And maad is euen and moru, the secounde day. God forsothe seide, Gadrid be watris, the whiche ben vndre heuene, in to o place, and apere the drie; and maad it is so. And God clepid the drie, erthe; and the gaderyngis of watris he clepide, sees. And God saiy that it was good; and saith, Burion the erthe grene erbe and makynge seed, and appletre makynge fruyt after his kynd, whos seed ben in hym silf, vpon the erthe; and maad it is so. And the erthe brouyte forthe grene erbe and makynge seed aftre his kynde, and tree makynge fruyt, and echon hauynge seed after his special kynde. And God saiy that it were good.

Wycliff is already using recognizable English, even to modern eyes and ears: but it is definitely a great-grandfather version of our language, and older than Chaucer’s English, for instance.

Inflections are retained in many modern languages with which you may be familiar: modern German, for instance, declines the ends of nouns, as well as pronouns, adjectives, and articles (such as der/die/das (the in English) and ein/eine/eines (a/an in English – note the very mild inflection of a/an to account for any leading vowels in the following noun, a practice retained from French rather than Anglo-Saxon)) used to describe them. The situation in older languages, such as Latin (with which I am familiar) and Greek (with which I am much less familiar: like the hapless and ill-educated Casca, it is Greek to me), is far more involved; and in very old languages, (perhaps with Sanskrit?), I believe it can be rather complicated, although I am insufficiently familiar with very old languages to provide any useful guidance.

Tolkien discusses inflection in passing in “Appendix F” of the Return of the King. Language is one of the driving motivations for his writing Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, and the whole corpus of his work. There are whole websites dedicated to the in-depth study and development of Tolkien’s linguistic pursuits, as well as a scholarly journals, such as Parma Eldalamberon.

If you meant the difference between dúnadan and dunadan, however, that is merely punctuation.

As an interesting aside to this discussion, Tolkien noted at one point that various characters in Lord of the Rings spoke in various ways. The hobbits, for instance, noticed that Aragorn began speaking like the Bree-folk, but as their first meeting with him wore on (and he lowered his guard, perhaps), his speech began to change. Denethor and his sons spoke a more ancient form of the common tongue than the rustic version used by the hobbits; and the Elves spoke in an even more ancient way. I take it that the speed of changes accustomed to human languages were retarded by the presence of the Elves and the Rings of Power, which worked against the changes wrought by Time; but even Elvish languages changed: the Noldor deliberately altered the name of Fëanor’s mother from Þerindë to Serindë (Þ is the Anglo-Saxon letter thorn, pronounced th-), which Fëanor took as a personal affront, setting him into a snit with his relatives; while wider changes also took place between the Noldor and the Vanyar, the “Light Elves” of Valinor, who spoke an even more ancient form of Elvish than Noldorin Quenya; and the Sindar, who spoke a version of the old language that had been highly modified in the more malleable environment of Middle-earth, Sindarin.