, which on your system should be Rijard (
for 
).However, there will be sufficient description of the 'letters' (tengwar) and of the 'runes' (certar) in Vol. III Appendices for any one who is interested.....168 To Richard Jeffery
[A reply to a reader who had asked for a translation of the opening words of one of Treebeard's songs (Book III, chapter 4), and for an explanation of several names, including 'Onodrim', the Sindarin Elvish name for the Ents.]
7 September 1955
76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford
Dear Mr Jeffery,
Thank you very much for your letter.... It came while I was away, in Gondor (sc. Venice), as a change from the North Kingdom, or I would have answered before.
At any rate your command of Elvish script (not Runes) is quite good enough to read. But there are, of course, no rules for the application to English, so it is impossible to make mistakes, unless according to your own system – so I suppose your name is Richard, though you wrote , which on your system should be Rijard ( for ).However, there will be sufficient description of the 'letters' (tengwar) and of the 'runes' (certar) in Vol. III Appendices for any one who is interested.....
It has unfortunately not proved possible, as I had hoped, to give an index of Names (with meanings), which would have provided also a fair vocabulary of Elvish words. There were far too many and the space and cost were prohibitive. But I spent a long time trying to make a list, and that is one reason for the delay of Vol. III. ....
Most of the questions you ask will be answered in Vol. III, I think. .... Orofarne, lassemista, carnemírie is High-elven (the language preferred by Ents) for 'mountain-dwelling, leaf-grey, with adornment of red jewels'.
The 'correct' plural of onod was enyd, or general plural onodrim; though ened might be a form used in Gondor. But en, ened = middle, centre as in Endor, Endóre Middle-earth (S. ennorath); and enedwaith = middle-people/ or region, as Forodwaith = north-region, &c. It was not a desert when the name was given; but became so during the Third Age. See the Chronology of the Second and Third Ages in Appendices to Vol. III. Peregrin is, of course, a real modern name, though it means 'traveller in strange countries'. Frodo is a real name from the Germanic tradition. Its Old English form was Fróda. Its obvious connexion is with the old word fród meaning etymologically 'wise by experience', but it had mythological connexions with legends of the Golden Age in the North. ....
Yours sincerely,
J. R. R. Tolkien
