Whys does the text on the door say Moria even though it was called that only long after the doors were made?

Well, for starters, the inscription is made by Celembrimbor, and since he died in Second Age 1697, the doors have to be older than that. That's before the "Friendship of the Dwarves and Noldor began to wane", which was primarily in the aftermath of the Balrog waking up and the abandoning of Moria, which would be literally thousands of years later.

But that's not... maybe I'm not understanding what about that proves that Moria wasn't called Moria in 1697.

Also, Moria is the name after the Balrog decided to have some fun. Litteraly in the in the appendix, I think. I mean, shit, even Galadriel said it was a pretty dope place - would dwarves really call it "dark hole"? It's like jews calling Jerusalem "shitty ruin".

In short, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. I'm pretty sure JRRT himself didn't acknowledge that he dun goofed, but he probably was never asked for an explanation either.

Because it is Sindarin for "Dark pit" or "Dark Chasm" It is a "name given without love" according to the Appendixes. It's hardly fitting for a place that was a splendor of lanterns and glittering gems, nor is it something you'd call the mansion of your friends. Plus, we get references to the name of Dwarrodelf, a much more polite Elvish phrase.

"Hey, Tallion, have i ever told you about how i once pranked the dwarves?"

Even if OP gets what he wants and there’s no explanation, so what? Did a thread really have to be made about this?

Like is OP jacking off to Veeky Forums trying to justify a LotR lore misstep?

I’m seriously perplexed how someone could be this bored on a Friday night to nitpick lore of a fantasy franchise not many people care about right now.

...

You are new to this board, aren't you?

>Friday night
If it’s already night where you are, then I think we can start to narrow down where all the shittiest, no-fun posters on Veeky Forums are coming from. Care to give us some more information?

You best start believing in grognard threads user. your in one.

Head canon accepted.

...

Why was it even in Elvish anyway?

Dwarves kept their language secret for the most part

>Nazgul can sense the One Ring, yet they fail so notice Frodo even when he's literally on their doorstep at Minas Morgul

>Sauron knows Bilbo had the ring, but doesn't figure out the plot when two hobbits are captured trying to sneak into Mordor through the back door

...

Option 1: Tolkien made a mistake. With the scale and sheer amount of detail and thought that went into the creation of all these languages, locations, characters and history, how could this mistake go unnoticed? It is perfectly reasonable to assume that Tolkien made a mistake here because he is human and is not perfect. It’s a bit like when people mention the use of the Eagles and why they couldn’t have been used to take the One Ring to Mordor and have everyone live happily ever after. One exchange in the Council of Elrond could have been included to exclude the Eagles, but we didn’t get that. So people use details given to us by Tolkien to explain away what many consider to be some sort of plot hole or mistake by Tolkien. Moria on the Doors of Durin could simply have been an oversight and thankfully it’s not something major.

Ah crap wrong image - sorry!

Option 2: The name Moria was in fact used by the Elves further back than is commonly accepted. The City was underground, and Elves could have used Moria for this reason and because they themselves are fans of the beauty above ground. You see this when Gimli and Legolas are discussing the glittering caves of Helm’s Deep. Legolas really doesn’t like the sound of them and pretty much dismisses Gimli at first when the dwarf praises the beauty of the caves. Gimli isn’t really offended at the words of Legolas. It could have been the same with the elf Celebrimbor and the dwarf Narvi, the craftsmen who created the Doors of Durin. Perhaps the word Moria was acceptable for the purposes of the elves who would use the door, like an English speaker calling Zhongguo “China”.

Maybe the elfes rewritten it to fit the new age just kept the original author name in it

Option 3: The doors are obviously both magical and made to last. The Noldor are cunning linguists. Celebrimbor could have enchanted the door’s inscription to change itself over the years to reflect changes in the Elvish vernacular. Of course he wouldn’t have anticipated that the Elves would start calling this beautiful underground kingdom “Darkhole”.

The Song of Durin there is a verse that goes:
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.

>And runes of power upon the door.

That's not just the main door to Moria. That's the Door of Durin. Thing is, it was the fall of Khazad-dûm that causes the name to be changed to Moria.

So, yeah, it should presumably use the name Khazad-dûm rather than Moria but the existence of the door makes sense.

youtube.com/watch?v=uxfoa23skHg

Your post is reddit-newfaggotery at its worst. Mcfucking kill yourself.

It's name was Khazad-dum back then. The term "Moria" doesn't come about until the fall, when Moria gets all Balrogy. This is obviously after they made the door since putting a secret door to a box of monsters is dumb and Durin isn't lord of anything at that point.

btw, the translation of the inscription is "The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter. I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs."

Digging around, it seems like a lot of Tolkien nerds admit this might be an oversight on his part.

Magic changing door letters confirmed, well done Veeky Forums.

But then why does Gimli believe that his cousin Balin yet lives in the mines? He clearly believes that the Dark Chasm very much will be glittering gems and lanterns when they arrive.

Further, the Dwarves took the time to build Balin a tomb, and he died in 2994. So work was clearly being done in the hole 1300 years later.

burp

nice bait

>here is written
unless the door is like two feet off the ground, that looks like a quote of Gandalf's translation, rather than literal text

The eagle argument always annoy me.
They're not conscripts, they're doing Gandalf a favour.
There's no reason to assume they'd be willing to participate in a suicide mission.

Those pillars look suspiciously like knife ear shit.

Did I accidentally bait? I'm sorry. I'm not that good at Lord of the Rings lore.

I think Legolas didn't dismiss them, but he wasn't that sold on the idea before, thinking "well, I've always had a cave over my head back home - seen one, seen them all".

That confirms the mistake, actually. Or at least it's just easier to understand.

>tolkien first thinks of Moria or whatever he wanted for "old marvellous dwarf Jerusalem"
>well, needs jewels and runes. Duh.
>go for the name of Moria because elves and dwarves if you didn't notice don't trust each other by default
>some time after that he thinks about sauron and celebrimbor and rings and shit (pretty sure he tought about the ring AFTER the Hobbit)
>imagines the Eregion thing and all, and the door
>of course it says Moria
>at this time there's the balrog (or before the Eregion thing, at some time he thinks about how Moria fell and how the Fellowship will be fucked up in it)
>In all this doesn't get the Moria-before-Moria problem

10/10 post of all time

Not that user but is this bait? I don't know the answer to this either. Could some kind user enlighten us?

Attached: 1387391241329.jpg (500x570, 127K)

Why?

Khazad-Dum is a Dwarvish name, wheras Moria is Sindarin.

Balin led an expedition to retake Moria. Remember, the Dwarves didn't know about the Balrog, or had forgotten if they ever knew, and thought it was "only" populated by a lot of orcs. They actually fought a battle nearby when Thorin was young, but they didn't attempt to stay and re-claim Moria. After the death of Smaug, with Erebor feeling wealthy and powerful, they thought they could re-claim Moria and keep it. That expedition sets out about 30 years prior to Frodo leaving the Shire, and them not having heard from the colonists in a long while is why Glin and Gimli are at Rivendell.

Gimli being optimistic about Moria is an artifact of the PJ movies. In the books, he's much more guarded about his opinion as to what they'll find, although he is taken very much aback when they find Balin's tomb.

That subtext is transliteration. The actual "feanorian characters" are that swirly traces in the arch at the top of the door.

Not him, but depending on which layer of reasoning you want to go for, you end up with a different reason.

Tolkien's own reasoning probably was in its root inspiration of the Dwarves by diasporic Jews, and with Khuzdul being the Hebrew analogue, further supported by its Semitic, triconsonantal root core structure. Jews generally didn't teach Hebrew to outsiders and learned the languages of their host countries, so Dwarves did it too.

In-Universe, it's probably justified by the somewhat abnormal generation of Dwarves and their language. They were created by Mahal/Aule, and had an actual divinely constructed language. Only alter were they "adopted" by Illuvatar and granted true sentience, but they probably have a belief that their language is for their ears alone.

Khazad-Dum is the dwarven name. Dwarves never uses Dwarf language publicly, and keep it a closely guarded secret. When interacting with people, they much prefer using whatever language is available.

The Door of Moria was made to facilitate the commerce between elf and dwarves during the second age. The inscription is in elvish, as is the language (Sindarin), because that's what the elves, the neighbours during the Second Age, were using.

The elves had no loves for the dark places of the dwarves. Moria was penned by them, and it stuck, even when Celebrimbor's elves started having fruitful relation with the dwarves of Moria.

>Also, Moria is the name after the Balrog decided to have some fun. Litteraly in the in the appendix, I think.
>Because it is Sindarin for "Dark pit" or "Dark Chasm" It is a "name given without love" according to the Appendixes.

The book says that the elves had no love for the place of dwarves since time immemorial. And there was a pretty bad blood between the two races from the first age. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the name "Moria" was given post balrog, and unless I am mistaken, this isn't in the appendix.

It's totally elvish in spirit to call the most beautiful city of the dwarves "that glory hole" while the city is thriving.

>And there was a pretty bad blood between the two races from the first age.
Not with the Noldor, there weren't. There were no points that Celembrimbor's folk were at odds with the Dwarves. Furthermore, the Noldor in Beleriand dug out quite a few of their own underground fortresses, and Nargothrond was built in the abandoned caves of one of the dwarven groups.

Sindarin isn't the language of Noldor. "Moria" was penned by the Sindar and Nandor, with no love for it. Once in the vernacular of the language used by the elves of Middle Earth, it became the widely known name of that place.

I don't doubt Celebrimbor had a Quenya word for Khazad-dum full of fresh air and roses. Still, the Sindarin was still used as a lingua franca by all the elves of Middle Earth, and that what was used on the door, which was there to facilitate commerce with everyone.

>Sindarin isn't the language of Noldor.
Post Beleriand Noldor did speak Sindarin, not Quenya.

>"Sindarin (Grey-elven) is properly the name of the languages of the Elvish inhabitants of Beleriand, the later almost drowned land west of the Blue Mountains. Quenya was the language of the Exiled High-Elves returning to Middle-earth. The Exiles, being relatively few in number, eventually adopted a form of Sindarin: a southern dialect (of which the purest and most archaic variety was used in Doriath ruled by Thingol). This they used in daily speech, and even adapted their own personal names to its form. But the Sindarin of the High-elves was (naturally) somewhat affected by Quenya, and contained some Quenya elements. Sindarin is also loosely applied to the related languages of the Elves of the same origin as the Grey Elves of Beleriand, who lived in Eriador and further East.

Parma Eldalamberon 17: Words, Phrases and Passages by J.R.R. Tolkien, p. 127.

>"Moria" was penned by the Sindar and Nandor, with no love for it.
There is no indication that the Sindar or Nandor even knew that it existed. Their non-realizing for centuries that Dwarves were intelligent beings, or knowing about closer Dwarven cities like Nogrod and Belegost seriously casts doubt that they had any contact with Khazad-Dum. Incidentally, neither of those Sindarin renderings of Tumunzahar or Gabilgathol have insulting byplay; they are pure translations.

> Still, the Sindarin was still used as a lingua franca by all the elves of Middle Earth, and that what was used on the door, which was there to facilitate commerce with everyone.
And a Sindarin rendering of Khazad-Dum would be Dwarrowdelf.

>"that glory hole"
why are elves so lewd

Moria was already one of the names used by the elves:

But Moria is an Elvish name, and given without love; for the Eldar, though they might at need, in their bitter wars with the Dark Power and his servants, contrive fortresses underground, were not dwellers in such places of choice. They were lovers of the green earth and the lights of heaven; and Moria in their tongue means the Black Chasm. But the Dwarves themselves, and this name at least was never kept secret, called it Khazad-dûm, the Mansion of the Khazâd; for such is their own name for their own race, and has been so, since Aulë gave it to them at their making in the deeps of time.

The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix F, The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age: On Translation