I was looking at RC for something, and came across S Berennyn for "Brown-lands" on p.343, from Tolkien's unfinished Index. Does anyone have any ideas on the etymology of the second part? It seems to be a plural, perhaps with a sg. Barannon or Barannion. I would expect Berennyr for "Brown-lands" with (n)dor, but am hesitant to suggest a misreading (though some originally occurred, like uzu).
If it is not Berennyr, what could the 2nd half be? I couldn't find any discussion of this on Elfling, and Elendili.pl seems to be down (it had some discussion when RC came out, I recall). Something along the line of the endings in Galadhon, Ithilien, Sirion etc. might be possible ... but it wouldn't account for the extra N (from NN or ND).
Does anyone have any ideas? I'm somewhat tempted to email Hammond/Scull to ask if it's unambiguously read Berennyn, but who knows if they still have the necessary manuscript at hand, or how busy they are.
Roman Rausch Aug 10, 2014 (00:26)
http://sindanoorie.net/art/RS_TI_WR_ion.html
The suffix –on can be adjectival, augmentative or agentive, neither of which makes sense here.
More likely would be –ion in the sense 'region, country' with the plural –yn (cf. thalion, pl. thelyn in Etym), but this leaves the geminate n unaccounted for. A compound with donn 'swart, swarthy' seems far-fetched..
So yes, a misreading of *Berennyr suggests itself.
Matt Dinse Aug 05, 2015 (06:08)
Roman Rausch Aug 12, 2015 (11:16)