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It's All in the Family: The Finweans - Page 5

© Michael Martinez

Thus, when Finwe and Indis married, Feanor's resentment of her intrusion into his family assured that he would isolate himself from Finwe's new household. As Feanor raised his sons, they questioned why their uncles and aunts spoke a different way from them. Feanor's response was merely to deride the choices of his relatives. He and his family would respect the language of his beloved mother. Feanor made it a personal issue, and in so doing alienated many of the Noldorin loremasters who would otherwise have accepted and supported his arguments against the linguistic shift. By comparison, consider how (in American idiom), many people today use the pronoun "myself" incorrectly (by the old rules). When speaking of another person and oneself, we should use "me" in the objective and "I" in the subjective. Yet many people have been rebuked by teachers and relatives for using "me" when they should use "I", so they substitute "myself" for "me". In other words, instead of saying, "They were speaking to my sister and me", most people now say, "They were speaking to my sister and myself". "Myself" is, according to rules of grammar, a reflexive pronoun. It should only be preceded by "I" or "me", and not used alone. Now, imagine if Prince Charles were to launch a personal crusade to correct every person who uses "myself" incorrectly. How long would it be before people decided he was too arrogant to respect? And imagine that while Prince Charles is campaigning against the vulgar idiom, his mother the Queen begins to use "myself" incorrectly. The people's love and respect for a popular monarch will remain intact, because she speaks like they do and doesn't make a fuss over a small issue. That love and respect will not transfer to her son, though. Feanor thus elevated a minor scholarly disagreement to the status of a political agenda. All those Noldor who used "s" were against him, and all those who retained the thorn pronunciation were his supporters. Ironically, Feanor ignored the Vanyar, who were practitioners of the thorn-pronunciation, and he pursued an alliance with the Teleri, whose speech was radically different from the Quenya spoken by the Noldor and Vanyar. Furthermore, Finarfin retained the thorn-pronunciation for his own purposes. The "Shibboleth" notes that Galadriel switched to the "s" pronunciation in part because of her animosity toward Feanor. All these life-threatening changes in pronunciation thus symbolized the polarization of Noldorin loyalties. But, more importantly, they underscore the transition between the primitive authority of the Elven chieftains to the autocracy of the Noldorin kings. Feanor was going to have his language his way, and he gathered about him all the people who felt as he did. But because he was such a masterful person, he came to dominate the decisions of his followers. Their transition to almost political automata was completed by their willing participation in the attack on Alqualonde. They may have gone in thinking they were just stealing ships, but when the fighting started getting bloody, none of the Feanorians appear to have stood aside and said, "Wait a minute! What are we doing?"

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