For about a year now, online discussions about Tolkien's world have been peppered -- in a few places -- with references to an obscure essay called "Osanwe-Kenta". The essay was first published in
Vinyar Tengwar No. 39, the July 1998 issue of the official journal of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship,
a special interest group of the Mythopoeic Society.
"Osanwe-Kenta" ("Enquiry into Communication of Thought") has been regarded as one of the most revealing of the previously unpublished writings of Tolkien to come along in years. I think "Osanwe-Kenta" may now be set aside in favor of a more inteersting text. That is "The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor".
Both essays are important to Tolkien research, and the linguistic aspects are not necessarily primary. One can glean interesting insights about the philosophies and history of Aman's peoples from "Osanwe-Kenta". "Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor" equally provides new information and revelations about Gondor's history and constituent peoples. Given that more people want to know about events in the Third Age than events in Aman's early ages, I think "Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor" will ultimately prove to be the more important work.
Vinyar Tengwar is primarily concerned with linguistic material, of which there remains an immense body of unpublished essays and notes. Tolkien's linguistic musings, however, usually include asides and often whole essays concerning the histories and philosophies of his principle races. The linguistic material is thus of special interest to researchers who study Tolkien's world construction, pseudo-history, and artificial philosophies.
Christopher Tolkien published fragments of the "Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor" essay in
Unfinished Tales. Regrettably,
Vinyar Tengwar also publishes only fragments. Much like the situation with "Narn i Chin Hurin", which was published in pieces in both
Unfinished Tales and
The Silmarillion, we must piece the entire work together. If enough of these lengthy writings are published in two parts like this, it may one day behoove HarperCollins to publish a
Completed Works of J.R.R. Tolkien volume which combines the separated texts. Such a book would be a landmark attempt to provide a coherent representation of something written by Tolkien outside of
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings.
The relevant passages from
Unfinished Tales are to be found in the chapter on the history of Galadriel and Celeborn, specifically in the appendices dealing with Amroth and Nimrodel, and the port of Lond Daer. Some material was also placed in the section "Further notes on the Druedain" in the chapter on the Druedain. That section of
Unfinished Tales also begins with a fragment about the Druedain which Christopher Tolkien lifted from "Of Dwarves and Men", which was mostly published (sans fragment) in
The Peoples of Middle-earth. Most likely, we'll never see the full texts published all together, but we can still dream on occasion.
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