Edain Or Not Edain

[Lomelinde]

Juste une petite citation des notes de Tolkien sur le SdA (PE17 p. 18 ) au hasard de mes lectures :

I 245. “‘The Dúnadan,’ said Bilbo. ‘He is often called that here. But I thought you knew enough Elvish at least to know dún-adan: Man of the West, Númenorean.”

S Dúnadan, cf. also I 222, above; I 249. The name Atan, pl. atani was already given in Quenya in Valinor to the “Second Kindred” whom the Eldar learned were to appear (or had appeared) in Endor. It meant “the Second.” The Sindar had no name for Men, until they arrived in Beleriand and were first found by Finrod. They borrowed the Q atan and gave it Sindarin form adan. For a long time this word therefore referred only to the three “houses” or kindreds of the “Elf-friends” or Elendili, and always tended to refer primarily to them. But when the Eldar became aware of other kinds of Men (more or less parallel to their own division into Eldar and Avari) they distinguished the Elendili as Núnatani, Dúnedain (pl. of Dún-adan) “western men”.* Q andū, nū- “going down, setting (of sun), west,” nūme, nūmen ‘the West’, núna, andúna ‘western’; S annûn, dûn ‘west’. [Cf. Q orrō, hrō- “uprising, sunrise, east”; hróme(n), the East; hrōna, orrōna ‘eastern’; S amrûn, rhûn ‘east’. Also Q for-, right-hand, north, in formen, the North; forna, northern; S for, forn, forod, Q hyar- ‘left-hand, south’ in hyarmen ‘the South’, hyarna ‘southern’; S har-, harn, harad.] Other men were called Hrónatani, rhúnedain; but more commonly Hrávani (S Rhovain)“Wild-men, Savages.” All Men were also called hildi “the Followers” [√KHIL- “follow”]; and the Dúnedain were then distinguished as tarhildi (“High-men, the Noble followers”).
* The word adûn ‘west’ in the language of “the Folk of Hador” (from which Númenorean was later in the main derived) was a loan from Eldarin speech. The Elendili thus called themselves Adûnâim “westerners.”

[referred (primarily) to >> referred only to; hildor >> hildi. Cf. Atani ‘the Second People, Men’ Silm. 103, 143; EQS andúnë ‘sunset, west’; Letters, no. 211, p. 282; adūn ‘west’, Adūnāim ‘Men of Westernesse’, Sauron Defeated (SD), ed. Christopher Tolkien, 1992, pp. 240, 312; Atani, N Edain ‘Western Men or Fathers of Men’, MR 7; Atani ‘the Second Folk’, Núnatani ‘Western Men’, WJ 31, 386; N Dúnedein >> Dúnedain ‘the Númenóreans’, Atanatári >> Atanni >> Atani PM 31, 54.]