Sil apportioned by word%

[Dân o Nandor on Anduin]

Voronwë requested that I post and edit this follow-up to Arda Reconstructed.

Using his work as a guide, I’ve apportioned the chapter-by-chapter wordcount of the published Sil between the various JRRT texts & CT’s edits/manipulations/inventions (so far for 9 chapters, more to come ASAP)…

Here’s how: favouring CT, I neglected to consider any text deletions, or changes to word order, or punctuation/capitalization alterations, or conjunctions etc, maintained within a new structure - just separate words brought into Tolkien’s text (tense/wordform/pronoun alterations, counting as half-words), thus allowing CT quite a liberal use of JRRT’s texts before I even begin to consider them to be altered. Several things will tend to naturally offset this, including CT’s honest attempts at name consistency, which I count at least as half-word alterations when JRRT’s texts fail to yield the specific name-change therein (ie. CT’s regrets using Aldaron for Oromë). Finally, I round to a 0.5% significant digit comfort range, thus I'm fairly confident that these numbers reveal as accurate a representation of the JRRT/CT divide as possible.


Ainulindalë: 97% JRRT
- AinulindalëC/D c.1949-50 parag1-28

Valaquenta: 97%* JRRT
- Valaquenta2 c.1958 parag1-10b

Ch.1 Of the Beginning of Days: 95.5% JRRT
55% AinulindalëC/D c.1949-50 parag31-40
27% AnnalsOfAmanTS c.1958 parag13-31
13.5% LaterQuenta/LQ2 c.1951-58 parag12-17

Ch.2 Of Aulë and Yavanna: 91%** JRRT
32.5% LaterQuenta1.nt [OfAulë&Dwarves] c.1952
9.5% QuentaSil.rev [ConcerningDwarves] c.1951 parag2-3
49% OtherWritings [OfEnts&Eagles] c.1959

Ch.3 Of the Coming of the Elves: 90% JRRT
47.5% AnnalsOfAmanTS c.1958 parag30-64
42.5% LaterQuenta/LQ2 c.1951-58 parag12,18-29

Ch.4 Of Thingol and Melian: 88% JRRT
76% LaterQuenta/LQ2 c.1951-58 parag31-33
12% AnnalsOfAmanTS c.1958 parag64,74

Ch.5 Of Eldamar: 90% JRRT
60% LaterQuenta/LQ2 c.1951-58 parag16,17,34-45
23% AnnalsOfAmanTS c.1958 parag66-75
7% TheGreyAnnals c.1958 parag11,15

Ch.6 Of Fëanor: 91% JRRT
45% LaterQuenta/LQ2 c.1951-58 parag46-49
40.5% Finwë&Miriel1/Laws&CustomsA/FM4 parag1-28
5.5% AnnalsOfAmanTS c.1958 parag91-92

Ch.22 Of the Ruin of Doriath: 31.5%*** JRRT
27.5% WanderingsOfHurin c.195?
2.5% QuentaNoldorinwa c.1930 Ch.14
1.5% TaleOfYearsC/D1/D2 c.195?

*conjecture, as Vq2 not given by CT [40% traceable to JRRT; 0.5% confirmed as CT; the other 59.5% is multiplied by 0.962 – an average of the 2 adjacent chapters].

**some calculated estimation [only 1st parag of OfAulë&Dwarves given, yielding 0.845 JRRT, then factored for the entire text section; little else textually is given, but CT lists the obvious changes, including some he states as used throughout (ie. “‘you may’ to ‘thou mayst’”, etc), the rest I counted liberally as all JRRT]

***based on Voronwë's thorough examination of JRRT writings lending text to CT's final product - thus loosely based ideas which fail to be textually traceable (ie. Letter #247, and some of the Tale of Years) weren't counted, but anything remotely represented in CT's text was (and I was very liberal here!).


Comments are welcome, although I think the answers to V's question I came across - "I wonder if anyone else is finding this even remotely interesting; I am finding it intensely fascinating. Am I really that unique?" - are yes and no not unique!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks for posting this, dna.

I think you are approaching this the right way. Trying to include omissions in particular would be virtually impossible, because there was so much cutting and pasting from different texts. And trying to include punctuation and capitalization changes would be just too picky.

Very interesting stuff. I'll be interested in seeing what you are continued findings are (particularly for Chapter 22 ).

Edited to fix a bizarrely placed question mark.

[Primula Baggins]

That's impressive work, dna.

Voronwë, should this be in the Shibboleth forum?

[Inanna]

dna, what does the % exactly measure?

Its very important to define constructs and measures when stating findings

[Dân o Nandor on Anduin]

words, strictly words... (check my "Here's how:" section)

I could give you the raw numbers, but that would be pointless. Percentages portray a better picture, no?

(Voronwë, we could lay bets on those later chapters... )

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Just bumping this thread because I noticed that dna revised the first post.

dna, could you give us a heads up when you edit the first post? The "new post" signal doesn't light up when a post is just edited, nor does the thread move to the top of the forum, so there isn't any way for us to know that you have edited the first post (I happened to see a note in "Who is Online" that you were making a post, and I guessed that you might be editing your post here).

So far, the pattern is holding steady of the percentage getting lower and lower from chapter to chapter. I doubt that will continue quite so uniformly through the whole work, but it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

I'm betting that it will reach a nadir of about 20% in Chapter 22.

[Dân o Nandor on Anduin]

Okay, Voronwë, a "heads-up" tally since I'm at the quarter-mark (chapter-wise, if not page-wise)...

First seven chapters: 19891 total words

93.5% JRRT (18609.5 words)

28.5% Ainulindalë C/D (5669.5 words)
16% Valaquenta / VQ2 (3228 words)
5% Of the Ents & the Eagles (958.5 words)
25% Later Quenta / LQ2 / notes (5026 words)
18% Annals Of Aman (3549 words)
1% Grey Annals (178.5 words)

6.5% Christopher Tolkien / Guy Kay (1281.5 words)


Good call on doubting the pattern, as Ch.5 bounces back up to 90% JRRT. And I'll say 33% JRRT for the Ruin of Doriath, just to give you a sporting chance ;-)

[Athrabeth]

dna......I'm finding this very interesting. After over two years of discussion on the Sil (in a meandering, Entish sort of way), it has been wonderfully illuminating to first read Voronwë's reconstruction and now have the opportunity to share in your on-going analysis.

Thank-you.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And I'll say 33% JRRT for the Ruin of Doriath, just to give you a sporting chance ;-)

Actually, taking another look at it, I do thinkg that you are closer (and that it will probably be even a little higher then that). There is quite a bit taken from parts of The Wandering of Húrin, and some from the Quenta Noldorinwa.

But that is done the road quite a way. I don't mean to rush you.

[Dân o Nandor on Anduin]

I just had to skip ahead to Chapter 22!

(And nothing was manipulated to win the bet! )

[Voronwë the Faithful]

31.5%, eh? You were pretty darn close. To be fair, CT really didn't have much to work with for this part of the story.

Did you count the part of Melian's dialogue that was taken from the narrative of The Wandering of Húrin as JRRT or CT?

[Dân o Nandor on Anduin]

JRRT!

I thought about it, but figured a Maia speaking those words was close enough to an undislosed narrator writing them. Bottom line is that, according to my strict counting procedures, they were JRRT's words, not CT's. Like I said, I was very liberal towards CT!

And don't go defending him on me, he had LOTS to work with! See my post in the Ch.22 thread...