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Post by alqua on Nov 1, 2009 12:48:21 GMT -6
I know I asked a question like this somewhere else before, GoI, I think, but this is a different time period, so yeah...
How would the people of Beor have recorded dates? Would they have just taken from the Sindarin tongue because that eventually became the language they used most often in daily life? If so, how would the Sindar have written down dates? y/m/d like in China, etc... or d/m/y like in most of the world or in USA m/d/y?
EDIT: Were the people of Beor even literate? Did the elves teach them the Cirth of Daeron within the short time of the Seige of Angband? (Some thoughts that came to me after mulling over my question.)
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sanna
Councillor
Eternal Bosom of Hot Love
Posts: 189
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Post by sanna on Nov 1, 2009 15:03:41 GMT -6
I'd like to continue with a question of how a day would have been divided into smaller bits. Would people have had any kinds of clocks or other devices in measuring time? Water clocks? Sundials?
Sunrise-noon-sunset would be the obvious answer but since the days are not the same length throughout the year I would imagine that something more accurate was required.
And into how many bits the day would have been divided? 24 hours like we do or something else completely?
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Post by jael on Nov 2, 2009 9:51:44 GMT -6
If I were you, I'd dodge the question entirely by not being very specific. "In the fall of the year that *** became chief of the ***" or "in the middle of the day." Back then people didn't think down to the hour and minute, or the exact date.
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Post by alqua on Nov 2, 2009 17:33:37 GMT -6
Jael: I may have to go with that. There probably wasn't time even for the Beorans to actually build an advanced culture or learn enough to adapt to their daily life, from the elves.
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Rhapsody
Pretty Good Sneech
Bard of Silver Dreams
Posts: 161
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Post by Rhapsody on Nov 4, 2009 4:37:47 GMT -6
I should be adding to my Nanowrimo word count (probably writing about nearly the same topic as you Alqua)but... Alqua, have you read Arthrabeth Finrod ah Andreth? There is a lot of talk about wisemen and wisewomen and how they preferred to keep lore amongst themselves.
or
Of special interest for you, note 9 from the chapter:
After the war of wrath, not many of the House of Hador were left (if not none), this somehow tells me that indeed there must have been recordings from the houses that made it to Numenor. Oral tradition can only get you that far. Since Finrod took pleasure in teaching the edain things and given his own personal thirst for knowledge, I wouldn't be surprised if Felagund had a hand in that.
Besides spending lots of time on mapping the house of Boromir, I didn't paid that much time on what wisemen and wisewoman actually do, for me it feels that Tolkien went for a mix of oral and written tradition. However going back to your dates question, they did record birthdates, dates that they became lord of the house and the year of death. For example Boron (Boromir's father) died Yule, 407 (Finrod visited Andreth in 408, in the new year).
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