S. tol(l) n. “island, (high steep-sided) isle” (Category: Isle, Island)
The most common Sindarin word for “island”, strictly speaking only for islands with sheer sides as opposed to [N.] caer for flat islands. It was a derivative of the root √TOL “stick up or out, stand up (out and above neighboring things)” (VT47/10-11). In most names it appears as tol, probably as a semi-prefix, but as an independent word it is probably toll (Ety/TOL), especially given its Quenya cognate Q. tollë (VT47/13, 28).
Conceptual Development: This word dates all the way back to the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s where it appeared as G. tol “an isle (with high steep coasts)” (GL/71), probably already a derivative of the root ᴱ√TOLO as suggested by Christopher Tolkien (LT1A/Tol Eressëa; QL/94). In Early Noldorin Word-lists of the 1920s it appeared as ᴱN. dol “island” (PE13/142), but that seems to have been a transient idea since it was N. toll “island” in The Etymologies of the 1930, again derived from the root ᴹ√TOL², more specifically from the primitive form ᴹ✶tollo (Ety/TOL²). The form tol appeared regularly in Tolkien’s later writings, and in several places he emphasized that it was for islands with steep sides (RC/333; VT47/28).
References ✧ RC/333; SA/tol; UT/54; VT47/13, 28
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| √TOL > Tol | [tol] | ✧ VT47/13 |
N. toll n. “island, isle” (Category: Isle, Island)
References ✧ Ety/TOL²; LR/284, 305, 407; TI/268, 345; WR/326
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| tyll | plural | ✧ Ety/TOL² |
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| ᴹ✶tollo > toll | [tollo] > [toll] | ✧ Ety/TOL² |
| ᴹ✶tollo > tyll | [tolli] > [tulli] > [tylli] > [tyll] | ✧ Ety/TOL² |
ᴱN. dol n. “island” (Category: Isle, Island)
Reference ✧ PE13/142 ✧ “island”
G. tol n. “isle (with high steep coast)” (Category: Isle, Island)
References ✧ GL/17, 71; LT1A/Tol Eressëa; PE13/93
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| Dol | soft-mutation; t-mutation | ✧ PE13/93 |
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