Q: Should Glamdring Have Been Named in Sindarin or Quenya?
ANSWER: So far as I can determine, J.R.R. Tolkien did not devise a Quenya equivalent for the Elvish name Glamdring, which has been translated as “foe+hammer”. Glam is a shortened form of Glamhoth, which has been translated as “din (noisy, yelling) horde”. The sword Glamdring is said by Elrond to have been the weapon of the King of Gondolin. There was only one king in Gondolin: Turgon.
The original name Turgon devised for his city was Ondolindë (which The Silmarillion translates as “the Rock of the Music of Water”); however, before Turgon led his people of mixed Noldorin and Sindarin heritage from Nevrast by the sea to the hidden valley where they built their city, it was given the Sindarin name Gondolin (“the Hidden Rock”) — perhaps because of Thingol’s edict that Quenya should not be spoken or responded to by any of the Sindar.
This edict took place many years before Turgon sent his people to live in the secret valley, and so The Silmarillion says that the Sindar refused to use Quenya and the Noldor for the most part adopted it in their everyday speech. Turgon continued to used Quenya in his private household but publicly he used Sindarin. Hence, the people of Gondolin normally spoke in Sindarin as well.
Furthermore, because Orcs were indigenous to Endor and were not found in Aman there was little need of a Quenya name for them (the Urco/Urqui name was only published in Parma Eldalamberon XVII in 2007). Hence, though some Quenya words might be adapted to create a name similar to Glamdring (the oft-cited Sancossi for “Glamhoth” is NOT a Quenya word) there is nothing in J.R.R. Tolkien’s published stories that indicates a similar construction would have been devised in the relatively short timeframe the exiled Noldor were using Quenya in Middle-earth.
Hence, it seems likely that Glamdring would not have been forged until sometime after the Edict of Thingol. However, this is a completely speculative extrapolation. I think it unlikely that Tolkien would have devoted much thought to the history of Glamdring (or Orcrist) even though John Rateliff has shown conclusively that The Hobbit was originally intended to be part of the world of the 1930s (pre-LoTR/Quenya) Silmarillion. Therefore, the facts of the swords’ history as established in the various published editions of The Hobbit remain sparse and insufficient to determine when or why the sword was made.
One could extrapolate from Elrond’s vague remark about “the goblin wars” that Turgon might not have had the sword forged until the time of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad or later, but that would still be a speculative conclusion.
See also:
- Should the Sword Sting Have an Inscription?
- How Could the Great Goblin Recognize Glamdring and Orcrist?
- How Did Glamdring, Orcrist, and Sting End up in the Trollshaws?
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