Q: What Is the Meaning of ‘Gamil Zirak’?
ANSWER: To the best of my knowledge there is no confirmed, authoritative translation of the name. The most common translation I have found is “Old Spike”, but the “Old” is based on the full reference, Gamil Zirak the Old. The logic behind assuming that “the Old” gives us “Gamil” = “old” escapes me. I am not disagreeing with the linguists; I just don’t know enough about these matters to explain why that must be so.
Helge Fauskanger makes no attempt to parse the name, but I don’t know how complete and up-to-date that article is.
Various arguments based on nicknames and Old English have been put forward. However, those who say that “Dwarves did not reveal their true names” are drawing on a context that is only valid for Dwarves of the Third Age (see below). Any Khuzdul name from the First Age is most likely a “true name”.
Given that Tolkien modeled Khuzdul on Hebrew and/or other Semitic languages I seriously doubt that Khuzdul Gamil is related to Old English Gamol (“old”).
There is an Arabic name, Gamil (“handsome”), which is a variant of Jamil (“beautiful”). I don’t know if anyone has tried to construct an argument for Tolkien to use Arabic as a source for any of his Khuzdul words and names.
The most significant thing I have noticed about the name is that it uses the consonantal root of G-M-L and inserts vowels A-I. There is only one other Khuzdul word I have found that is similar to this, Gabil (usually translated as “great”). According to Fauskanger’s article, the three consonants form a radical, a “base”, for the word, and all of its derivations are made by inserting vowels between the consonants.
There are rules that govern when and how vowels would be inserted and since Khuzdul is an incomplete language with only a very small number of extant words, linguists are forced to compare this constructed language to natural languages.
Tolkien probably based Khuzdul on Adunaic, an older (within terms of his literary work) “Mannish” language that in turn seems to have been influenced by Indo-European and Hebrew; but the history of Tolkien’s constructed languages is very complex and I could easily be misconstruing some of the details.
Gamil Zirak the Old was a Dwarf, probably living in Nogrod, who was considered a master smith of the highest skill. His only named student was Telchar of Nogrod, who made the knife Angrist (that Beren took off of Celegorm), the sword Narsil (which Elendil inherited and broke when Sauron mortally wounded him), and the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin.
Telchar made the Dragon-helm for Azaghâl, who died in First Age year of the Sun 473 in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Azaghâl gave the Dragon-helm to Maedhros, who gave it to Fingon. Fingon gave the helm to Hador Lórindol in First Age year 423 when he made Hador lord of Dor-lómin.
We don’t know when Telchar lived, except that he made the Dragon-helm sometime before FA 423. Gamil Zirak, presumably, lived well before that time and may even have been dead by then.
To further complicate analysis of Gamil Zirak’s name, Telchar is almost certainly not Khuzdul, according to nearly all sources (but I’m not sure if any Tolkien material supports that analysis). Assuming Telchar to be Sindarin in form, it is almost certainly a nickname, but probably rather one given by the Elves instead of assumed/taken by the Dwarf himself. Then again, what if the ch in “Telchar” is just a “mid-word variation” on initial kh in words like “Khuzdul” and “Khazad”? The problem with such a hypothesis, I think, is that you’re still left with four consonants: T-L-KH/CH/-R, and this would be the only example of a four-consonant Khuzdul word (other than compounds). Quadrilaterals do exist in Hebrew but they are rare and, I think, confined to verb forms. And their use in Hebrew does not confirm their inclusion in Khuzdul.
It is difficult to gauge the extent to which Tolkien drew upon Hebrew as a source for his literary languages. The diacritical marks he devised to denote vowels in Tengwar resemble the so-called neqqudot vowel marks developed by Hebrew Masoretic scholars from the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem (Circa. 400-1000 CE). The Masoretes organized and preserved ancient Hebrew texts. Their work has strongly influenced (and formed the basis of) many translations of the Hebrew Bible through the centuries. Only in recent decades, as more ancient manuscripts have been brought to light, has the influence of Masoretic texts begun to decline in Biblical scholarship.
As unlikely as I feel that Gamil means “old” or “venerable”, I’m in no position to offer a convincing argument for any particular meaning. The name Zirak has been alternately translated as “silver” or “spike” (based on Zirak-zigil, the Khuzdul name for Celebdil (tr. “silvertine”), one of the three peaks of Khazad-dûm. Recent scholarship has finally settled (I think) on translating Zirak as “spike”, although it could also mean “peak” or “(sharp) point”. I find it unhelpful to limit translation to “tine”, which is not a very common word in English. We most often use it in reference to the sharp-pointed prongs on forks, for example.
The etymology of spike has been extended back to a reconstructed proto-IndoEuropean word that may mean “sharp point”, so thinking of Zirak in terms of “(sharp) point” or “(jagged) peak” may be more informative. Whether there is any significance to the similar vowel-pattern between Gamil and Gabil, I don’t know, but both words appear to be used (as best as modern scholars can argue) as adjectives. Hence, the argument for Gamil (“old”) is still weakly supported by comparison with Gabil.
The only other Khuzdul name from that time frame and locality is that of Azaghâl, which some people have proposed may mean “warrior” (which is a perfectly fine personal name in Tolkienien linguistics). This name sheds no light on how to interpret Gamil and it actually has its own problems.
On the “Outer” versus “True” names of Dwarves
The idea that Dwarves never revealed their true names to anyone is derived from a couple of texts that have been misinterpreted (or, rather, taken out of context). The fullest explanation of this tradition is provided in The Peoples of Middle-earth in an early version of what became “Appendix F: Of Languages” in The Lord of the Rings:
More remarkable it may be thought that the Common Speech had also been learned by other races, Dwarves, Orcs, and even Trolls. The case of the Dwarves can, however, be easily understood. At this time they had no longer in the west-lands any great cities or delvings where many lived together. For the most part they were scattered, living in small groups among other folk, often wandering, seldom staying long in any place, until, as is told in the beginning of the Red Book, their old halls under the Lonely Mountain were regained and the Dragon was slain. They had therefore of necessity long used the Common Speech in their dealings with other folk, even with Elves.’ Not that Dwarves were ever eager to teach their own tongue to others. They were a secretive people, and they kept their own speech to themselves, using it only when no strangers were near. Indeed they even gave themselves ‘outer’ names, either in the Westron or in the languages of Men among whom they dwelt, but had also ‘inner’ and secret names in their own tongue which they did not reveal. So it was that the northern Dwarves, the people of Thorin and Dain, had names drawn from the northern language of the Men of Dale, and their secret names are not known to us. For that reason little is known of Dwarfspeech at this period, save for a few names of mines and meres and mountains.
In the published Lord of the Rings Tolkien wrote:
Gimli’s own name, however, and the names of all his kin, are of Northern (Mannish) origin. Their own secret and ‘inner’ names, their true names, the Dwarves have never revealed to any one of alien race. Not even on their tombs do they inscribe them.
The problem with using this passage to justify classifying Gamil Zirak and Azaghâl as nicknames is that J.R.R. Tolkien had not yet published them. Only Telchar is mentioned in the LoTR text. So Tolkien had not yet crossed the bridge of deciding what these two other names were for the sake of publication; in the end he might have changed them, or gone back and removed that final passage from The Lord of the Rings.
Either way, one cannot definitively say that Gamil Zirak and Azaghâl were nicknames; nor is there even any evidence to support the point of view that they are probably nicknames.
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