I know that Khuzdul was never developed into a full language but I was wondering if anyone here could help come up with a Dwarven name for an old Dwarven settlement that I've added to my game.

The common name of the settlement is Glisterhold.

Anyone come up with something that sounds right (preferably something I can pronounce ).

I think gathol might be the word for fortress which is kind of the same as hold.

Thanks in advance.

Poosticks7,
As you mention, Khuzdul (the secret language of the Dwarfs) is not fully revealed by Tolkien anywhere in his writings. So the vast majority of the language has been crafted by other interested parties (Neo-Khuzdul). While there appears to be articles based on similar real-world language examples, all such efforts are unofficial at best. Tolkien provided so few words, grammar, and structure examples that unlike the Elvish tongues, the Khuzdul language cannot be extrapolated out of the source material very effectively.

If you want to make use of the Dwarven language, I would suggest starting with the Wikipedia article for Khuzdul (which I learned includes a sign language) and then exploring through your favorite search engine (mix and match keywords: Khuzdul, Dwarf, Dwarvish, Language, Dictionary, Lexicon, Translate, etc) being careful to try and differentiate RPG Dwarvish from Tolkien's language. Not being a linguist myself I cannot recommend any particular article. However, the Ardalambion website seems to be a favored linguistic comparison source to all of Tolkien's languages.

No matter what Dwarvish lexicon you find and end up using, including anything you may learn from these sources in future projects is awkward. Explanation and citation of the source would be required to prevent confusion (ie, what is created by Tolkien and what has been added by others).

Trotter posted a link a month ago in the following topic: Dwarrow Scholar & Khuzdul Lessons, TOR Resource for Dwarven Role-playing. However, I had trouble following that link.

I hope this is of help and not just telling you what you already know. (But please do excuse some of the extra explanation as it is meant more for other interested parties who might be less knowledgeable.)

Howdy!

I'm not sure what happened to the other link, but here ya go!

The Dwarrow Scholar

Thanks for the help guys.

After reading around a bit I think I'm going to have to just 'make it up'

Liberal use of K's and Z's

Do any of the Neo-Khuzdul websites offer partial dictionaries? It might be worthwhile to start from there. Mix and match as needed. Particularly if it is just for personal use. (Although I would still suggest keeping record of sources, just in case.)


I wonder if Khuzdul might, in general, be like the Inuit (I think?) language with like 30 words for snow. Except it would probably be 30 each for shiny, sparkly, luster (oops! it's an English game: lustre), metallic, degree of polish/buffing...

Then of course you add all those metal and gem working terms. And maybe a bit for interesting geological samples. Probably some more for different types of collections. Beard Braiding - with and without beads and other extraneous doodads, maybe a couple dozen for obsessing over work (so few female dwarves and all), fractures and faulting in stone... that Khuzdul dictionary is getting huge!

Although, I found one list of words on a forum that tried to state that Night and Dark were interchangeable terms in Khuzdul. I would imagine, to any sentient species primarily living underground, their is a substantial difference in the lighting perceived and the language to reflect degrees of visibility due to lighting conditions.

Yep, Khuzdul is a tough one for which to come up with authentic sounding words...
Depending on the type of Dwarven Hold your GlisterHold is, you may be able to use some of the folllowing Tolkien-derived options:
gathol = Fortress (as you mention)
gund = underground hall
tumun = a delved complex (series of connected 'Gunds')
kheled = glass (in case your Hold is glassy-glistening)
kibil = silver
zigil = silvery (colour)

I can't put my finger on a Khuzdul word specifically meaning 'glister' or 'glistening'....
Having read several references that for Khuzdul Tolkien referred mostly to Hebrew & Arabic language structures - I tend to use those when I'm stuck.
An Arabic word I came across for 'glistening' sounded like 'albaryoko' in English.
A Hebrew word I found sounded like 'notzetz' (adjective).

Perhaps a dwarvish-sounding name for your structure could be:
Albariyak-Gathol (Albariyagathol?)
Tumun-Albaryokar?
Notzetzigathol?
Tumunotzetz?

The site I tend to use for hebrew is:
http://www.doitinhebrew.com/Translate/

Have fun!

That is pretty interesting CheeseWyrm - and you might have made Templar's day with those name samples. They sound "authentic" to Khuzdul at least.

A few of the words I saw in other lists did not sound appropriate. They seemed made-up. And sometimes stretched, covering too many word choices (one I recall was supposed to replace: of, by, in, at... and I think I've forgotten 2 or 3 other options).

It's just a thought, but Gimli moved to the Glistening Caves after the War of the Ring, and it's possible Tolkien made a dwarven name for it then. I have no idea if this is the case, but I thought I'd share anyway

Aye Beleg, I pondered The Glittering Caves also, prior to my last post.
I know the caves are also called Aglarond (Sindarin) but I looked high & low for a Tolkien reference in Khuzdul for them .... the only other name I've found is Glaemscrafu (Rohirric). It seems that Tolkien hasn't given us a Dwarvish term for 'glittering' or 'glistening'. D'oh!

Thanks for the help everyone (espescially CheeseWyrm - you da Wyrm).

I'm leaning towards Albariyak-Gathol. I can say that one .

This all came about from one of my players (not too big on lore) writing a background for his dwarf and me 'Tolkiening' it up a bit. I got a bit carried away and did a thousand years of history for his family and ancient hold.

I'm quite pleased with what I came up with and I'm planning to have his Uncle tell the family history to the other players in tonight's game.

I don't know about carried away, the life expectancy of dwarves is about 200-ish years in TOR. Since marriage is more of an exception, rather than the norm among dwarves, you wouldn't have the human-centric standard of short generations (average of ~25 years). My guess would be a dwarven generation is probably in the ~100 years area at least since that is when adventurous dwarves return (and would thereafter be willing to "settle down"). I would guess it is a bit later than that as any "old flames" renew acquaintance and determine if they're still interested, begin formally courting, get the family squabbling figured out and finally manage to have a wedding.

So you should have anywhere from 5-10 previous generations of history for his family, including lots of dead branches for unmarried bachelors (keeping in mind the approximate 3m:1f birth ratio), assuming any of them are relevant to the PC's story.

(BTW, I could be wrong on the timing, by all means double check the Tolkien Timeline to confirm. TOR does say about 200 years (in char gen). I'm not a Dwarf fanatic.)