Elvish Twins

[Elemmírë]

Which twin is older?

Morgoth's Ring, p212, it is written: "a year passes between the begetting and the birth of an elf-child, so that the days of both are the same or nearly so, and it is the day of begetting that is remembered year by year."

So it seems that begetting is considered the beginning of life instead of birth itself. Biological speaking, identical twins come into existence at the same time, since they come from one egg. So can one twin be technically older than the other?

[Count Comfect]

Well, fraternal twins, clearly, yes. Identical twins, unless they gestate differently than in humans, no. Because they start as one egg, so they get begotten at once.

[Elemmírë]

Exactly.

What's confusing me might be the youngest sons of Fëanor. Their father-names are Pityafinwë and Telufinwë (if I remember right, just had to send back HoME12 for a replacement), which mean "Little Finwë" and "Last Finwë", which would indicate that Telufinwë is considered the youngest.

But how can this be?

[Nurvingiel]

Well, they couldn't both come out at the same time. Maybe "Little Finwe(2 dots)" came out last. ;)
EDIT: Poor Nerdanel! And she had 7 sons! Set the Elven record. :eek:

Both their "regular" Elvish names start with "A" IIRC but I forget what they are. Is this a trend though?

Based on a very limited sample size, we also have Elladan and Elrohir.

[Embladyne]

Their other names are Amras and Amrod. It's because they basically mean the same thing.

[Rían]

Great question, El! Are you avoiding studying? :D (I always came up with lots of interesting things to think about when I was avoiding studying!)

They probably just decided by who came out first, in the case of a biological tie.

I like how they called each other "Ambarussa", as in :

Then Ambarussa went pale with fear. 'Did you not then rouse Ambarussa my brother (whom you call Ambarto)?' he said.

*sends buckets of sympathy to El, who got MR, only to tragically find parts of the Shibboleth missing, and had to send it back! Oh, the agony!*

[Elemmírë]

Great question, El! Are you avoiding studying? :D (I always came up with lots of interesting things to think about when I was avoiding studying!)

Of course! I'm always avoiding studying! I've got a test in half an hour, and look what I'm doing! :p

They probably just decided by who came out first, in the case of a biological tie.

Maybe it was just Fëanor's need for dominance over the rest of the family... Last Finwë indeed. :rolleyes:

I like how they called each other "Ambarussa"

Me too. :) I think I'm beginning to use the Quenya names more than the Sindarin ones. :p

*sends buckets of sympathy to El, who got MR, only to tragically find parts of the Shibboleth missing, and had to send it back! Oh, the agony!*

:mad: :evil: :( I suppose I'll get a new copy... eventually. :( And maybe it'll even be complete... *crosses fingers* :)

[Embladyne]

*sends buckets of sympathy to El, who got MR, only to tragically find parts of the Shibboleth missing, and had to send it back! Oh, the agony!*Yeah, I ordered it for her, and knew she wouldn't mind if I took a quick look at it before my last class of the day, as I would see her after that...and, the page I wanted was missing! I thought I was imagining it. :mad: :mad: :mad:

Isn't it interesting, though, that Nerdanel named the twins by the same name?

[Rían]

Yes, I find that very odd that she gave them the same name, and was ambivilent about which one was called Umbarto ...

One of my favorite bits of trivia in the Shibboleth is the strange and unique characteristic of Aegnor's hair! (I'll let you find it!)