Like any science, Tolkienism uses its own vocabulary. One part of this is the abbreviations, mostly used when referencing to a section in a Tolkien-publication or identifying a quote. This is a short, handy list of common abbreviations.
Books
‘The Hobbit’ ~ H, obviously. There are no other Tolkien-books beginning with ‘h’, so this one is very clear. If you spot H1 or H.I. somewhere, that means: ‘The Hobbit’, Chapter 1 (An Unexpected Party).
‘The Lord of the Rings’ ~ LOTR. ‘L’ is sometimes used, but that causes confusion with the Letters (see below).
‘The Lord of the Rings’ is subdivided in two different ways. First of all, the book is divided in three volumes: ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ (FOTR), ‘The Two Towers’ (TTT) and ‘The Return of the King’ (ROTK). There’s also a division into 6 books – so each volume contains two books.
This gives us endless possibilities:
– LOTR: FOTR, Book 2, Ch. 2
– FOTR, B2, Ch. 2
– LOTR 2, 2
– L.2.II.
The last one is used on this site in the Book Club, and in the Books vs. Movies Section.
‘The Silmarillion’ ~ Silm, Sil or just S.
This one is tricky, because of the way the book is structured: it consists of five larger parts (Ainulindalë, Valaquenta, Quenta Silmarillion, Akallabêth, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age), of which the middle one, the Quenta Silmarillion, is divided into 24 smaller chapters.
Usually a reference looks like this: S.3.24, S.3.XXIV. or S.III.24. This last version is used in CoE’s Book Club.
‘Unfinished Tales’ ~ UT. Not to be confused with BoLT (=’The Book of Lost Tales’, see ‘The History of Middle Earth’).
This book is, much like ‘The Silmarillion’, compiled of several large chunks or books, all of which have been divided into separate stories or chapters. In the case of the ‘Unfinished Tales’, however, these smaller sub-chapters have not been numbered. To clarify which chapter you’re referring to, it suffices to include the first couple of significant words with the number of the book.
Usually, a reference will look like this: UT, II. Of Mîm…
‘The History of Middle-earth’ ~ HoME.
‘The History of Middle-earth’ is a series of twelve books, documenting the different stages of the creation of Middle-earth and the writing of its mythological history. Each book is divided into chapters. So, all very straightforward: HoME 1,II refers to the second chapter of the first book of the series (‘The Book of Lost Tales Part One’).
If you’re referring to the notes that accompany each chapter, it might prove useful to include that: HoME 1,II (notes).
Letters of Tolkien’ ~ L, or Letters (depending on what abbreviation the author uses for ‘The Lord of the Rings’). All the letters are chronologically ordered and numbered accordingly, so a reference will simply look like this: Letters #84 or L, 84.
For Tolkien’s other works, like ‘Farmer Giles of Ham’, there are no commonly used abbreviation.
Other Abbreviations
G/S ~ Gollum/Sméagol. Some fans will prefer using both names to refer to the character, and one name (Gollum, or Sméagol) to refer to a specific side of the character (namely, the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ part; or the corrupted and the original part).
HD ~ Helm’s Deep, the fortress where the Rohirrim fight their battle with the Uruk-hai in ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
ME ~ Middle-earth
MT ~ Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor in the Third Age.
Quen. ~ is short for Quenya, one of Tolkien’s Elven languages. Sometimes you’ll find Q., which is pretty lame because that could also refer to James Bond’s best friend.
Sin. ~ is short for Sindarin, one of Tolkien’s Elven languages.
