The other day there was an exchange on the Conlang mailing list about hidden references to Tolkien in people’s conlangs.
Garth Wallace wrote:
Daniel Bowman wrote: » For example, Samadurian actually comes » from mangling “cellar door”, > Is that a hidden reference to Tolkien? ;-)
Yes indeed! That’s the only relation, though; the milieu it’s intended for is very un-Tolkeinesque.
To which I replied:
mercurii dies ‘Wednesday’ used to be melcordí in Rhodrese, which of course was an oblique reference to Tolkien (and one which Tolkien would perhaps not have liked very much!). In the current version of the lang the form is meocordí, and thus not that obvious anymore, if you aren’t aware of the change of non-prevocalic /l/ to /w/.
Ah, creative help! The mention of **melcordí gave me a flash of inspiration today how to explain that Rhodanu becomes Rhuodre rather than **Rhuorn or **Rhuorre and Rhodanense > rhodray rather than **rhornay or **rhorray, and so be able to keep the current name of the Rhodrese language without introducing an exception or inconsistencies or implausibilities in the historical phonology.