Do Tolkien's elves have pointy ears?

I think we all imagine elves with pointy ears – but do they really have pointy ears? (canonical references please)

Answer

Douglas Anderson wrote (in The Annotated Hobbit, Flies and Spiders (note 6) 1988)

"In his notes on the stem LAS[1] from *lasse = 'leaf' and LAS[2] 'listen' (*lasse = 'ear'), Tolkien noted the possible relationship between the two in that Elven "ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped" than human ones."

Please note, I remembered this from my copy of the Annotated Hobbit, but I happened to find and copy the text from the same link @herzbube used. I just didn't realize it was the same source. I myself think this particular about linguistics trumps every other objection, in particular the one about Quendi and Men being the same species would imply they had similar ears. If Quendi can live forever and still mate with Men, they can very well have pointed ears.

Comments

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