Atalantë

An Elvish name for Númenor after the Downfall, variously translated as 'the Falling', 'the Ruin' or simply 'Downfall'. It is essentially equivalent to Akallabêth, the Adûnaic name used by the Exiles of Númenor themselves, which meant 'the Downfallen'.

The name Atalantë is evidently similar to Atlantis, and the connection is unmistakable: each referred to a mighty, highly advanced civilisation lost under the waves of the great ocean (and indeed Tolkien's Great Sea is geographically equivalent to the modern Atlantic).

Though the connection between the two cannot be ignored, Tolkien is not explicit about the nature of that connection. Perhaps the simplest explanation would be that the Atlantis legend was intended to reflect a faint folk memory of the story of Númenor and its Downfall, though perhaps Tolkien did not mean to imply such an explicit and literal relation between the two stories.

One thing that is clear is that the name Atalantë was intended to be the original form, derived from an Elvish word-stem talat that meant 'slipping, sliding, falling down' (ibid). The a- prefix in this context means 'complete', so the entire name means 'place that has fallen completely'. If this is the ultimate derivation, then it seems to follow that - in Tolkien's world - it must be the source of our own word Atlantis. Following this logic, the Atlantic Ocean would actually take its name originally from Elvish.³