irmin noun "the world, all the regions inhabited by Men" (LT2:343; hardly a valid word in Tolkien's later Quenya)
Quenya
ambar
noun. The World, Earth, (lit.) Habitation, Settlement
Cognates
Derivations
- √MBAR “settle, dwell; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision, settle; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision; dwell, [ᴹ√] inhabit, [ᴱ√] live” ✧ NM/226; PE17/064; PE17/066; PE17/078; PE17/090; PE17/163
- ✶ambar(a) “the settlement, establishment, the world” ✧ NM/228; PE17/104; PE17/105; PE17/124
- √MBAR “settle, dwell; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision, settle; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision; dwell, [ᴹ√] inhabit, [ᴱ√] live” ✧ NM/228; PE17/104; PE17/105; PE17/124
Element in
- Q. Ambarmenië “Way of the World” ✧ NM/226
- ᴺQ. ambarya “worldwide, world-wide, international, global”
- Q. Eämbar “Creation as a Whole”
- Q. et sillumello ter yénion yéni tenn’ ambarmetta “*from this hour, through years of years until the ending of the world” ✧ VT44/36
- Q. merin sa haryalyë alassë nó vanyalyë Ambarello “I hope that you have happiness before you pass from the world” ✧ MS/01
- Q. sinomë maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn’ Ambar-metta “In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world” ✧ LotR/0967; PE17/103; PE17/105; PE22/147
- Q. Tarumbar “King of the World”
Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources √MBAR > ambar [ambar] ✧ NM/226 √MBAR > ambar [ambar] ✧ PE17/064 √MBAR > ambar [ambar] ✧ PE17/066 √MBAR > Ambar [ambar] ✧ PE17/078 √MBAR > ambar [ambar] ✧ PE17/090 ✶ambar- > ambar [ambar] ✧ PE17/104 ✶ambar(ă) > ambar [ambara] > [ambar] ✧ PE17/105 ✶a-mbar- > ambar [ambara] ✧ PE17/124 √MBAR > ambar- [ambara] ✧ PE17/163 Variations
- Imbar ✧ MR/337; MRI/Imbar; WJI/Imbar
- ambar ✧ NM/226; NM/228; PE17/064; PE17/066; PE17/074; PE17/090; PE17/103; PE17/104; PE17/104; PE17/105; PE17/124; PE22/147; VT44/36
- ambar- ✧ PE17/163 (ambar-)
irmin
the world, all the regions inhabited by men
cemi
earth, soil, land
cemi noun "earth, soil, land"; Cémi ("k")"Mother Earth" (LT1:257; the "Qenya" word cemi would correspond to cemen in LotR-style Quenya)
kemen
earth
kemen noun "earth"; see cemen.
mar
earth
mar (1) noun "earth" (world), also "home, dwelling, mansion". Stem mard- (VT46:13, PE17:64), also seen in the ablative Mardello "from earth" (FS); the word is used with a more limited sense in oromardi "high halls" (sg. oromar, PM17:64), referring to the dwellings of Manwë and Varda on Mt. Taniquetil (Nam, RGEO:66). The initial element of Mardorunando (q.v.) may be the genitive mardo (distinguish mardo "dweller"). May be more or less identical to már "home, house, dwelling" (of persons or peoples; in names like Val(i)mar, Vinyamar, Mar-nu-Falmar, Mardil) (SA:bar, VT45:33, VT47:6). Már is however unlikely to have the stem-form mard-; a "Qenya" genitive maren appears in the phrase hon-maren, q.v., suggesting that its stem is mar-. A possible convention could therefore be to use már (mar-) for "home, house" (also when = household, family as in Mardil, q.v.), whereas mar (mard-) is used for for "earth, world". Early "Qenya" has mar (mas-) "dwelling of men, the Earth, -land" (LT1:251); notice that in LotR-style Quenya, a word in -r cannot have a stem-form in -s-.
The word Ambar is probably the most common Quenya word for the “World”. Its more literal meaning is “Habitation” (MR/337; NM/226) or “Settlement” (PE17/163) in the sense that it is the realm in which the children of Eru (Elves and Men) live. A clear description of this notion can be found in notes from late 1960s:
> Ambar was thus “the great settlement”. This may be translated “world” — meaning this Earth as the place (by destiny) inhabited by Elves and Men, the Children of Eru. It thus resembles ἡ οἰκουμένη [Greek = “the inhabited world”], but was not limited either to the parts of Earth actually inhabited, or to those inhabited by any special peoples such as the Elves, or among Men the Numenóreans. The decision, the fixing of the dwelling place, was thought of as proceeding from Eru and was so part of his Umbar [Destiny]. Umbar, so used, might be said to be “the history of Ambar”, so far as already accomplished, and its future so far as already arranged and defined (PE17/163).
This specific note was rejected, but similar descriptions appear elsewhere (NM/226-227). As noted by Tolkien here and elsewhere, the term Ambar was also intertwined with the notion of Destiny (Umbar) as willed by Eru.
Another common term for “world” was Q. Arda, more literally “Realm”, but strictly speaking this referred to the regions under the dominion of Manwë, and so included areas outside of the world such as Aman (after its removal from the world) and the remainder of the Solar System (PE17/105; MR/337; NM/227). Tolkien also sometimes used Q. cemen “earth” for “the Earth” (VT44/34; MR/387), particularly in Q. Kementári “Queen of the Earth” as a name for Yavanna (S/28). But that seems to refer more to livable surface of the world rather than the entire world itself.
Etymology: This word was derived from the root √MBAR “settle, dwell”, with a vocalic augment: ✶a-mbar (PE17/105, 124). It is not the result of a syllabic nasal ✶ṃbar, as that would produce Q. umbar, the Elvish word for fate or destiny (PE17/104).
Conceptual Development: The word ᴹQ. Ambar first appeared in a document labeled ᴹQ. Ambarkanta “The Shape of the World” from the early 1930s (SM/235-240). It appeared as ᴹQ. Ambar “Earth” in The Etymologies of the 1930s, already with the same basic meaning and derivation as given above. A possible precursor is the word ᴱQ. irmin “the inhabited world” from the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, which was similar in form and meaning but derived from a different root ᴱ√IŘI [IÐI] “dwell” (QL/43). There was a variant Imbar of Ambar in Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth from around 1959 (MR/337) which might be a callback to this earlier word.