-lī

suffix. many

li

root. many

This root was connected to words for “many” throughout Tolkien’s life. In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s it appeared as ᴱ√LĪ, with variant ᴱ√ILI “many” and extended form ᴱ√LIYA (LI + ya) “unite many as one” with derivatives like ᴱQ. lia- “entwine” and ᴱQ. liante “tendril” (QL/42, 53). In later writings there is no sign of the inversion √IL “many” (later √IL meant “all”), whereas ᴱ√LIYA seems to have shifted to unrelated ᴹ√SLIG with derivatives like ᴹQ. lia “fine thread, spider filament” and ᴹQ. liante “spider” (Ety/SLIG).

The base root ᴹ√LI “many” did reappear in The Etymologies of the 1930s, however (Ety/LI), and √LI “many” appeared again in etymological notes from the late 1960s (VT48/25). The long-standing connection between this root and the Quenya (partitive) plural suffixes indicates its stability in Tolkien’s mind.

mā-limi

noun. wrist, (lit.) hand-link

airō

noun. ocean

am

root. mother

For most of Tolkien’s life, the Primitive Elvish root for “mother” was √AM. This began with the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, where Tolkien gave the root as ᴱ√AMA (QL/30). In The Etymologies of the 1930s it was ᴹ√AM with derivatives ᴹQ. amil and (archaic) N. emil “mother” (Ety/AM¹). In Quenya prayers of the 1950s, the word for mother was Q. Amille. In the last few years of his life, however, Tolkien toyed with the notion of changing this root to √EM. In notes associated with Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi written in the late 1960s, Tolkien first gave the root as am, but then wrote em next to it with a question mark, along with several new em-derivatives (VT48/19 note #16). The Q. affectionate word emme for “mommy” appeared in the main article, indicating Tolkien did, in fact, adopt this new root, at least for some period of time.

Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Quenya writing, I personally prefer to ignore this late change to the root for “mother” and stick with the √AM-forms Tolkien used for most of his life. However, the √AM-forms were less stable in the Sindarin branch of the languages, so I’d use √EM-forms like S. emel and emig, and would assume √AM and √EM were variants of the root, as they were on VT48/19 (see above).

amal

noun. mother

amas

noun. mother

amma

noun. mother

amme

noun. mother

an

preposition. to

anār

noun. Sun

at-kwet

verb. answer

aññala

noun. mirror

barathī

noun. queen

em

root. mother

emel

noun. mother

emer

noun. mother

etkat-

verb. to form, (lit.) out-shape, to form, [ᴹ✶] fashion, [✶] (lit.) out-shape

gō

preposition. from

kalat

noun. light

kalinā

adjective. bright

kayan

root. ten

keme

noun. earth

kemen

noun. earth

kway

root. ten

A root Tolkien introduced in the late 1960s as the basis for his latest Elvish word for “ten”: Q. quëan/quain, S. pae, T. pai(n) (VT42/24; VT48/6). It was an extension of √KWA “complete” as in “a complete set of (10) fingers”. Prior this late change, the usual word for “ten” was ᴹQ. kainen (along with other variants beginning with kai- or kea-) from the root ᴹ√KAYAN or ᴹ√KAYAR as it appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s (Ety/KAYAN). This basis for “ten” dates back to the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s (PE14/49, PE14/82). Tolkien was still considering √KAYAN for “10” in the late 1960s before replacing it with √KWAY(AM) (VT48/12).

labmē

noun. *language

lenep

root. five

lepem

root. five

lepen

root. five

√LEPEN was the most common root for “five” in Tolkien’s writings, but he explored a variety of other options. Its earliest iteration appeared in the Qenya and Gnomish lexicons as ᴱ√LEH (QL/52) or ᴱ√LEF “half” (GL/53), so I think the actual early form was ✱ᴱ√LEǶE [lexʷe]. At this early stage it had derivatives with the meanings “five”, “ten”, and “half”, but in later writings “ten” became ᴹ√KAYAN >> √KWAY(AM) and “half” became √PER.

In The Etymologies of the 1930s the root appeared as ᴹ√LEPEN “five” with variant ᴹ√LEPEK, but ᴹ√LEPEK had no derivatives (Ety/LEP). √LEPEN appeared again in a list of numbers from the late 1950s or early 1960s beside a variant √LENEP; again the variant had no clear derivatives (PE17/95). √LEPEN reappeared in numeric discussions from the late 1960s (VT42/24; VT47/10). In these late discussions Tolkien said that “five” most likely originally from ✱lepem as an ancient plural of √LEP, but it seems this became √LEPEN already in Common Eldarin (CE), given that the Sindarin word for “five” remained S. leben; Tolkien gave varying explanations for this CE sound change, either as dissimilation from p (VT47/26 note 2) or with final -m > -n being the regular phonetic development (VT47/24).

lepene

noun. five

mai

adverb. well

min(i)kewē̆

cardinal. eleven, (lit.) fresh one

morokō

noun. bear

nar

root. fire, fire, [ᴹ√] flame

A root for “fire” first appearing as ᴹ√NAR “flame, fire” in The Etymologies of the 1930s along with derivatives like ᴹQ. nár(e)/N. naur “flame” (Ety/NAR¹). There was also an augmented variant ᴹ√ANÁR that served as the basis for “Sun” words: ᴹQ. Anar and N. Anor (Ety/ANÁR). These roots and the various derivatives continued to appear in Tolkien’s later writings in the 1950s and 60s (PE17/38; Let/425), and in one place Tolkien specified that nār- was “fire as an element” as opposed to √RUYU for an actual blaze.

ndē̆r

noun. man

nek

root. narrow, narrow; *angular, sharp

A root appearing in notes on words and phrases from The Lord of the Rings from the late 1950s or early 1960s, serving mainly as the basis for S. naith “angle” (PE17/55). It was also mentioned in a discussion of the death of Isildur at the Gladden Fields, again as the basis for S. naith among other words, where the root √NEK was glossed “narrow” (UT/281-2, note #16). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, N. naith was derived from ᴹ√SNAS or ᴹ√SNAT, but the precise derivation was unclear, and in any cases seems to have been replaced by Tolkien with a more straightforward derivation from √NEK.

The root √NEK also appeared in Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 with the gloss “deprive”, serving among other things as the basis for S. neithan “one deprived” (PE17/167), which was the name adopted by Túrin after he became an outlaw (S/200). The root appeared again in notes on Elvish numbers from the late 1960s glossed as either “divide, part, separate” (VT47/16) or “divide, separate” (VT48/9), where it served as the basis for √ENEK “six” as the dividing point between the lower and upper set of numbers in the Elvish duodecimal system.

It is not clear whether Tolkien intended all these various meanings for the root √NEK to be connected. For purposes of analysis, I’ve split √NEK “narrow” from √NEK “separate; deprive”, but conceivably the sense “narrow” could be a semantic extension of “separate” or vice-versa.

nāro

noun. fire

omen-

verb. to move to a common point, meet

phan

root. cover, screen, veil; white, (light white) shape; shape, vision

The earliest iteration of this root was unglossed ᴱ√FANA or ᴱ√FṆTṆ (the latter marked with a “?”) in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with derivatives like ᴱQ. fanóre “day-dream”, ᴱQ. fansa “swoon”, and ᴱQ. fantl “vision, dream, hazy notion, imaginary idea” (QL/37). The root ᴹ√PHAN also appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s, but the entry was unglossed, empty and eventually deleted (EtyAC/PHAN), perhaps supplanted by ᴹ√SPAN; see that entry for discussion.

√PHAN appeared quite a few times in Tolkien’s later writings, however, mostly in connection to Q. fanya “cloud” from the Namárië poem and S. Fanuilos as a name for Elbereth in the Sindarin prayer A Elbereth Gilthoniel. In connection to Fanuilos Tolkien said: “√FAN ‘white’, but especially applied to reflected light as of clouds, snow, frost, mist. Cf. fanya, Quenya, (white) cloud” (PE17/26). In a more extensive note he wrote:

> The element FAN- (Q fana, S fân) is “elvish” and not easy to translate. It may be said to mean “shape”, but with the added notion of light and whiteness; it is thus often used where we might use “a vision” - of something beautiful or sublime. Yet being elvish, though it may be used of things remote, it has no implication either of uncertainty or unreality. The Fân here is the vision of the majesty of Elbereth upon the mountain where she dwelt. So that Fanuilos really means in full: Figure (bright and majestic) upon Uilos (PE17/26).

Tolkien also wrote a lengthy essay discussing this root in several versions (PE17/173-180). The second version of this essay began:

> √PHAN-. The basic sense of this was “cover, screen, veil”, but it had a special development in the Eldarin tongues. This was largely due to what appears to have been its very ancient application to clouds, especially to separate floating clouds as (partial) veils over the blue sky, or over the sun, moon, or stars. This application of the most primitive derivative ✱phanā (Q fana, S fân) was so ancient that when ✱phanā (or other derivatives) was applied to lesser, handmade, things this was felt to be a transference from the sense “cloud”, and words of this group were mainly applied to things of soft textures, veils, mantles, curtains and the like, of white or pale colours (PE17/174).

Finally, in The Road Goes Ever On (RGEO) from 1967, Tolkien wrote:

> Fana- is an Elvish element, with primary meaning “veil”. The S. form fân, fan- was usually applied to clouds, floating as veils over the blue sky or the sun or moon or resting on hills. In Quenya, however, the simple word fana acquired a special sense. Owing to the close association of the High-Elves with the Valar, it was applied to the “veils” or “raiment” in which the Valar presented themselves to physical eyes ... The High-Elves said these forms were always to some degree radiant, as if suffused from a light within. In Quenya, fana thus came to signify the radiant and majestic figure of one of the great Valar. In Sindarin, especially as used by the High-Elves, the originally identical word fân “cloud” was also given the same sense (RGEO/66).

This discussion in RGEO is essentially a summary of the much lengthier essay on √PHAN noted above. Thus it seems Tolkien’s latest notion of the root was that it originally mean “cover, screen, veil”, and was applied to clouds as veiling the sun, and from this application the root came to refer to white, radiant and soft things. In the Quenya of Valinor the word Q. fana was then applied to the radiant materialized bodies of the Valar, and when the Noldor again encountered the Sindar this sense influenced S. fân (originally just “cloud”) as well.

rānā

noun. moon

stol

root. helmet

In Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 Tolkien gave the root √STOL “helmet” with derivatives like S. thôl or Q. castol of the same meaning (PE17/186). In etymological notes from around 1964 (DD) Tolkien instead gave √ÞOL “stand up, top” as the basis for these “helmet” words (PE17/188). For purposes of Neo-Eldarin I assume this root is √STOL to allow the retention of G. thol- “roll” for Neo-Sindarin.

sīru

noun. stream

tar

root. stand

The root √TAR appeared unglossed in the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60 as the basis for Q. tára “tall, high” (WJ/417), a word that elsewhere was derived from √TĀ/TAƷ “high” (Ety/TĀ; PE17/186). The root √TAR was glossed “stand” along with derivative tāra “tall” in rough notes on the back of a discussion of the comparitive from around 1967 (PE17/186). The past tense for Q. tarne “stood” appears in other notes from this period, along with Q. astarindo, artarindo or astarmo “bystander” (PE17/70-71). √TAR “stand” seems to be a later iteration of ᴹ√THAR “stand” from the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) written in 1948; of this earlier root Tolkien said it “is only used [in describing the location of things] - except, of course, with reference to persons or animals when they are noted especially as ‘standing’ (not sitting or lying) - of mountains, high hills, towers, pillars” (PE22/126).

tindōmiselde

feminine name. Nightingale, (lit.) Daughter of Twilight

turukāno

masculine name. Ruling Lord

tārī

noun. queen, (lit.) she that is high

verū

noun. husband

ăwă

preposition. from

ʒō

preposition. from

ṇdūnē

noun. sunset

(s)rō Reconstructed

root. east

askōlimā

adjective. equivalent, (lit.) beside-bear-able

nāpa Reconstructed

noun. thumb, (lit.) picker

womātē

noun. *community, (lit.) eating-together