Adûnaic

agannâlô burôda nênud

[the] death-shadow [is] heavy on us

The 9th phrase of the Lament of Akallabêth (SD/247). The subject agannâlô “death-shadow” is a compound of agan “death” and nâlu “shadow” in the subjective case. The next word burôda “heavy” is simply an adjective, and nênud “on us” is a combination of the pronoun “us” and the prepositional suffix -nud “on”. Since there is no verb, the subjective here functions as the verb “to be” (SD/429), so that the English translation should be “the death-shadow is heavy on us”, though Tolkien did not include “is” in his translation.

In the previous (second draft) version of this sentence, the spelling of some words were slightly different: buruda (as it was in the first draft) instead of the final form burôda and nēnu instead of the final form nēnud (SD/312). The first draft of this sentence uses the same words but is grammatically different.

Changes

  • Agannālō buruda nēnuAgannālō burōda nēnud ✧ SD/247

Cognates

Element in

Variations

  • Agannālō burōda nēnud ✧ SD/247; VT24/12
  • Agannālō buruda nēnu ✧ SD/312
Adûnaic [SD/247; SD/312; VT24/12] Group: Eldamo. Published by