aia maría quanta eruanno

Hail Mary, full of grace

The first line of Aia María, Tolkien’s translation of the Ave Maria prayer. The first word Aia is a variant of aiya “hail”, followed by a Quenyarized form of “Mary”: María. The third word quanta is attested elsewhere with the meaning “full, filled” (PE17/68). The last word Eruanno is a compound of Eru “God” and anna “gift”, in the genitive, so that quanta Eruanno literally means “✱full of God’s gift”.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> Aia María quanta Eru-ann(a)-o = “✱Hail Mary full God-gift-of”

Conceptual Development: This phrase was quite similar in earlier versions of this prayer, but the earlier versions used erulissenen instead of Eruanno. This word is a compound of Eru “God” and lissë “grace”, in the instrumental, so that quanta erulissenen literally means “✱filled by God’s grace”.

|  I  |II|III|IV| |Aiya|Aia| |María| |quanta|erulissenen|quanta| |erulissenen|quanta|Eruanno|

Element in

• Q. Aia María

Elements

Word	Gloss
aiya	“hail; behold, lo”
María	“*Mary”
quanta	“full, filled, full, filled; [ᴱQ.] whole, all”
Eruanna	“[God’s] Grace”

Variations

• Aiya María {erulissenen quanta >>} quanta erulissenen ✧ VT43/26
• Aia María {Eruamille} {quanta erulissenen >>} erulissenen quanta ✧ VT43/27