aista

holy

aista (1) adj. "holy" (VT43:37)

aista

adjective. *holy

aista-

to dread

aista- (3) vb. "to dread" (GÁYAS, VT45:14; possibly obsoleted by #2 above)

aistana elyë imíca nísi

blessed art thou amongst women

The third line of Aia María, Tolkien’s translation of the Ave Maria prayer. This is a declarative statement. The first word aistana “blessed” is the predicate. The second word elyë “thou” is the subject, the emphatic form of the pronoun lye “you (polite)”. The last two words are the prepositional phrase imíca nísi “among women”, the latter being the plural of nís “woman”. As in the second line, there is no Quenya equivalent of the English word “are (art)” in the final version of the prayer.

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

> aistana elyë imíca nís-i = “✱blessed [art] thou among woman-(plural)”

Conceptual Development: The first two versions of the prayer used manna for “blessed” instead of aistana. Tolkien considered several different prepositional elements for English “among”: mil (I deleted), mi (I-II), mitta (III deleted), mika (III) before settling on imíca (IV).

In version I-II, he used another word for “women”: nínaron, apparently genitive plural of an otherwise unattested word nína. In version I, he considered and deleted many variants before settling on nínaron. I’ve omitted them from this discussion because they appear nowhere else, and including them would obscure the development of the phrase. For further details, see VT43/27, 31.

| |  I  | II |III|IV| | |elye|manna|aistana| |{manna na >>}|na manna|nalye|elye| |{mil >>}|mi|{mitta >>} mika|imíca| |[various >>]|nínaron|nísi|

aistana

adjective. *blessed

#aista-

to bless

#aista- (2) vb. "to bless", verbal stem isolated from the passive participle aistana "blessed" (VT43:30)

-na

suffix. slain

A shorter ending -na also occurs, e.g. nahtana "slain" (VT49:24); the example hastaina "marred" would suggest that *nahtaina is equally possible. In the example aistana "blessed" (VT43:30), -na may be preferred to -ina for euphonic reasons, to avoid creating a second diphthong ai where one already occurs in the previous syllable (*aistaina). In PE17:68, the ending -ina is said to be "aorist" (unmarked as regards time and aspect); the same source states that the shorter ending -na is "no longer part of verbal conjugation", though it obviously survives in many words that are maybe now to be considered independent adjectives. See -na #4.

manna

adjective. *blessed

aina

holy

aina (2) adj "holy" (AYAN), derived from Ainu. Adopted and adapted from Valarin. According to VT43:32, the word is "obsolete, except in Ainur", apparently suggesting that airë or airëa (q.v.) was the normal term for "holy" in later Quenya. However, Tolkien repeatedly used aina in his translation of the Litany of Loreto: Aina Fairë "Holy Spirit", Aina Neldië "Holy Trinity", Aina Maria "Holy Mary", Aina Wendë "Holy Virgin". He also used Aina Eruontari for "holy Mother" in his rendering of the Sub Tuum Praesidium(WJ:399, FS, SA, VT43:32, VT44:5, 12, 17-18)

aira

holy

aira (2) adj. "holy"; see airë #1

airë

holy

airë (1) adj. "holy", #Airefëa "the Holy Spirit" (VT43:37, dative airefëan on the previous page), airetári or Airë Tári "holy queen" (a title of Varda, PM:363), genitive aire-tário "holy-queen's" (Nam, RGEO:67). However, according to PM:363, airë is the noun "sanctity", while aira is the adjective "holy". VT43:14 refers to an etymological note of "Sept.-Oct. 1957" where airë is said to be a noun "sanctity, holiness", and the adjective "holy" is given as airëa. However, the verb #airita- "hallow" seems to be formed from an adjective airë, airi- "holy". Evidently airë can function as both adjective ("holy") and noun ("holiness"); if so airë as adj. could represent a primitive adjective gaisi, whereas airë as noun may descend from gaisē. The former but not the latter would have the stem airi- (as observed in the derived verb #airita-), and compounds like airetári (rather than *airitári) would seem to contain properly the noun "holiness".

airëa

holy

airëa adj. "holy"; see airë.

amanya

adjective. *blessed

manaquenta

adjective. *blessed

nanca

slain

nanca adj. *"slain" (PE17:68); see -na