anha-

verb. to give

anna-

verb. to give, †add to

The most commonly accepted Sindarin verb for “give” is S. anna-, but Tolkien experimented with a variety of other forms throughout his life. Its best known form is its strong past ôn “gave” as in ónen i-Estel Edain “I gave Hope to the Dúnedain” from The Lord of the Rings Appendix A (LotR/1061).

Conceptual Development: The Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s had G. antha- “give” (GL/19), equivalent to ᴱQ. anta- under the early root ᴱ√ANA “give, send towards” in the contemporaneous Qenya Lexicon (QL/31). In the 1910s the medial combination nth survived, but by the 1930s medial nth became nn, and The Etymologies of the 1930s had N. anno “to give” under the root ᴹ√ANA “to, towards” as the equivalent of ᴹQ. anta- “give” (Ety/ANA¹). The Sindarin version of the Lord’s Prayer from the mid-1950s had imperative anno “give” in anno ammen sír i mbas ilaurui vín “give us this day our daily bread” (VT44/21).

Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 instead had S. anta- “give” (PE17/147), which seems to belong to a (brief?) period where Tolkien abandoned the development of nt to nn; see my essay on Sindarin Articles and Mutations from Parma Eldalamberon #23 for further discussion. There was a verb form anha- “give” from around 1967 which might represent a conceptual stage where nt became voiceless nh but did not further advance to voiced nn (PE17/147). In Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969, Tolkien the described verb’s derivation as follows:

> The Q. causative anta­ ... is due to blending AN with the unrelated verbal stem {ƷAN >>} HAN “give”, {which in Q. and S. lost the initial spirant ʒ, that in T. became h- >>} which in S. lost the initial breath h of CE, that in Q., T. remained h- (T hanin “I give”) ... S[indarin] strong verb (lost in Q.) aned, pa.t. ónen, T hanna (PE22/163 and note #99).

This last example implies a basic/strong verb form S. an- “give” [e.g. ✱ân “he gives”, ✱enin “I give”] with gerund aned “✱giving” and strong past ôn “✱gave”. It is possible, though, that only the past and gerund were strong, and the base verb remained S. anna- analogous to T. hanna.

Neo-Sindarin: For purpose of Neo-Sindarin I would stick with S. anna- “give”, since it is a direct equivalent of the well-attested Q. anta- “give” if one assumes nt > nth > nn, which seems to be the rule for most of the 1930s through 1960s.