anna

noun. gift, (orig.) thing handed, brought or sent to a person, gift, (orig.) thing handed, brought or sent to a person, *present

A word for “gift”, also the name of tengwa #23 [h] (LotR/1123), derived from the root √ANA “motion to” and more precisely meaning “a thing handed, brought or sent to a person” (PE17/91).

Conceptual Development: The earliest iteration of this word was ᴱQ. an (and-) “gift” in the Qenya Lexicon under the early root ᴱ√ANA (QL/31). In the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon Tolkien gave ᴱQ. anō as the equivalent of G. ôn “gift” (GL/62). The Etymologies of the 1930s had ᴹQ. anna “gift” under the root ᴹ√ANA “to, towards” (Ety/ANA¹). The word anna “gift” appeared among tengwar names in notes on The Feanorian Alphabet from the 1930s and 1940s, though in the former it was for double nn [5P] (PE22/23) and in the later was the name of a variant short vowel carrier [ゼ] not appearing in Tolkien’s later writing, and in any case the paragraph with this name was deleted (PE22/52 note #193).

In Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 Tolkien had both anna “gift” and anwa “gift” (PE22/163), the latter perhaps derived from ✱(h)an-mā. Tolkien indicated that this version of the noun influenced by {√ƷAN >>} √HAN “enhance, enrich, add to”.

Use as a Tengwar Name: The application of anna as the name for tengwa #23 is quite mysterious. In Quenya this tengwa was originally used to represent a voiced velar spirant ʒ < g, and after that sound was lost was used only to represent consonantal y by adding a palatal marker [hÍ]. Since anna has nothing to do with either sound, my best guess is that the name anna comes from some “full mode” where tengwar #23 represents the vowel a, except that in most full modes it represents the vowel o.

Alternately, it may be that at some point Tolkien imagined the noun anna as being derived from ʒannā; see the [rejected] root √ƷAN in its 1969 etymology noted above. In the 1930s this tengwa was named Osse either as a vowel sign for o or as a derivation of ᴹ√GOS (PE22/22), and in the 1940s it was named {’anne >>} ’enne “thought, purpose” where the ’ indicates lost ʒ (PE22/51 and note #190).

anna

gift

anna noun "gift" (ANA1, SA), "a thing handed, brought or sent to a person" (PE17:125), also name of tengwa #23 (Appendix E); pl. annar "gifts" in Fíriel's Song. Masc. name Annatar "Lord of Gifts, *Gift-lord", name assumed by Sauron when he tried to seduce the Eldar in the Second Age (SA:tar). Eruanna noun "God-gift", gift of God, i.e. "grace" (VT43:38)

anna, anwa

noun. gift

anwa

noun. gift

anta-

verb. give

anta- (1) vb. "give" (ANA1, MC:215, 221), pa.t. antanë (antanen "I gave", VT49:14) or †ánë, perfect ánië (PE17:147, cf. QL:31). According to VT49:14, Tolkien noted that anta- was sometimes often with an "ironic tone" to refer to missiles, so that antanen hatal sena "I gave him a spear (as a present)" was often used with the real sense of "I cast a spear at him". Usually the recipient of the thing given is mentioned in the dative or allative case (like sena in this example), but there is also a construction similar to English "present someone with something" in which the recipient is the object and the gift appears in the instrumental case: antanenyes parmanen, "I presented him with a book" (PE17:91). The verb occurs several times in FS: antalto"they gave"; strangely, no past tense marker seems to be present (see -lto for the ending); antar a pl. verb translated "they gave", though in LotR-style Quenya it would rather be the present tense "give" (pl.); antaróta "he gave it" (anta-ró-ta "gave-he-it"), another verb occurring in Fíriel's Song, once again with no past tense marker. Also antáva "will give", future tense of anta- "give"; read perhaps *antuva in LotR-style Quenya; similarly antaváro* "he will give" (LR:63) might later have appeared as antuvas (with the ending -s rather than "Qenya" -ro for "he"). Antalë imperative "give thou" (VT43:17), sc. anta "give" + the element le "thou", but this was a form Tolkien abandoned. Apparently ana** was at one point considered as another imperative "give", but Tolkien rewrote the text in question (VT44:13), and the normal patterns would suggest *á anta with an independent imperative particle.

annā

noun. gift

ann

noun. gift

The most commonly accepted Sindarin word for “gift” is S. ann, equivalent to Quenya Q. anna “gift”, both derived from ✶annā based on the root √ANA “towards” (PE17/90). It was also an element in the names Melian “Dear Gift” (SA/mel) and Rían “Crown Gift” (Ety/RIG). However, Tolkien experimented with a variety of other forms throughout his life.

Conceptual Development: The Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s had G. ôn “gift” related to the verb G. antha- “give” (GL/19, 62), both based on the early root ᴱ√ANA “give, send towards” from the contemporaneous Qenya Lexicon (QL/31). The Etymologies of the 1930s had N. {ann >>} ant “gift” under the root ᴹ√ANA “to, towards” (Ety/ANA¹; EtyAC/ANA¹). S. ann “gift” < ✶annā appeared in notes from around 1967 (PE17/90). In Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 Tolkien had S. anw as the equivalent of Q. anwa “gift” (PE22/163), perhaps derived from ✱(h)an-mā.

ann

noun. gift

n. gift.

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.

anno

verb. give!

anna

give

anna- (i anna, in annar), pa.t. ?aun (with endings one-)

anna

give

(i anna, in annar), pa.t. ?aun (with endings one-)

anna-

verb. to thank

A neologism for “to thank” coined by Elaran in 2018, more accurately “to give thanks”, derived from the root √HAN “enrich, honour”, the (hypothetical) basis for Q. hanta- “to thank” (also hypothetical). It can be distinguished from S. anna- “to give” by the fact that this verb is intransitive, whereas “give” is transitive. Thus anna- without a direct object means “give thanks”, whereas anna- with a direct object means “give”. The common way to say “thank you” would be annon allen “I give thanks to you” or annas annin “[he/she] thanked me” (anna- with intransitive past, lit. “gave thanks to”), with the object of the “thanks” in the dative.

For further information on this verb and phrase, see the How to Thank in Sindarin on Parf Edhellen.

Alternate Etymologies: The Sindarin verb for “to thank” is exceptionally controversial. For Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, David Salo coined the word ᴺS. hanna- “to thank” based on Q. hanta-, with hannon le becoming the common (Neo) Sindarin of saying “thanks, (lit.) I thank you”. However, Carl Hostetter criticized this word in his 2006 article Elvish as She Is Spoke, pointing that the likeliest basis for Q. hanta- was the root √HAN, but in Sindarin the initial h would be lost resulting in ✱anna- which could not be used since it conflicts with anna- “to give”.

In 2018, Elaran proposed annon allen as a new phrase for “I thank you”, eventually developing the intransitive/transitive markers to distinguish it from anna- “give”. In 2019, I made a counter proposal of in my own article In Defense of Hannon Le, arguing that ✱hanna- “to thank” might have entered Sindarin as a loan word from Quenya and thus still be usable. Ultimately, though, the community we both spend time in (the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server) settled on using annon allen. Since I firmly believe that languages should be defined by their community of speakers, and annon allen has become the dominant phrase, I eventually caved and in 2022 added anna- “to give thanks” to Eldamo, deprecating David Salo’s older neologism ᴺS. hanna-.

hanna-

verb. to thank

ant

gift

ant, pl. aint, coll. pl. annath. Also ann (-an at the end of compounds), pl. ain.

ant

gift

pl. aint, coll. pl. annath. Also ann (-an at the end of compounds), pl. ain.

aned

give

anha-

verb. to give

anw

noun. gift

anw

noun. gift

rían

feminine name. Crown-gift

Wife of Huor and mother of Tuor (S/148), her name seems to be a compound of rî “crown” and ann “gift”, though it could also be rían “queen” used as a name.

Conceptual Development: When it first appeared in Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s, this name was N. Rían (SM/35) but in later drafts it appeared as N. Rian with a short i (LR/131), which was its usual form in this period. In The Etymologies it appeared as N. Rhian glossed “Crown-gift”, which is the source of the gloss and derivation given above (Ety/RIG). In Silmarillion revisions from the 1950s-60s, the form S. Rían with a long í was restored (WJ/52).

ann

adjective. long

anna-

verb. to give

anna-

verb. to give

ant

noun. gift

ant

noun. gift

rian

feminine name. Crown-gift

han-

verb. to give

yô Reconstructed

noun. gift

An element in the name Yôzâyan “Land of Gift” (UT/184, SD/241). The final element of this name is zâyan “land”, so its initial element yô most likely means “gift”, as suggested by several authors (AAD/24, AL/Adûnaic, EotAL/YAW), though Andreas Moehn points out this word could have the form yôz instead (EotAL/YAW).