arca

narrow

arca (1) adj. "narrow" (AK)

arca-

pray

arca- (2) vb. "pray" (VT43:23, cf. VT44:8, 18); evidently this basically means "to petition" or "to ask for", compare arcandë below.

arcandë

petition

#arcandë noun "petition" (isolated from arcandemmar "our petitions") (VT44:8)

arca-

verb. *to pray, petition, *to petition, pray

arcandë

noun. *petition

arcalima ar eleni

A is brightest of all

arcanwa

noun. *throne

arcastar

proper name. Tolkien

arcalima ep’ eleni

far and away brighter than stars

arcantiër

collective name. Major Patterns

A term for lesser patterns of existence set in motion by the Valar in some notes from 1959 (NM/287), a combination of ar- “high” and the plural of cantië “pattern”.

arcanwa

noun. throne [high seat]

arcastar mondósaresse

Tolkien in Oxford

anarcandë

petition

#anarcandë noun "petition" (isolated from anarcandemman, "our petitions", possibly an error for *anarcandemmar) (VT44:8); Tolkien seems to have abandoned this word in favour of #arcandë, q.v.

á hyamë rámen úcarindor

pray for us sinners

The sixth line of Aia María, Tolkien’s translation of the Ave Maria prayer. The first word á is the imperative particle, indicating that the verb form hyamë “pray” is an imperative. The third word rámen “for us” is combination of the preposition rá “for” (lit. “✱on behalf of”) and the dative men of the pronoun me “us”. The last word úcarindor “sinners” is the plural of úcarindo “sinner”.

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

> á hyamë rá-me-n úcarindo-r = “✱do pray for-us-(dative) sinner-(plural)”

Conceptual Development: In the first two versions of the prayer Tolkien suffixed the pronoun lye “you (polite)” to the imperative particle a: alye (I-II). He also used the verb arca (I-II) instead of hyamë (III-IV) for “pray”. He used several different words for the preposition “for”: atar (I), meter (II), hrá (III deleted) and rá, always followed by the pronoun me “us”, sometimes dative (men) and sometimes not (me).

Tolkien considered several words for “sinners”: ulcarindor (I deleted), naicandor (I), naicor (I replacement), naici (II deleted) and úcarindor (IV). In version II of the prayer, Tolkien replaced “sinners” with a subordinate clause: i naici nar “✱[those] who are sinners” (II deleted) >> i naiquear “✱[those] who sin” (II).

Wynne, Smith and Hostetter analyzed the word naiquear as an adjective used as a plural noun: “sinners” (VT43/34). However, since it replaced a verbal phrase, I think it is likelier to be the present tense of an otherwise unattested verb naiqua- “✱to sin”.

| |  I  | II |III|IV| |{arca >>}|alye|á| |{alye >>}|arca|hyamë| |{atarmen >>}|atarme|meterme|{hrá >>} rá men|rámen| |{ulcarindor >>}| naicandor [>> naicor]|i {naici nar >>} naiquear|úcarindor|

-ndë

petition

-ndë (1) noun ending; forming nouns from verbal stems in arcandë "petition" and ulundë "stream" (q.v. and cf. VT44:8), feminine in Serindë "broideress" or "needle-woman" (q.v.) PE17:69 mentions -ndë as a common suffix denoting feminine agent.

ar-

brightest

ar- (2), also ari-, prefix for superlative (compare arya #1, 2), hence arcalima "brightest", arimelda *"dearest" (PE17:56-57). In the grammar described in the source, this prefix was to express superlative as the highest degree (in actual comparison), whereas the alternative prefix an- rather expressed "very" or "exceedingly" with a more purely augmentative or adverbial force, but these distinctions do not seem to have been clearly present at all stages of Tolkiens work. See an- #2, am- #2.

calima

bright

calima adj. "bright" (VT42:32); cf. ancalima; in PE17:56, arcalima appears as another superlative "brightest" (see ar- #2).

calima

adjective. bright, luminous

elenion ancalima

brightest of stars

a ancalima imb’ illi

A is brightest of all

hyam-

pray

#hyam- vb. "pray" (aorist hyamë attested, VT43:34)

hyam-

verb. *to pray

náha

narrow

náha adj. "narrow" (PE17:166)

náha

adjective. narrow, narrow, *thin

tarhanwa

noun. throne [high seat]