Noldorin
bess
noun. (young) woman
bess
noun. wife
bess
noun. woman; †wife
Cognates
- ᴹQ. vesse “wife” ✧ Ety/BES
Derivations
Element in
- N. herves “wife” ✧ Ety/BES
Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources On. besse > bess [besse] > [bess] ✧ Ety/BES
dess
noun. young woman
hervess
noun. wife
hervess
noun. wife
herves
noun. wife
herves
noun. wife
Derivations
- ᴹ√KHER “rule, govern, possess” ✧ Ety/KHER
Elements
Word Gloss KHER “rule, govern, possess” bess “woman; †wife” Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources ᴹ√KHER > hervess [kʰerbesse] > [xerbesse] > [xervesse] > [xervess] > [hervess] > [herves] ✧ Ety/KHER Variations
- hervess ✧ Ety/KHER
dî
noun. woman, lady
A noun in The Etymologies of the 1930s for “wife”, a combination of ᴹ√KHER “govern” and N. bess “woman” (which itself archaically meant “wife”), the latter element based on the root ᴹ√BES “wed” (Ety/BES, KHER).
Conceptual Development: A precursor to this word was ᴱQ. herivesti “wife, ✱lady spouse” from Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, which was assembled from elements similar to N. herves, but in the Qenya branch of the language instead.
Neo-Sindarin: In later writings, Tolkien seems to have revised ᴹ√BES > √BER as the basis for marriage words (VT49/45). However, I prefer to retain the 1930s root ᴹ√BES and would therefore use herves for “wife”. However, in later writings Tolkien also used the short form bess for “wife” as well (SD/129), so I consider herves to be more formal.