cemen

kemen

cemen (cén) (spelt "kemen" in some sources, "cemen" in others)noun "earth" (VT44:34), Cemenyë ("k") "and Earth" (VT47:11). Cemen refers to the earth as a flat floor beneath menel, the heavens (SA:kemen); "soil, earth"_ (KEM,__LT1:257). At one stage, Tolkien intended cemen to be the genitive of cén; later cemen became the nominative, and the status of cén is uncertain. See Kementári. Locative cemessë, cemenzë (really spelt with c rather than k in one version, but also kemenze) in the Quenya Lord's Prayer; later changed to kemendë, cemendë (VT43:17)_

cemen

noun. the earth; earth, the earth; earth, [ᴹQ.] soil

Tolkien often used this Quenya word for “the Earth”, but in notes on Words, Phrases and Passages from the Lord of the Rings from the late 1950s or early 1960s, he clarified that “kemen ‘the Earth’ [was] an apparent flat floor under menel [the Heavens]” (PE17/24). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, ᴹQ. kemen was glossed “soil, earth” (Ety/KEM), and ᴱQ. kemen had these same glosses in Early Qenya words lists from the 1910s and 20s (PE16/139; PME/46; QL/46). Thus it seems this term can be used of both “earth” in the ordinary sense of “soil” as well as “the earth”, but in the latter usage it referred more specifically to the habitable surface of the world rather than the entire planet, serving as its “floor” as opposed to the “roof” which was menel. More common terms for the entire world were Ambar and Arda.

Conceptual Development: As indicated above, Tolkien introduced this term in the 1910s, already as a derivative for the root ᴱ√KEME, and it retained this form and meaning thereafter.

cén

soil, earth

cén (cem-) ("k")noun "soil, earth"; see cemen (KEM)

cemenáro

cemenáro

[cemenáro, see cemnaro]

cemendur

masculine name. *Servant of the Earth

Name of the 4th king of Gondor (LotR/1038). It was also the name of the third child of Axantur and grandfather of Hallacar (UT/210). The name seems to be a compound of cemen “Earth” and -(n)dur “-servant”.

cemendë tambe erumandë

on Earth as [it is] in Heaven

The fifth line of Átaremma, Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The first word cemendë “on Earth” is an assimilated locative form of cemen “earth”. The word tambë likely corresponds to “as”, while Erumandë “in Heaven” is an assimilated locative form of Eruman “Heaven”. The English words “it is” are not represented in the Quenya phrase.

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

> cemen-dë tambe Eruman-dë = “✱earth-on as [it is] Heaven-in”

Conceptual Development: In earlier versions of this phrase (I-V), Tolkien used menel for “Heaven”. Elsewhere, Tolkien said that menel referred to the dome of the sky or “the firmament”, and therefore was not proper for “Heaven” (MR/387, PE17/152), which is probably why he changed the word to Eruman in version VI of the prayer.

Tolkien experimented with various ways of comparing Earth to Heaven: ier ... ar tér (I), ier ... tier (IIa), ya(n) ... ar san (IIb) and san ... ya (III-IV), each probably meaning something like “as ... so ...”, as suggested by Wynne, Smith and Hostetter (VT43/16-7). In versions V and VI Tolkien switched to a single word “as”: sívë (V) and tambë (VI).

The English words “it is” are only expressed in version III-IV, with the Quenya verb na, appearing at the end of the phrase as is typical of declarative statements.

| |  I  |IIa|IIb|III|IV|V|VI| |{yé >> ye >>}|ier|ya(n)|san| | |menelle|menelze|menelde|cemende| |ar tér|tier|ar san|ya|sívë|tambe| |{kemenze >>}|cemenze|cemende|melelde|Erumande| | |na| |

kemen

earth

kemen noun "earth"; see cemen.

Cemendur

earth-servant

Cemendur masc. name *"Earth-servant" (i.e. farmer?) (Appendix A, UT:210)

Cemendur (son of Axantur)

Cemendur (son of Axantur)

Cemendur means "Servant of the Earth" in Quenya (from kemen = "earth" and dur = "servant").

cemendur

noun. farmer

A neologism for “farmer” coined by Helge Fauskanger for his NQNT (NQNT), a combination of cemen “earth” and -(n)dur “servant”, a suffix sometimes used in the names of professions such as arandur “minister” and ornendur “forester”.

cemenquasië

noun. earthquake

A neologism for created by Paul Strack in 2018 specifically for Eldamo, a compound of cemen “earth” and quasië “shaking”. I prefer this over Helge Fauskanger’s neologism cempalië which he coined for the NQNT (NQNT), because Fauskanger’s used the 1920s verb ᴱQ. pal- for “to shake”, but I find this verb problematic because in later writings the meaning of the root √PAL changed to “wide (open)” (Ety/PAL; PE17/65; VT47/8). I think the 1910s verb ᴱQ. qasa- is a better choice for “shake”, as it does not conflict with later words.

Kementári

earth-queen

Kementári noun "Earth-queen", title of Yavanna (SA:tar). The Kemen- of this name was at one stage intended as the genitive of kén, kem- "earth", so that Kementári meant "Earth's Queen", but Tolkien later changed the Quenya genitive ending from -(e)n to -o. Apparently so as to maintain the name Kementári, he turned kemen into the nominative form; see cemen.

cemi

earth, soil, land

cemi noun "earth, soil, land"; Cémi ("k")"Mother Earth" (LT1:257; the "Qenya" word cemi would correspond to cemen in LotR-style Quenya)

cemnaro

potter

cemnaro ("k")noun "potter" (TAN). First written as cemenáro (VT45:19).

cempalië

noun. earthquake

centano

potter

centano ("k")noun "potter" (TAN, VT45:19)

mar

earth

mar (1) noun "earth" (world), also "home, dwelling, mansion". Stem mard- (VT46:13, PE17:64), also seen in the ablative Mardello "from earth" (FS); the word is used with a more limited sense in oromardi "high halls" (sg. oromar, PM17:64), referring to the dwellings of Manwë and Varda on Mt. Taniquetil (Nam, RGEO:66). The initial element of Mardorunando (q.v.) may be the genitive mardo (distinguish mardo "dweller"). May be more or less identical to már "home, house, dwelling" (of persons or peoples; in names like Val(i)mar, Vinyamar, Mar-nu-Falmar, Mardil) (SA:bar, VT45:33, VT47:6). Már is however unlikely to have the stem-form mard-; a "Qenya" genitive maren appears in the phrase hon-maren, q.v., suggesting that its stem is mar-. A possible convention could therefore be to use már (mar-) for "home, house" (also when = household, family as in Mardil, q.v.), whereas mar (mard-) is used for for "earth, world". Early "Qenya" has mar (mas-) "dwelling of men, the Earth, -land" (LT1:251); notice that in LotR-style Quenya, a word in -r cannot have a stem-form in -s-.