Quenya 

engwë

thing

engwë noun "thing" (VT39:7, VT49:28). Extrapolation may also point to *engwë as an emphatic dual inclusive pronoun "we" (thou and I), corresponding to the ending -ngwë.

engwë

noun. thing

Derivations

  • “be, exist”

Variations

  • engwe ✧ VT39/07

lingwë

fish

lingwë (stem *lingwi-, given the primitive form ¤liñwi) noun "fish" (LIW)

lingwë

noun. fish

A word for “fish” appearing in its plural form lingwi “fish” in notes on The Lands and Beasts of Númenor from 1965 (NM/336) and appearing as ᴹQ. lingwe “fish” from primitive ᴹ✶liñwi under the root ᴹ√LIW in The Etymologies of the 1930s (Ety/LIW).

Conceptual Development: Tolkien had ᴱQ. ingwe “fish” under the early root ᴱ√IWI “fish” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s (QL/43), and this word was also mentioned in the Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa (PME/43). The word {engwe >>} ingwe appeared unglossed in Early Qenya Word-lists of the 1920s (PE16/145). ᴹQ. lingwe “fish” with initial l first emerged in The Etymologies of the 1930s, as noted above.

Derivations

  • ᴹ√LIW “*fish”

Element in

nat

thing

nat noun "thing" (NĀ2); compare únat. VT49:30 lists "năta, nat", but it is unclear whether năta is here a Quenya word or an etymological form underlying Quenya nat.

nat

noun. thing

A Quenya noun for “thing” derived from the root √ “be, exist” (VT49/30, Ety/NĀ²), so perhaps prehistorically simply “a thing that exists”. Its plural form nati is indirectly attested in the plural únati of its (strong) negation únat “a thing impossible to be or to be done” (VT39/26).

Conceptual Development: This word is well established in Tolkien’s writings, appearing all the way back in the Qenya Lexicon from the 1910s (QL/64). In its earliest iteration, its stem form was natt- and its plural was natsi, where [[eq|[ti] became [tsi]]] as was the usual pattern in Early Qenya. The word reappear in texts and notes from the 1920s (PE14/43, 72; PE15/32, 68, 78). In one early dictionary entry glossed more generally as “affair, matter, thing”, but this entry was deleted (PE15/68); in other early writings the word for “affair” was given as ᴱQ. natto (QL/64). The word reappeared in The Etymologies from the 1930s with a simplified stem form nat- given its Noldorin equivalent N. nad (Ety/NĀ²). The word appeared again in the late 1960s in notes associated with Q. ná- “to be”, where it was given the primitive form ✶năta (VT49/30).

Derivations

  • năta “thing” ✧ VT49/30
    • “be (the same as another), exist”

Element in

  • ᴺQ. natto “affair, *matter, thing”
  • Q. únat “thing impossible to be or to be done”

Phonetic Developments

DevelopmentStagesSources
năta > nat[nata] > [nat]✧ VT49/30

nixi

name. fish

Quenya [PE 22:125] Group: Mellonath Daeron. Published by