rúna- vb. "[to] free" (VT43:23). Compare eterúna-, etrúna-, q.v. It is not quite clear whether rúna by itself is an adjective or a verb; the gloss "free" makes room for both interpretations. If #runando "redeemer" (q.v.) is formed from this noun, it would cover "to redeem" as well.
Quenya
eterúna-
verb. deliver
eterúna-
verb. *to deliver, (lit.) free from
rúna-
verb. [to] free
etelehta-
verb. *to deliver, (lit.) free from
The various drafts of Átaremma prayers from the 1950s used two different words for “deliver”: et(e)rúna- in versions I-IV and etelehta- in versions V-IV. Both start with et “out”. For et(e)rúna- the second element was rūna “free” as indicated in notes associated with version IIb (VT43/23). For etelehta- the second element was [ᴹQ.] lehta-, which in The Etymologies was glossed “loose, slacken” (Ety/LEK), but later was translated as adjective lehta “free, released” (VT39/17) as pointed Wynne, Smith and Hostetter (VT43/23). Both verbs seem to be inspired by the etymology of English “deliver” < “de liberare” = “[Latin.] free from”.
The verb eterúna “deliver” also appeared in Ortírielyanna prayer from this same period.
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya I would let both etelehta- and eterúna- coexist for “deliver” = “free from”, but not “deliver” as in “deliver a package”.
ono alyë eterúna me illumë ilya raxellor
but deliver us always from all dangers
The third line of Ortírielyanna, Tolkien’s translation of the Sub Tuum Praesidium prayer. The first word is the conjunction ono “but”. The second word alyë is 2nd-person-polite form of the imperative particle á. The third word eterúna is the aorist/infinitive form of the verb eterúna- “to deliver”. The fourth word is the pronoun me “us”.
The fourth word is the adverb illumë “always”, while the fifth word is the adjective ilya “all”. The last word raxellor “from dangers” is the ablative (-llo “from”) plural form of raxë “danger”. The final -r marks it as plural (“dangers”), so it is odd that the preceding adjective is not also plural, but it seems to be the rule that adjectives are not declined into the plural when they modify a noun that is itself in a noun case; see the discussion on Quenya adjectives.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> ono a-lye eterúna me illume ilya raxe-llo-r = “✱but do-thou deliver us always all danger-from-(plural)”
Conceptual Development: The verb was first written eterunna >> eteruńna, which Wynne, Smith and Hostetter concluded was a slip for eterúna, the form of the verb as it appeared in the Átaremma prayer (VT44/9). The pronoun “us” changed from dative men >> uninflected me (VT44/5). Tolkien consider two other forms for “always”: vora >> vore before settling on illumë. The word for “from dangers” was first written raxalellor >> raxellor, apparently changing the underlying noun raxalë >> raxë (VT44/9).
etelehta-
verb. deliver
etelehta- vb. "deliver" (= "save") (VT43:23)
mal ámë etelehta ulcullo: násië
but deliver us from evil: Amen
The tenth line of Átaremma, Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The conjunction mal “but” is followed by a combination of imperative particle á and the pronoun me “us”. This is followed by the aorist form of the verb etelehta “deliver” and ulcullo “from evil”, the ablative form of the noun ulco (perhaps a noun form of ulca). The final word násië, corresponding to English “Amen”, seems to be a Quenya word meaning “✱be it thus”.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> mal á-më ete-lehta ulcu-llo: násië = “✱but (imperative)-us out-free evil-from: amen”
Conceptual Development: The tenth line underwent more changes than any other line in the prayer. In version III of the prayer, this phrase was first written as a near match to the phrase in version IIb, but was radically altered to a form that persisted to version IV. The analysis below designates these two variations of version III as IIIa and IIIb.
In earlier versions of the prayer, the word for “but” was mostly ono (IIa-IV), though in version I it was {anat >>} one, and it was elided to on’ in version IIIa.
The earlier imperative element was either na (I-IIa) or a (IIIb-IV), and it appeared either before the verb (I-IIa, IIIb-IV) or in the middle of the verb (IIb-IIIa) as et·a·rúna.
The object pronoun me consistently appeared immediately after the verb in the versions I-IV of the prayer rather than before the verb as in version V-VI.
The early versions (I-IV) used a different verb et(e)rúna for “deliver”, still in the aorist tense but in (IIIb-IV) with an embedded imperative et·a·rúna, as noted above.
Tolkien earlier considered several words for “evil”: olca (I deleted), ulca (I), ulco (IIa) and úro (IIa-IV), the last of these possibly a noun form of úra “nasty”. These appeared either with the allative suffix -llo (I) or the preposition va “(away) from” (IIa-IV). In versions IIIb-IV only, the prepositional phrase va úro appeared before the verb rather than after.
Quenya words corresponding to “Amen” appeared only in a few versions: san na (IIa), násan (IIb) and násië (VI), each meaning something like “✱be it thus” or “✱be it so”.
| | I |IIa|IIb|IIIa|IIIb|IV|V|VI| |{anat >>}|one|ono|on’|ono|mal| |na etrúna me|et·a·rúna me|va úro|ám’ etelehta|áme etelehta| |{olcallo >>}|ulcallo|va ulco|{var-úra >>} va úro|aly’ eterúna me|ulcullo| | |san na|násan| |násie|
á
immediate time reference
a (3), also á, imperative particle. An imperative with "immediate time reference" is expressed by á in front of the verb (or "occasionally after it, sometimes before and after for emphasis"), with the verb following in "the simplest form also used for the uninflected aorist without specific time reference past or present or future" (PE17:93). Cf. a laita te, laita te! "[o] bless them, bless them!", á vala Manwë! "may Manwë order it!", literally "o rule Manwë!" (see laita, vala for reference); cf. also á carë "do[!]", á ricë "try!", á lirë "sing[!]", á menë "proceed[!]", a norë "run[!]" (PE17:92-93, notice short a in this example), á tula "come!" (VT43:14). In the last example, the verb tul- "come" receives an ending -a that probably represents the _suffixed form of the imperative particle, this apparently being an example of the imperative element occurring both "before and after" the verbal stem "for emphasis" (PE17:93)_. This ending may also appear on its own with no preceding a/á, as in the command queta "speak!" (PE17:138). Other examples of imperatives with suffixed -a include cena and tira (VT47:31, see cen-, tir-); the imperatives of these same verbs are however also attested as á tirë, á cenë (PE17:94) with the imperative particle remaining independent and the following verb appearing as an uninflected aorist stem. This aorist can be plural to indicate a 3rd person pl. subject: á ricir! "let them try!" (PE17:93). Alyë (VT43:17, VT44:9) seems to be the imperative particle a with the pronominal suffix -lyë "you, thou" suffixed to indicate the subject who is to carry out the command; attested in the phrase alyë anta "give thou" (elided aly' in VT43:11, since the next word begins in e-: aly' eterúna me, *"do thou deliver us"); presumably other pronominal suffixes could likewise be added. The particle a is also present in the negative imperatives ala, #ála or áva, q.v.
eterúna- vb. (also etrúna-, though the cluster tr seems unusual for Quenya) "deliver" (= "save"). Tolkien may have abandoned this verb in favour of etelehta-, q.v. (VT43:23; VT44:9), but the root also appears in #runando "redeemer", so maybe eterúna- can stay with the meaning "redeem".