Noldorin 

gwanw

noun. death (act of dying, not death as a state or abstract)

Noldorin [Ety/397, X/W] Group: SINDICT. Published by

gwanw

noun. death (act of dying)

Derivations

  • ᴹ✶wanwē “death” ✧ Ety/WAN
    • ᴹ√WAN “depart, go away, disappear, vanish” ✧ Ety/WAN

Phonetic Developments

DevelopmentStagesSources
ᴹ✶wanwē > gwanw[wanwē] > [wanwe] > [gwanwe] > [gwanw] > [gwanu]✧ Ety/WAN

gwanath

noun. death (act of dying, not death as a state or abstract)

Noldorin [Ety/397] Group: SINDICT. Published by

gwanath

noun. death (act of dying)

There were a couple of words for “death” under the root ᴹ√WAN “depart” in The Etymologies of the 1930s: N. gwanath and gwanw, the latter from primitive ᴹ√wanwē (Ety/WAN). Tolkien specified that these words referred to the “act of dying”, as opposed to guru which was “Death as a state or abstract”. These death-words from ᴹ√WAN may originally have been euphemistic, or perhaps they refer to the departure of Elvish spirits to Valinor.

Neo-Sindarin: Most Neo-Sindarin writers adapted N. gwanw as ᴺS. gwanu to better fit Sindarin spelling conventions, as suggested in HSD (HSD). I would use the words gwanath and gwanu only for the death of individuals, and mainly for deaths that are natural or peaceful. For violent deaths I would use gurth instead, and for the state of death or Death as an abstraction I would use guru as noted above.

Derivations

  • ᴹ√WAN “depart, go away, disappear, vanish” ✧ Ety/WAN

Phonetic Developments

DevelopmentStagesSources
ᴹ√WAN > gwanath[wanatta] > [wanattʰa] > [wanaθθa] > [gwanaθθa] > [gwanaθθ] > [gwanaθ]✧ Ety/WAN

guruth

noun. death

Noldorin [Ety/377] Group: SINDICT. Published by

guruth

noun. death

Derivations

  • On. ngurtu “death” ✧ Ety/ÑGUR
    • ᴹ√ÑGUR “*death” ✧ Ety/ÑGUR

Element in

Phonetic Developments

DevelopmentStagesSources
On. ngurtu > guruth[ŋgurtu] > [ŋgurtʰu] > [ŋgurθu] > [gurθu] > [gurθu] > [gurθu] > [guruθ]✧ Ety/ÑGUR

Variations

  • Gurth ✧ RS/186
Noldorin [Ety/ÑGUR; RS/186] Group: Eldamo. Published by

gûr

noun. death

Noldorin [Ety/377] Group: SINDICT. Published by