bardh

noun. home

A word for “home” appearing in draft notes from the 1960s discussing the root √MBAR, where it was contrasted with bâr “house, dwelling”:

> In Sindarin bar [< ✱mbăr-] (pl. bair) was used for a single house or dwelling, especially of the larger and more permanent sort; barð [< ✱mbardā̆] was much as English “home”, the (proper) place for one (or a community) to dwell in (PE17/164).

It was also contrasted with milbar “dear home” which was used for the “emotional senses ‘home’ as the place of one’s birth, or desire, or one’s home returned to after journey or exile” (PE17/164). In later versions of these notes on √MBAR, Tolkien mentioned bâr and milbar but not bardh (PE17/109).

Neo-Sindarin: Given its absence from the final version of the √MBAR notes, it is possible Tolkien abandoned bardh “home”. However, I prefer to retain it for purposes of Neo-Sindarin for the ordinary sense of “home”, and reserve milbar for one’s “emotional home” or “✱true home” from which one is currently separated, as opposed to the home that you are living now = bardh. I would use bâr primarily in the sense “house, dwelling”.

bardh

home

{ð}_ n. _home, the (proper) place for one (or a community) to dwell in.

bar-in-mŷl

place name. Home of the Gulls

Name of cape southwest of Eglarest, also known as Ras Mewrim (WJ/190, WJ/379). The initial element of the name is bâr “home”, the second element is the plural in of the definite article i “the” and the final element is the plural mŷl “gulls”.

Conceptual Development: This name was earlier given as Bar-in-Gwael (WJ/418). In one place it was changed in pencil to Bar-i-Mŷl, a more accurate rendering of the result of nasal-mutation of the plural definite article in before m (WJ/418); hat-tip to Vyacheslav Stepanov for this suggestion.

bardor

noun. home land, native land

A word for “home land, native land” appearing in notes from the 1960s discussing the root √MBAR, a combination of bâr “dwelling” with dôr “land” (PE17/164). Tolkien gave an archaic pseudo-form bar-ndor to explain why the d in this word did not mutate to dh (c.f. bardh), stating that it was similar to Mordor < mor-ndor, where the ancient medial n prevented the mutation of d, then the vanished later.

brithombar

place name. *Brithon Home

A haven at the mouth of the river Brithon in Beleriand (S/120), a combination of the river name with bâr “home” (SA/brith, bar), hence “✱Brithon Home”.

Conceptual Development: This name appeared in the Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s (SM/227, LR/180). In The Etymologies, the name Ilk. Brithombar was designated Ilkorin (Ety/BIRÍT), with a derivation probably similar to the above. In the Quendi and Eldar essay from 1959-60 it was named Brithonbar with an n (WJ/380), but this may simply have been a slip.

bâr

noun. house, dwelling, home, house, dwelling, home; [N.] earth

The basic Sindarin word for “house, dwelling” derived from the root √MBAR “settle, dwell” (PE17/109; PE17/164). This Sindarin word (unlike its Quenya counterpart már) can also be used to refer to the “house” of a clan or family, as in Bar Bëora “House of Bëor” (WJ/230) and Narn e·mbar Hador “✱Tale of the House of Hador” (MR/373). It could also mean “-home (for a people)” in compound names for regions as in Eglamar “Home of the Eglain” and Brithombar (WJ/379; S/120), but it seems this use was archaic and in more recent names the trend was to use dôr “land” (PE17/164).

This word appears as both bâr with long â and bar with short a. As a general rule, it has a long â when used as an independent word, following the general Sindarin principle whereby short vowels (usually) lengthened in monosyllables. It has a short vowel when appearing in compounds or as a “pseudo-prefix” in names like Bar-en-Danwedh “House of Ransom” (S/203).

Conceptual Development: This word dates all the way back to the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s, where (adverbial?) G. bar appeared as a variant of G. barthi or barai “at home, home” (GL/21). In the Gnomish Lexicon its noun form seems to be G. bara “home” (GL/21), but in the contemporaneous Gnomish Grammar it was bar “home” (GG/8). These Gnomish words were all derived from the early root ᴱ√MBARA “dwell, live” (QL/63).

In Gnomish Lexicon slips, Tolkien modified the word to G. bawr “house” derived from primitive ᴱ✶mbāră (PE13/116). In the Name-list to the Fall of Gondolin Tolkien had G. bar “dwelling” (PE15/21). In the Early Noldorin Grammar of the 1920s it was ᴱN. bâr “house”, though a change in its mutated form {i·bhar >>} i·mâr indicates some vacillation on its primitive form (PE13/120 and note #2). In Early Noldorin word-lists of this period it was bar “house” (PE13/138).

In The Etymologies of the 1930s it was N. bár “home” written in the margin next to the root ᴹ√MBAR “dwell, inhabit” (EtyAC/MBAR), but it also meant “Earth” in the name N. Barthan “Earth-smith” (Ety/TAN). In later notes (date unknown) this name was S. Barthan “World-artificer” (LT1A/Talka Marda). In notes on The Feanorian Alphabet from the 1930s it was †băr “home”, which became bār after vowels lengthened in monosyllables (PE22/36).

In notes from the 1960s, Tolkien described this word in some detail, first saying:

> In Sindarin bar [< ✱mbăr-] (pl. bair) was used for a single house or dwelling, especially of the larger and more permanent sort; barð [< ✱mbardā̆] was much as English “home”, the (proper) place for one (or a community) to dwell in (PE17/164).

Here it seems bar = “house, dwelling” but bardh = “home”. However, in a later iteration of these notes Tolkien said:

> There were thus tendencies both (a) for Noldorin terms for things peculiar to their culture to be translated into Sindarin forms or imitated ... Examples ... were (a) the use of Sindarin bâr (< ✱mbăr(a)) for “house” a settled built dwelling of a family, larger or smaller: in true Sindarin use it only denoted a small area in which some group had at last settled more or less permanently (PE17/164).

This was revised slightly to read:

> There was thus a tendency: (a) for Noldorin words and terms for things peculiar to their culture to be translated into Sindarin, or imitated ... Examples of these processes are: (a) the use of Sindarin bâr (< ✱mbăr(a)) for “house”: the permanent building serving as the home of a family, larger or smaller, though in genuine older Sindarin use this word referred to a (small) area, in which some group had at last settled, more or less permanently (PE17/164).

Both these later paragraph imply that the original sense of Sindarin bâr was something like “✱settlement (of a group or community)” but came to mean “house, dwelling” under the influence of Quenya már.

Of its uses in compounds Tolkien said:

> This was also in old compounds used (like Q -mar) for a region, but not in ordinary language ... Only in old names was -bar used like Q -mar for a region inhabited by a people. For this Sindarin used usually -dor (< ndor) “land” (PE17/165).

dimbar

place name. *Sad Home

An empty land south of Gondolin (S/121), apparently meaning “✱Sad Home”, a combination of dem “sad(ness)” (stem form dimb-) and bâr “home” (SA/bar).

Conceptual Development: The name Dimbar first appeared Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s (LR/261), and was given in The Etymologies as an Ilkorin name with the derivation described above (Ety/DEM), though the exact language of word dem is unclear; see that entry for further discussion.

Tolkien continued to used Dimbar in his Silmarillion revisions from the 1950s-60s (WJ/57), so he may have intended this Ilkorin name to become Sindarin, though it is also possible he would have eventually would have revised the name to something else.

eglamar

place name. Home of the Eglain

A name for region of Beleriand where the people of Círdan dwelled (WJ/379). This name is effectively a combination of the prefixal form Egla- of Eglan “Forsaken (Elf)” and bâr “home”, derived from ancient ✶(h)ekla-mbar (WJ/365).

Conceptual Development: In the Gnomish Lexicon from the 1910s, the name G. Eglamar “Elfinesse, Elfhome” appeared (among other variations) as the Gnomish equivalent of ᴱQ. Eldamar, home of the Elves in Valinor (GL/32). This name also appeared with this meaning in drafts of the Lays of Beleriand from the 1920s (LB/157, 181). A number of variations of this name appeared in early name lists, including G. Eglavain (LTI2/320) and ᴱN. Uidhelian (PE13/155) >> Idhelian (PE15/61), but these variations did not appear in later writings.

After Tolkien revised the phonology of the Noldorin language in The Etymologies from the 1930s, this name became Ilk. Eglamar “Elvenhome” containing the Ilkorin word for “Elf”: Ilk. Egla (Ety/ELED). However, the name did not appear in the narratives of that period. After Tolkien abandoned the Ilkorin language, the name reappeared in his Quendi and Eldar essay from 1959-60, with the revised meaning given above (WJ/379).

milbar

noun. dear home, beloved dwelling [place]

A word appearing in some draft notes from the 1960s glossed “dear home” which Tolkien described as follows:

> In emotional senses “home” as the place of one’s birth, or desire, or one’s home returned to after journey or exile milbar was used, “dear home”. Note absence of Sindarin mutation owing to the original presence of initial mb-: mēlā̆-mbar > mîl-mbar > milbar (PE17/164).

In the final version of these notes Tolkien said:

> Mélamarimma “Our Home” was used [in Quenya] of their lost “home” in Aman, but not by the followers of the Sons of Feanor. Nonetheless this word was modelled on S milbar “beloved dwelling” applied to the places best known and most frequented. It was derived from older mēlā̆-mbar > mīl(a)mbar. In true Quenya the adjectival form “dear” had the form melda (PE17/109).

In this later version Tolkien gave milbar as an example of a Sindarin word that was adapted into Quenya: mélamar. The sense of both words is “emotional home” or “✱true home” from which one is separated:

> ... “home” in its emotional uses as the place of one’s birth, or the familiar places from which one was separated by journeys of necessity, or driven out by war. These circumstances the Noldor had not suffered in Aman, but knew later only too well, not only in their exile from Aman, but in the increasing destruction of their new realms and settlements by the assaults of Morgoth (PE17/109).

The drafts of these notes had S. barð as the more ordinary word for “home” (PE17/164). S. bardh did not appear in the final version of these notes, but whether it was an intentional or accidental omission isn’t clear.

othramar

place name. ?Stranger Home

A name appearing in Notes on Names (NN) from 1957, also written Othranar and originally written as (deleted and incomplete) Athlama (PE17/141). Its initial element is a variant of othol “stranger, guest” (originally aþal), and its final element appears to be bâr “home”, so perhaps it means “✱Stranger Home”.

angmar

place name. *Iron Home

The kingdom of the witch king (LotR/146). In the manuscript for Tolkien’s Nomenclature of the Lord of the Rings, he explained that it was corrupted Elvish: the pure Sindarin form of the name would be Angbar, and the pure Quenya form would be Angamar (RC/20). It is perhaps a combination of S. ang “iron” and Q. már “home”, hence: “✱Iron Home”.

Conceptual Development: In Lord of the Rings drafts from the 1940s, this name first appeared as N. Angmar (WR/334).

bardor

noun. 'home-land

n. 'home-land, native land'.

milbar

noun. 'dear home'

n. 'dear home', the place of one's birth, or desire, or one's home returned to after journey or exile.

alae! ered en echoriath, ered e·mbar nín

[?behold!] the mountains of Echoriath, the mountains of my home!

edelbar

place name. *Elf-home

Bar-i-Mýl

noun. home of the gulls

(m-)bar (“dwell, inhabit”) + in (gen. pl. article) + mýl (pl. of mýl “gull”)

bar

noun. dwelling, home

bar

noun. house, dwelling, home

eglamar

noun. Elf-home

egla- (from PQ hekla “elf, Falathrim”) + (m-)bar (“land, dwelling”) It is said to be an old name, which is reflected by its formation, with the genitival element preceding: ekla-mbar; #the fact that the first part of the compound is egla-, not eglan- probably explains the mutation of mb- to m, in contrast to Eglador.

bâr

home

bâr (dwelling, house, family; land, earth) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds.

bâr

home

(dwelling, house, family; land, earth) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds.

Angmar

Iron Home

Angmar means "Iron Home" in Sindarin (from ang = "iron" and mar = "home, dwelling")

Ras Mewrim

Gulls' home

The Sindarin name Bar-in-Mŷl consists of bar ("home") and mŷl ("gulls").

bâr

house

bâr (dwelling, home, family; land, earth) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds.

bâr

house

(dwelling, home, family; land, earth) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds.

adab

house

(building), pl. edaib. In ”Noldorin”, the plural was edeb.

car

house

(building, dwelling-place) 1) car or cardh (i gar[dh], o char[dh]) (building), pl. cerdh (i cherdh) or cair (i chair). Note: cardh also means "deed, feat". Therefore, the form car may be preferred for clarity. 2) adab (building), pl. edaib. In ”Noldorin”, the plural was edeb. 3)

car

house

or cardh (i gar[dh], o char[dh]) (building), pl. cerdh (i cherdh) or cair (i chair). Note: cardh also means "deed, feat". Therefore, the form car may be preferred for clarity.

noss

house

(family) 1) noss (construct nos, pl. nyss) (family, clan), 2) nost (pl. nyst) (family) (PM:360), 3) nothrim (family); no distinct pl. form (PM:360)

noss

house

(construct nos, pl. nyss) (family, clan)

nost

house

(pl. nyst) (family) (PM:360)

nothrim

house

(family); no distinct pl. form (PM:360)

Ras Mewrim

Ras Mewrim

The Sindarin name Bar-in-Mŷl consists of bar ("home") and mŷl ("gulls").

bâr

dwelling

bâr (house, home, family; land, earth) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds

bâr

dwelling

(house, home, family; land, earth) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds

bâr

earth

(dwelling, house, home, family; land) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds.

ceven

earth

1. ceven (i geven, o cheven), pl. cevin (i chevin) (VT48:23), 2) (world) Amar (archaic Ambar), pl. Emair; 3) bâr (dwelling, house, home, family; land) (i mâr, o mbâr, construct bar), pl. bair (i mbair). Also -bar, -mar at the end of compounds. 4) (maybe ”earth” as substance) cae (i gae, o chae). No distinct pl. form even if there is a pl., except with article (i chae). For ”earth” as a substance, see also SOIL.

-enc

suffix. our

_1st pl. poss. suff. _our.Maybe the incl. form of this suff. See also the paradigm of poss. suff. in PE17:46.

-main

suffix. our

_1st pl. poss. suff. our.Maybe the excl. form of this suff. See also the paradigm of poss. suff. in PE17:46. Earlier -em_. >> -em, -men

-men

suffix. our

_1st pl. poss. suff. our.Maybe the excl. form of this suff. See also the paradigm of poss. suff. in PE17:46. Earlier -em_. >> -em, -main

Angmar

noun. iron land

ang (“iron”) + (m-)bar (“land, dwelling”) The lenition of the second element is unclear (we would rather expect Angbar) but edain often made mistakes when giving places Elvish names; see VT42 “Rivers and Beacon-hills”).

bar

noun. inhabited land

cae

noun. earth

This word is indeclinable, according to the Etymologies

ceven

noun. Earth

eglamar

eglamar

ennorath

noun. central lands, middle-earth

ledhbas(t)

noun. waybread

min

adjective. our

mín

adjective. our

mín

pronoun. our

sennas

noun. guesthouse

amar

earth

(archaic Ambar), pl. Emair

cae

noun. earth

cae

earth

(i gae, o chae). No distinct pl. form even if there is a pl., except with article (i chae). For ”earth” as a substance, see also

ceven

earth

(i geven, o cheven), pl. cevin (i chevin) (VT48:23)

dôr

dwelling place

(i nôr, construct dor) (land, region), pl. dŷr (i ndŷr) (WJ:413).

ennor

place name. central land, middle-earth

gobel

enclosed dwelling

(i ’obel) (walled house or village, ”town”), pl. gebil (i ngebil = i ñebil). Archaic pl. göbil.

gobel

village

(i ’obel) (enclosed dwelling, ”town”), pl. gebil (i ngebil = i ñebil). Archaic pl. ✱göbil.

grôd

underground dwelling

(i ’rôd, construct grod) (cave, delving, excavation), pl. grŷd (in grŷd) (WJ:414)

rhûd

dwelling underground

(construct rhud, with article ?i thrûd or ?i rûd – *the lenition product of rh- is uncertain) (artificial cave, rockhewn hall, mine), pl. rhuid (?idh ruid) (PM:365)*.

sennas

guesthouse

(i hennas), pl. sennais (i sennais), coll. pl. sennassath (RC:523)

vín

our

vín; see WE

vín

our

; see

mélamar

home

mélamar noun "home", Exilic Quenya word of emotional sense: place of ones birth or the familiar places from which one has been separated (PE17:109). Mélamarimma noun "Our Home", an expression used by Exilic Noldor for Aman.

hecelmar

place name. *Home of the Hecel

An old Quenya name for Beleriand as the home of the Heceldi, but later this name was only used by loremasters (WJ/365). It sometimes appeared in the longer form Heceldamar (WJ/374). It is a compound of Hecel “Elf who stayed in Beleriand” and már “home”.

ingwemar

place name. *Ingwë Home

A name appearing only in some notes from the 1950s (PE17/106), it is a compound of Ingwë and már, perhaps the personal home of Ingwë or his people, the Ingwi (Vanyar).

lumbar

proper name. ?Shadow Home

The name of a star (S/48), possibly Saturn (MR/435). The meaning of this name is obscure. Perhaps it is a compound of [ᴹQ.] lumbe “shadow” and már “home”, meaning “✱Shadow Home”. Alternately, it could be a consonant expansion of lumba “gloomy” = lumba-r; hat-tip to Vyacheslav Stepanov for this suggestion.

mar(da)

noun. dwelling, (great) house, residence, mansion, a thing or place dwelt in, home, dwelling, (great) house, residence, mansion, a thing or place dwelt in, home; [ᴱQ.] world

A word for “dwelling, mansion, hall” derived from √MBAR “dwell” (PE17/64), most notably as an element in oromardi “lofty halls” in the Namárië “poem” (LotR/377). Its plural mardi indicates a stem form of mard-, but its uninflected form appeared as both short mar (PE17/64, 163-4; PE21/80) and longer marda (PE17/107; PE21/76). Tolkien described its meaning more precisely in some notes from the 1960s:

> The derivative form ✱mbardā became in Quenya marda: “a thing or place dwelt in, dwelling” and since it could be applied to the actual dwelling-places or buildings (alone or grouped) approached the sense “house”. Though it did not in fact refer to “buildings”, and could equally well be applied to dwelling-places of natural origin, such as caves or groves (PE17/107).

And in an earlier version of these notes:

> The usual word in Eldarin for a “home”, as the established residence of a family consisting of one or more associated buildings, was ✱mbā̆r (stem mbăr-), and ✱mbardā (an adjectival formation). In Q mar (stem mard-), a blending of the two, was used like “residence”, usually with a defining genitive, for the “great house” of a family (PE17/164).

In Tolkien’s later writings, it seems this word was distinct from and coexisted with Q. már (mar-) “home” (PE17/106, 164).

Conceptual Development: This word for “dwelling” was often intermingled and confused with már “home”, making its conceptual development difficult to trace. There are some other earlier words for which some extension was added to √MBAR. In the 1910s ᴱQ. marda meant “world” as in ᴱQ. Talka Marda “Smith of the World” (LT1/180; 15/8); in The Qenya Phonology Tolkien said marda had a dialectical variant ᴱQ. mára (PE12/24) and in the Gnomish Lexicon it had the form Marwa “World” (GL/18).

The Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s had an adverbial variant ᴹQ. marta “home” of ᴹQ. mar “house” (PE21/25, 27); this adverbial form became marda “home” in Common Eldarin: Noun Structure of the early 1950s (PE21/76). In the 1930s more generally the stem form of short ᴹQ. mar was frequently mard- (PE21/27; EtyAC/MBAR; LR/72) but not always (LR/63). The coexistence of már and mard- was not clearly established until the 1960s (see above).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use marda primarily as a “dwelling” as in “a thing dwelled in”, usable of buildings but also of natural dwellings like caves. Of constructed dwellings, it generally applies to larger or more elaborate dwellings such as mansions and halls, as in oromar “high hall”. I would assume the same was true of natural dwellings, with marda only applicable to a complex of inhabitable caverns rather than an individual cave. For the home of an individual or family I would use már “home”, and for the building itself I would use cöa “house” (dwelling or not).

I would use mard- as the stem form of this word as with its plural mardi. Strictly speaking its uninflected form would be mar < ✶mbardā̆ after the ancient loss of short final ă, but in practice this was generally reformed to marda to make it more distinct from már “home”. Thus sissë i luinë marda (ná) “here is the blue mansion” but tassë i ninqui mardi (nár) “there are the white mansions”.

már

noun. home, dwelling, habitation, home, dwelling, habitation; [ᴹQ.] house; earth

This is the basic Quenya word for a “home” or “dwelling”, derived from the root √MBAR “settle, dwell”.

Conceptual Development: This word dates back all the way to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, where (archaic) ᴱQ. †mar (mas-) was glossed “dwelling of men, -land, the Earth” (QL/60). It appeared under the early root ᴱ√MBARA “dwell, live”, but that root was mingled with many others, and its stem form mas- indicates some unusual developments. The contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa instead has mař “dwelling, -land, †Earth” (PME/60), consistent with an earlier deleted form of the root, ᴱ√MAŘA [MAÐA] (QL/60).

In the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin from the 1910s Tolkien had mar as a cognate to G. bar “dwelling” (PE15/21). In the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s it was glossed “house” in the phrase ᴱQ. i·mar tye “that house (of yours)” (PE14/55). In the English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s mar was glossed “home”, where its plural form mari indicated a stem form of mar- (PE15/74).

In the Declension of Nouns of the 1930s, ᴹQ. mar “house” had a stem form of mard- (PE21/27), and on the title page of The Etymologies from 1937, Tolkien had mar(d)- “home, dwelling” from the root ᴹ√MBAR (EtyAC/MBAR). It appeared in the form Mardello “from Earth” in Fíriel’s Song from the mid-1930s, along with an uninflected form i-mar “the earth” (LR/72), but as mar- in the (1930s) genitive form hon-maren “heart of the house” (LR/63).

In Outline of Phonetic Development (OP1) from the 1940s, it appeared as már “habitation”, the first time that it had a long á (PE19/36). In Quenya Verbal System (QVS) and Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from the late 1940s, már “house” appeared with long á in a couple phrases like már karnelya e·tulle “having built a house he came” (PE22/108) and mana (már) tanion “which of those houses” (PE23/105). The word már “habitation” reappeared in the Outline of Phonology (OP2) of the 1950s (PE19/76).

Tolkien discussed the word már at length in notes from the 1960s on the root √MBAR, first writing:

> The usual word in Eldarin for a “home”, as the established residence of a family consisting of one or more associated buildings, was ✱mbā̆r (stem mbăr-), and ✱mbardā̆ (an adjectival formation). In Q mar (stem mard-), a blending of the two, was used like “residence” usually with a defining genitive, for the “great house” of a family. In place-names -mar (stem mār-) was used for a region settled by a community or group, as Eldamar “Elvenhome” the coastal region of Aman, settled by the Elves (PE17/164).

And then in a later version of the same notes:

> The simplest form of this base ✱mbără became a much used word or element in primitive Eldarin: which may be rendered “dwelling”. This application was probably a development during the period of the Great Journey to the Western Shores, during which many halls of varying duration were made by the Eldar at the choice of their leaders, as a whole, or for separate groups. This element survived in various forms in Quenya and Sindarin with sense­ changes due to the divergent history of the Eldar that passed over Sea and of those remaining in Beleriand. The principal forms were the primitive simple form PE ✱mbăr(a) > uninflected mbār, inflected mbar-; and the derivative form ✱mbardā ...

The former survived in Quenya in the archaic word már, which was used with a defining genitive or more often in genitival compound: as Ingwemar, Valimar, Eldamar ... This signified, when added to a personal name the “residence” of a family of which the head was the named person; it included not only the permanent buildings, developed by the Eldar in Aman, but also the surrounding attached land ... After the name of a people or “kindred” it referred to the whole area occupied or owned by them, in which their dwellings or “houses” were distributed (PE17/106).

These revised notes indicate that marda was a distinct word:

> The derivative form ✱mbardā became in Quenya marda “a dwelling”. This normally referred to the actual dwelling place, but was not limited to buildings, and could equally well be applied to dwellings of natural origin (such as caves or groves). It was nonetheless the nearest equivalent to “house” in most of its senses ... Not to the use of “house” as the name of a (small) separate building with a function such as bake-house, wood-house; nor to the use of “house” as a family especially of power or authority. The former in Quenya was usually koa. The latter was represented by words for “kindred” [nóre] (PE17/107).

Thus it seems in these notes, már = “residence”, marda = “dwelling” but coa = “house” as in a type of building.

In terms of its use in other words and phrases, mar or már is most notably an element in Eldamar “Elvenhome” (S/59), Val(i)mar “Dwelling of the Valar” (RGEO/62), and Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva “[ᴱQ.] Cottage of the Lost Play; House of Departed Mirth” (LT1/28; PE21/80). As for mard-, its most notable use was in oromardi “lofty halls” from the Namárië poem (LotR/377).

Although always meaning “home” or “dwelling” and always derived from √MBAR “dwell”, the various changes in the stem form between mar, mard- and már make the conceptual development difficult to trace. The rough timeline seems to be:

• In the 1910s the stem was mař- >> mas-, becoming mar- in the 1920s.

• In the 1930s the stem was mostly mard-, but in OP1 már (mar-) with long á was introduced and became more prevalent in the 1940s and 50s.

• In the 1960s Tolkien decided that már (mar-) < ✱mbără and marda (mard-) < ✱mbardā were distinct words of similar meaning.

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya I would use már mainly in the sense “home, a place dwelled in”, as opposed to marda for “a dwelling” whether inhabited or not. In place names -mar can refer to the dwelling place of an entire people, or of an individual family. The word már might be used as “house” in the sense of the dwelling place of a family, but when referring specifically to the building, the word coa is more appropriate.

mélamar

noun. (emotional) home

A term for one’s “emotional home” or “✱true home” from which one is currently separated, a combination of mel “love” and már “home” (PE17/109). For example, Valinor remained the mélamar for many of the Noldor despite their exile to Middle-earth. This word is adapted from S. milbar of the same meaning; see that entry for further discussion.

Mar-nu-Falmar

home under waves

Mar-nu-Falmar noun "Home under Waves", name of the sunken Númenor (Silm). See mar, már.

Valimar

vali-home

Valimar place-name "Vali-home" (Vali = Valar), the city of the Valar in Valinor, also in shorter form Valmar. Cf. the Silmarillion: "the city of Valimar where all is glad" (Valaquenta); "in the midst of the plain beyond the mountains they [the Valar] built their city, Valmar of many bells" (chapter 1). In Namárië, the word Valimar is used = Valinor, since Valimar was its chief city (Nam, RGEO:67)

már

home, house, dwelling

már (mar-) (2) noun "home, house, dwelling" (also "house" in the sense of family as in Mardil, q.v.). See mar above for references. In Mar-nu-Falmar, Mardil, and as final element in Eldamar, Fanyamar, Valimar, Vinyamar..

lerembas

noun. bread taken on leaving home (for a long journey)

eldamar

place name. Elvenhome

The home of the Elves within Valinor (S/59). This name is a compound of Elda “Elf” and már “home”. As noted by Tolkien, it must have been a late compound, otherwise the more primitive form ✶-mbar of the second element would have been preserved as ✱✱Eldambar (PE17/106).

Conceptual Development: This name dates back all the way to the earliest Lost Tales, where it had essentially the same form, meaning and etymology (LT1/19, LTA1/Eldamar).

Eldamar

elvenhome

Eldamar place-name "Elvenhome" (ÉLED; found already in Narqelion), according to MR:176 another name of Tirion (see tir-).

Elendë

elvenhome

Elendë (1) place-name "Elvenhome", regions of Valinor where the Elves dwelt and the stars could be seen (MR:176, ÉLED). Plural ablative elendellor in the phrase et elendellor, evidently *"out of the elf-lands" (VT45:13).

indo

house

indo (2) noun "house" (LT2:343), probably obsoleted by #1 above (in Tolkiens later Quenya, the word for "house" appears as coa).

maraina

adjective. native, of home

A neologism coined by Luinyelle posted on 2024-08-14 in the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), an adjectival form of mar(a) “home”.

maryë

adverb. at home, at home, *indoors

-mma

our

-mma "our", 1st person dual exlusive possessive ending: *"my and one others" (VT49:16). At an earlier conceptual phase, Tolkien apparently intended the same ending to be plural inclusive "our" (VT49:55, RS:324), cf. Mélamarimma "Our Home" (q.v.) In the latter word, Tolkien slips in i as a connecting vowel before this ending; elsewhere he used e, as in Átaremma "our Father" (see atar).

ambar

a-mbar

ambar (1) ("a-mbar") noun "oikumenē [Greek: the earth as the human habitation], Earth, world" (MBAR), stem ambar- (PE17:66), related to and associated with mar "home, dwelling" (VT45:33); in VT46:13 the latter glosses are possibly also ascribed to the word ambar itself (the wording is not clear). The form ambaren also listed in the Etymologies was presumably intended as the genitive singular at the time of writing (in LotR-style Quenya it would rather be the dative singular); in the printed version in LR, the misreading "ambaron" appears (see VT45:33). Ambar-metta noun "the end of the world" (EO); spelt ambarmetta in VT44:36. The element #umbar in Tarumbar "King of the World" (q.v.) would seem to be a variant of ambar, just like ambar #2 "doom" also alternates with umbar (see below).

falma

(crested/foaming) wave

falma noun "(crested/foaming) wave" (PHAL/PHÁLAS), "a wave-crest, wave" (VT42:15), "foam wave" (PE17:127), "a breaker" (PE17:62), partitive pl. falmali "many waves" (PE17:73), allative falmalinnar "on the foaming waves" in Namárië(Nam, RGEO:67); the phrase an i falmalī _(PE17:74) seems to be a paraphrase of this with an independent preposition instead of the allative ending -nna (see an #1). Compounded in Falmari, a name of the Teleri, and Mar-nu-Falmar, "Home/Land under Waves", a name of Númenor after the Downfall. (SA:falas) Falmari "wave-folk", a name of the Teleri (PM:386). In earlier "Qenya", falma was glossed "foam" (LT1:253, cf. MC:213). Compare also the early "Qenya" words falmar "wave as it breaks" (LT1:253), pl. falmari "waves" (MC:216)_

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-.

-lma

our

-lma pronominal ending "our", 1st person pl. exclusive (VT49:16), also attested (with the genitive ending -o that displaces final -a) in the word omentielmo "of our meeting" (nominative omentielma, PE17:58). Tolkien emended omentielmo to omentielvo in the Second Edition of LotR, reflecting a revision of the Quenya pronominal system (cf. VT49:38, 49, Letters:447). The cluster -lm- in the endings for inclusive "we/our" was altered to -lv- (VT43:14). In the revised system, -lma should apparently signify exclusive "our".

-lwa

our

-lwa, possessive pronominal ending, 1st person pl. inclusive "our" (VT49:16), later (in exilic Quenya) used in the form #-lva, genitive -lvo in omentielvo (see -lv-).

-ngwa

our

-ngwa "our", 1st person dual inclusive possessive pronominal ending: *"thy and my", corresponding to the ending -ngwë for dual inclusive "we" (VT49:16)

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)

farnë

dwelling

#farnë (2) noun "dwelling", in orofarnë (as translated in Letters:224, but in other notes of Tolkiens the word was interpreted "any growing thing or plant", PE17:83)

kemen

earth

kemen noun "earth"; see cemen.

marda

dwelling

marda noun "dwelling" (PE17:107)

menya

our

menya (pl. menyë is attested) possessive pron. "our", 1st person pl. exclusive independent possessive pronoun (VT43:19, 35). Evidently derived from the dative form men "for us" by adding the adjectival ending -ya. Compare ninya, q.v.

os

house, cottage

os (ost-) noun "house, cottage" (LT2:336; hardly valid in LotR-style Quenya writers may use coa or már)

bár

noun. home; earth

car(dh)

noun. house, house, *construction, structure

A noun in The Etymologies of the 1930s appearing as car or carð with the gloss “house” under the root ᴹ√KAR “make, build, construct” (Ety/KAR). Its Quenya cognate ᴹQ. kar (kard-) was glossed “building, house”.

Neo-Sindarin: Given the meaning of its root, I would use cardh for any kind of building-like construction or structure for purposes of Neo-Sindarin. For an ordinary “house” where people live, I would use S. bâr.

amar

noun. earth

amar

noun. Earth

ambar

noun. earth

car

noun. house, building

cardh

noun. house, building

coe

noun. earth

This word is indeclinable, according to the Etymologies

coe

noun. earth

An indeclinable word given as {cíw >>} coe “earth” in The Etymologies of the 1930s as a derivative of the root ᴹ√KEM (Ety/KEM; EtyAC/KEM).

Possible Etymology: The primitive form of rejected cíw is given as ᴹ✶kēm and its derivation is clear: the long ē became ī and then the final m reduced to w after i as usual. The derivation of coe is more obscure, however. The likeliest explanation is that Tolkien imagined its ancient form with a slightly lowered vowel which he generally represented as ǣ in this period (in later writings as ę̄). According to the first version of the Tengwesta Qenderinwa and Comparative Vowel Tables from the 1930s (PE18/46; PE19/25), ǣ &gt; ei &gt; ai &gt; ae, and in The Etymologies itself, it seems ai often became oe instead of ae.

Neo-Sindarin: Updating the derivation of hypothetical ✱kę̄m would produced ᴺS. cae in Sindarin phonology. But given the obscurity of its derivation, I recommend using 1950s S. ceven for “earth” instead.

gobel

noun. walled house or village, town

lembas

noun. waybread

mbard(a)

adverb. home, homeward

kā

noun. home, house

le(n)dembassē Speculative

noun. bread taken on leaving home (for a long journey)

hekla-mbar

place name. Eglamar

mēlā̆-mbar

noun. beloved dwelling

keme

noun. earth

kemen

noun. earth

zadan

noun. house

A noun translated “house” and fully declined as an example of a Strong I noun (SD/430).

dâira

noun. Earth

A noun translated as “Earth” in the final version of the Lament of Akallabêth (SD/247). It may be related to S. dôr “land”, as suggested by Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynn (AAD/13).

Conceptual Development: In the Lament of Akallabêth (first draft), this noun appeared as kamāt (SD/311).

cava

noun. house