illumë
always
illumë
adverb. *always
A word for “always” appearing in the Ortírielyanna prayer of the 1950s (VT44/9), a combination of il- “all” and lúmë “time”.
Conceptual Development: The word ᴹQ. qá “always, at all times, ever” appeared in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948, a vowel-lengthened form of ᴹQ. qa(qe)- “all” along with alternates qañqe, ᴹQ. qan(an) and ᴹQ. qallume (PE23/110), the last two with suffixal -n(an) and -llume respectively. There was a deleted variant qáqen (PE23/110 note #122)
í(qua), illume, iquallume
conjunction. when, whenever
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).
voro
ever, continually
voro, voro- adv. "ever, continually" (BOR, Narqelion) Compare vor. (Focusing on the gloss "continually", post-Tolkien writers have sometimes used voro for "still, yet", but for this sense the term en is available.) The variants vora, vorë were used for "always" in drafts for a Quenya version of the Sub Tuum Praesidium, but Tolkien eventually replaced such forms with the unrelated word illumë (VT44:9). Compare vórë, vórëa.
vorë
adverb. *always
ia
ever
[ia adv. "ever" (GEY, EY); replaced by oia.]
oi
ever
oi adv. "ever" (OY)
vor
ever
vor, voro adv. "ever" (BOR, LT1:250, 273 [only voro_ in the Etymologies]; also in Narqelion)_
vora
always
vora, vorë adv. "always"; see voro
yá
when
yá (2) conj. "when" in the sentence yá hrívë tenë, ringa ná "when winter comes, it is cold" (VT49:23). Compare írë #2.
yá
conjunction. when
A relative conjunction “when” appearing in various phrases in Tolkien’s writings of the 1950s and 60s, a vowel-lengthened form of the relative pronoun ya.
Conceptual Development: Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 had ᴹQ. í glossed “(relative) at the time mentioned, at the same time”, a vowel-lengthened form of the relative pronoun ᴹQ. i (PE23/109). This was also given the gloss “when, whenever” in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from this same period (PE22/121). Earlier still, ᴹQ. íre was used as the relative conjunction “when” in Fíriel’s Song of the 1930s. In the Early Qenya Grammar it seems ᴱQ. yan “when” served this function (PE14/59).
írë
when
írë (2) conj. "when" (subordinate conjunction, not question-word: írë Anarinya queluva, "when my sun faileth") (FS). Compare yá #2.
úlumë
ever
úlumë adv. "ever", at all times (in a series or period) (PE17:156). Cf. ullumë.
malumë
adverb. when
illumë adv. "always" (VT44:9)