Beware, older languages below! The languages below were invented during Tolkien's earlier period and should be used with caution. Remember to never, ever mix words from different languages!

Early Quenya

karnevaite úri kilivande hísen nie nie nienaite

*red-skied the sun will gaze through a haze of tears

The eleventh phrase (lines 20-22) of the intermediate version of the Oilima Markirya poem (PE16/77). The first word is a descriptive compound of the adjectives karne and vaite “skied”, followed by the subject of the phrase: úri “sun”.

The verb kilivande is the future 3rd-singular feminine form of kili- “see”, followed by the genitive form of híse, the noun nie “tear” (twice) and the adjective nienaite “tearful”. As discussed in the notes for the sixth draft of the poem, the combination kili- nie (nienaite) is idiomatic Qenya meaning “have tears in the eyes”, more literally “see a dropping [(lit.) tearful] tear” (PE16/75).

This phrase corresponds to the lines of the English translations of the poem LA2a-LA2b (PE16/68-9): “under a red sky, the bleared sun blinking”. It is closer to the eighteenth and nineteenth lines of the first English translation LA1a (PE16/67): “when the sky was red, the sun gazed through a haze of tears”.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> karne-vaite úri kil-iva-nde híse-n nie nie nienaite = “✱red-skied sun see-(future)-she mist-of tear tear tearful”

Element in

Variations

  • Karnevaite uuri kilivande hiisen nie nie nienaite ✧ PE16/077
Early Quenya [PE16/077] Group: Eldamo. Published by