Early Quenya
kildo kirya ninqe
a white ship one saw
Element in
Variations
- Kildo kirya ninqe ✧ MC/220
- {killer >> kílier >>} kildo kirya ninqe ✧ PE16/056
- kildo kirja ninkve ✧ PE16/072
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!
The first phrase of the first version of the Oilima Markirya poem (MC/220). The first word kildo “one saw, he saw” is the aorist 3rd-singular masculine inflect of the verb kili- “to see”, as suggested by Gilson, Welden, and Hostetter (PE16/56). It is followed by the object of the phrase: kirya ninqe “a white ship”.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> kil-do kirya ninqe = “✱see-he ship white”
Conceptual Development: This phrase appeared in the very first draft of the poem (OM1a: PE16/56), where Tolkien first considered using a past-tense formation killer >> kílier before settling on the aorist kildo. The phrase remained the same thereafter in all later drafts, ignoring the aberrant Finnish-like spelling of the fifth draft (OM1e), though in the third draft it was the second line rather than the first (OM1c: PE16/60).