máma

noun. sheep

A word for “sheep” appearing in the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60 as a derivative of ✶māmā (WJ/395). It appeared again in notes from 1968 as a derivative of ✶mbāba (VT47/35), apparently with some amount of assimilation since the second primitive b > m as suggested by Patrick Wynne (VT47/36).

Conceptual Development: A similar word ᴱQ. moa “sheep” appeared in both the Qenya Lexicon and Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa of the 1910s, in the former under the entry for the early root ᴱ√MAWA “cry, bleat” (QL/60). In Early Qenya Word-lists of the 1920s, the word for “sheep” was instead ᴱQ. sauve (PE16/132).

máma

sheep

máma noun "sheep" (WJ:395)

mámandil

masculine name. *Sheep-friend

A name assumed by Hallacar while he was courting Ancalimë in the guise of a shepherd (UTI/209). It seems to be a compound of máma “sheep” and the suffix -(n)dil “friend”.

mámandil

sheep-friend

mámandil noun *"sheep-friend" (máma + -ndil), i.e. "shepherd"? (UT:209)

mámalin

noun. sheepfold

moalin

sheepfold

moalin (moalind-) noun "sheepfold" (QL:60)

māmā

noun. sheep

mbā

noun. sheep

maf

noun. sheep

A neologism for “sheep” coined by Elaran in 2022 on the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), derived from a variant form ✱mămā of primitive ✶māmā “sheep”, the basis of Q. máma “sheep”. This is only one of various possibilities for neologisms for “sheep”: in VQP (VQP) Gábor Lőrinczi suggested ᴺS. maw “sheep” as a direct cognate of Q. máma, and Fiona Jallings suggested ᴺS. ✱baw as a derivative of ✶mbāba, a primitive form that appeared on VT47/35. Both maw and baw have other meanings in Sindarin, however. I used to recommend a word of my own, bam from a reduplicated primitive form ✱mbambā, but I now prefer Elaran’s suggestion of maf.

maw

noun. sheep

bam

noun. sheep