mana interogative, a word translated "what is" in the sentence mana i-coimas Eldaron[?] "what is the coimas (lembas) of the Eldar?" (PM:395, a variant reading in PM:403) Either this is *ma "what" + ná "is", or mana may itself be a unitary word "what", and there is not really any word meaning "is" in the sentence. Since ma is assigned other meanings elsewhere, the latter interpretation may be the more likely.
Quenya
mana
pronoun. what, what, which; [ᴹQ.] who
mana
what is
mána
noun. blessing, good thing, blessing, good thing; [ᴹQ.] blessed
mana arano? i máro
Which king’s? The good one’s
mana i coimas eldaron?
What is the ‘coimas’ of the Eldar?
mana i·coimas in·eldaron?
What is the ‘coimas’ of the Eldar?
firin
dead
firin adj. "dead" (by natural cause) (PHIR).This may obsolete the earlier "Qenya" word firin "ray of the sun" (LT2:341)
hessa
dead, withered
hessa adj. "dead, withered" (LT1:255)
qualin
dead
qualin ("q")adj. "dead" (KWAL, LT1:264)
A Quenya word for “what”, used as both a pronoun and an adjective “which”. Examples include mana i coimas Eldaron? “What is the ‘coimas’ of the Eldar?” (PM/395) and mana arano? “Which king’s” (PE23/135). ᴹQ. mana was an adjectival interrogative “what, which” in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 (PE23/105), but could also be used substantially for “what” (PE23/104).
In the sense “which” (indicating a choice) it was used together with the genitive, such as mana tana márion “which of those house”. But it could also be used as a direct adjective: mana nér “what man”. Inflicted forms are generally based on the base interrogative element ma, as in masse “where” using the locative suffix -ssë.