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
man
who
man pron. "who" (Nam, RGEO:67, FS, LR:59, Markirya, MC:213, 214); cf. PM:357 note 18, where a reference is made to the Eldarin interrogative element ma, man). However, man is translated "what" in LR:59: man-ië? "what is it?" (LR:59; the stative-verb suffix -ië_ is hardly valid in LotR-style Quenya) _Either Tolkien later adjusted the meaning of the word, or man covers both "who" and "what". Cf. also mana, manen.
man
pronoun. who, who; [ᴹQ.] what
The most common Quenya word for “who”, most notably appearing in the Namárië poem in the phrase sí man i yulma nin enquantuva? “who now shall refill the cup for me?” (LotR/377). It is based on the interrogative element ma (PE17/68). Man might be a general interrogative element “who, what, which”; at one point Tolkien said man was a reduction of mana before vowels (PE23/135). However, in the Markirya, man was used for “who” before consonants, such as man tiruva fána cirya “Who shall heed a white ship?” (MC/222).
In writings from the 1930s and 40s, man was used for “what” (LR/59, 72) or as a general interrogative marker (PE23/99). However, it was used for “who” in the versions of the Oilima Markirya from around 1930 (MC/213-214).
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would mostly use man in the sense “who”, before both consonants and vowels. For “what” I would use mana, and as a general interrogative marker I’d use ma. In cases where you want an unambiguous word for “who = what person”, I would use mamo.
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)
men
who
men (3) pron. "who", evidently a misreading or miswriting for man (MC:221, in Markirya)
qualin
dead
qualin ("q")adj. "dead" (KWAL, LT1:264)
ye
who
ye (1) singular personal relative pronoun "who", maybe also object "whom" (plural form i). Compare the impersonal form ya. Also attested in the genitive and the ablative cases: yëo and yello, both translated "from whom" (though the former would also mean *"whose, of whom"). (VT47:21)
ye
pronoun. who
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.