mar (1) noun "earth" (world), also "home, dwelling, mansion". Stem mard- (VT46:13, PE17:64), also seen in the ablative Mardello "from earth" (FS); the word is used with a more limited sense in oromardi "high halls" (sg. oromar, PM17:64), referring to the dwellings of Manwë and Varda on Mt. Taniquetil (Nam, RGEO:66). The initial element of Mardorunando (q.v.) may be the genitive mardo (distinguish mardo "dweller"). May be more or less identical to már "home, house, dwelling" (of persons or peoples; in names like Val(i)mar, Vinyamar, Mar-nu-Falmar, Mardil) (SA:bar, VT45:33, VT47:6). Már is however unlikely to have the stem-form mard-; a "Qenya" genitive maren appears in the phrase hon-maren, q.v., suggesting that its stem is mar-. A possible convention could therefore be to use már (mar-) for "home, house" (also when = household, family as in Mardil, q.v.), whereas mar (mard-) is used for for "earth, world". Early "Qenya" has mar (mas-) "dwelling of men, the Earth, -land" (LT1:251); notice that in LotR-style Quenya, a word in -r cannot have a stem-form in -s-.
Quenya
mardo
dweller
mar
earth
mar(da)
noun. dwelling, (great) house, residence, mansion, a thing or place dwelt in, home, dwelling, (great) house, residence, mansion, a thing or place dwelt in, home; [ᴱQ.] world
A word for “dwelling, mansion, hall” derived from √MBAR “dwell” (PE17/64), most notably as an element in oromardi “lofty halls” in the Namárië “poem” (LotR/377). Its plural mardi indicates a stem form of mard-, but its uninflected form appeared as both short mar (PE17/64, 163-4; PE21/80) and longer marda (PE17/107; PE21/76). Tolkien described its meaning more precisely in some notes from the 1960s:
> The derivative form ✱mbardā became in Quenya marda: “a thing or place dwelt in, dwelling” and since it could be applied to the actual dwelling-places or buildings (alone or grouped) approached the sense “house”. Though it did not in fact refer to “buildings”, and could equally well be applied to dwelling-places of natural origin, such as caves or groves (PE17/107).
And in an earlier version of these notes:
> The usual word in Eldarin for a “home”, as the established residence of a family consisting of one or more associated buildings, was ✱mbā̆r (stem mbăr-), and ✱mbardā (an adjectival formation). In Q mar (stem mard-), a blending of the two, was used like “residence”, usually with a defining genitive, for the “great house” of a family (PE17/164).
In Tolkien’s later writings, it seems this word was distinct from and coexisted with Q. már (mar-) “home” (PE17/106, 164).
Conceptual Development: This word for “dwelling” was often intermingled and confused with már “home”, making its conceptual development difficult to trace. There are some other earlier words for which some extension was added to √MBAR. In the 1910s ᴱQ. marda meant “world” as in ᴱQ. Talka Marda “Smith of the World” (LT1/180; 15/8); in The Qenya Phonology Tolkien said marda had a dialectical variant ᴱQ. mára (PE12/24) and in the Gnomish Lexicon it had the form Marwa “World” (GL/18).
The Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s had an adverbial variant ᴹQ. marta “home” of ᴹQ. mar “house” (PE21/25, 27); this adverbial form became marda “home” in Common Eldarin: Noun Structure of the early 1950s (PE21/76). In the 1930s more generally the stem form of short ᴹQ. mar was frequently mard- (PE21/27; EtyAC/MBAR; LR/72) but not always (LR/63). The coexistence of már and mard- was not clearly established until the 1960s (see above).
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use marda primarily as a “dwelling” as in “a thing dwelled in”, usable of buildings but also of natural dwellings like caves. Of constructed dwellings, it generally applies to larger or more elaborate dwellings such as mansions and halls, as in oromar “high hall”. I would assume the same was true of natural dwellings, with marda only applicable to a complex of inhabitable caverns rather than an individual cave. For the home of an individual or family I would use már “home”, and for the building itself I would use cöa “house” (dwelling or not).
I would use mard- as the stem form of this word as with its plural mardi. Strictly speaking its uninflected form would be mar < ✶mbardā̆ after the ancient loss of short final ă, but in practice this was generally reformed to marda to make it more distinct from már “home”. Thus sissë i luinë marda (ná) “here is the blue mansion” but tassë i ninqui mardi (nár) “there are the white mansions”.
Cognates
Derivations
- √MBAR “settle, dwell; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision, settle; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision; dwell, [ᴹ√] inhabit, [ᴱ√] live” ✧ PE17/064
- ✶mbarda ✧ PE17/107; PE17/107; PE17/163; PE17/164
- ✶mbar(ă) “dwelling, habitation” ✧ PE17/163; PE17/164
- √MBAR “settle, dwell; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision, settle; establish, fix, decide, determine, make a decision; dwell, [ᴹ√] inhabit, [ᴱ√] live”
- ✶mbard(a) “home, homeward” ✧ PE21/76
Element in
- ᴺQ. hlaimar “hospital”
- ᴺQ. mardaitë “homely, domestic”
- Q. Mardil “Devoted to the House”
- ᴺQ. mardo “dweller”
- Q. Mardorunando “*Redeemer of the World” ✧ VT44/17
- Q. Martamo “World-artificer”
- Q. Mar Tyaliéva “House of Mirth” ✧ PE21/80
- Q. Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva “House of Past (or Departed) Mirth” ✧ PE17/064; PE21/80
- ᴺQ. matimar “restaurant, (lit.) eating hall”
- ᴺQ. nammar “court, courthouse, (lit.) judgment-house”
- Q. oromar “lofty hall, high-mansion, high (lofty) dwelling” ✧ PE17/064
- Q. Tyalie Mar “House of Mirth” ✧ PE21/80
- ᴺQ. vanwiémar “museum, (lit.) hall of the past”
- ᴺQ. autamar “museum, (lit.) hall of the past”
Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources √MBAR > mar [mbarda] > [mbard] > [mard] > [mar] ✧ PE17/064 ✶mbardā > marda [mbardā] > [mardā] > [marda] ✧ PE17/107 ✶mbardā > marda [mbardā] > [mardā] > [marda] ✧ PE17/107 ✶mbar > mar [mbar] > [mar] ✧ PE17/163 ✶mbardă > mar [mbarda] > [mbard] > [mard] > [mar] ✧ PE17/163 ✶mbā̆r > mar [mbar] > [mar] ✧ PE17/164 ✶mbardā̆ > mar [mbarda] > [mbard] > [mard] > [mar] ✧ PE17/164 ✶mbard(a) > măr [mbarda] > [mbard] > [mard] > [mar] ✧ PE21/76 ✶mbard(a) > marda [mbardā] > [mardā] > [marda] ✧ PE21/76 Variations
- Mar ✧ MR/385; PE21/80
- mar ✧ PE17/064; PE17/064; PE17/064; PE17/163 (mar); PE17/163 (mar); PE17/164; PE17/164
- marda ✧ PE17/107; PE17/107; PE21/76
- măr ✧ PE21/76
már
home, house, dwelling
már (mar-) (2) noun "home, house, dwelling" (also "house" in the sense of family as in Mardil, q.v.). See mar above for references. In Mar-nu-Falmar, Mardil, and as final element in Eldamar, Fanyamar, Valimar, Vinyamar..
mélamar
home
mélamar noun "home", Exilic Quenya word of emotional sense: place of ones birth or the familiar places from which one has been separated (PE17:109). Mélamarimma noun "Our Home", an expression used by Exilic Noldor for Aman.
indo
house
indo (2) noun "house" (LT2:343), probably obsoleted by #1 above (in Tolkiens later Quenya, the word for "house" appears as coa).
kemen
earth
kemen noun "earth"; see cemen.
os
house, cottage
os (ost-) noun "house, cottage" (LT2:336; hardly valid in LotR-style Quenya writers may use coa or már)
cemi
earth, soil, land
cemi noun "earth, soil, land"; Cémi ("k")"Mother Earth" (LT1:257; the "Qenya" word cemi would correspond to cemen in LotR-style Quenya)
mardo
noun. dweller
Elements
Word Gloss mar(da) “dwelling, (great) house, residence, mansion, a thing or place dwelt in, home, dwelling, (great) house, residence, mansion, a thing or place dwelt in, home; [ᴱQ.] world”
mardo noun "dweller" (LT1:251).