An invertible root, √LA or √ALA, used for negation. Its earliest iteration was as the primitive negative prefix ᴱ✶ḷ- from the 1910s (GL/50; PE12/11; QL/97). Its first appearance as ᴹ√LA “no, not” was in The Etymologies of the 1930s (Ety/LA), and it regularly appeared in documents from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Tolkien then abandoned this form of negation in 1959 (PE17/143), but restored it again around 1969 (PE22/160) only to abandon it again shortly after (VT44/4). For a full history of Tolkien’s shifting conceptions of negation in Elvish, see the Quenya entry on the negative.
Primitive elvish
nō
adverb. behind
Derivatives
lā-
verb. to not be
Derivations
- √LA “no, not; negative; not to be” ✧ PE22/153
Derivatives
Element in
- ✶lāni/lanjē karnē-sa “I did not do it” ✧ PE22/140; PE22/140
- ✶lasa “not it = it is/was not so” ✧ PE22/140
Variations
- la ✧ PE22/140
- lā ✧ PE22/153
nō/ono
root. beget, give birth to; be born, beget, give birth to; be born; [ᴱ√] become
Derivatives
- ✶nōrē “kindred, race” ✧ PE17/026; PE17/106; PE17/107; PE17/169; WJ/413
- Q. nórë “land, country; †people, race, tribe, land, country, [ᴹQ.] region where certain people live, [ᴱQ.] nation; [Q.] †people, race, tribe, [ᴹQ.] folk, [ᴱQ.] family” ✧ PE17/106; PE17/107; PE17/169; WJ/413
- ✶nōse “race, tribe, people” ✧ PE17/169
- Q. nos(së) “kindred, family, kindred, family, [ᴹQ.] clan, ‘house’, [ᴱQ.] folk, kin, people”
- ᴺQ. nó “design”
- Q. nóna “born”
- Q. nos(së) “kindred, family, kindred, family, [ᴹQ.] clan, ‘house’, [ᴱQ.] folk, kin, people” ✧ PE17/111
- Q. nosta- “to beget, be begotten, to beget, [ᴱQ.] give birth to; [Q.] to be begotten, *be born [impersonal]; [ᴱQ.] to cause” ✧ PE17/111; PE17/170
- Q. nostar “parent, begetter, *ancestor; parent, begetter” ✧ PE17/111
- Q. onna “child, child, *offspring; [ᴹQ.] creature” ✧ PE17/170; PE17/170
- Q. onta- “to beget, to beget, *conceive (a child); [ᴹQ.] to create” ✧ PE17/170
- ᴺS. enia- “to be born, be generated, result”
- S. nos(s) “family, kindred, clan, house; race, tribe, people” ✧ PE17/169
- Wes. nas “people” ✧ PM/320
- S. onna- “*to birth, give birth to” ✧ WJ/387
Element in
Variations
- NŌ ✧ PE17/026; PE17/168
- ONO/NŌ ✧ PE17/106; PE17/107; PE17/170; PE17/171
- ONO ✧ PE17/111; WJ/387; WJ/413
- NO/NŌ ✧ PE17/168
- (o)nō ✧ PE17/169
- ON/NO ✧ PE17/170
- on/no ✧ VT48/25
ala
root. no, not; negative; not to be
la
root. no, not; negative; not to be
Derivatives
- ✶lā- “to not be” ✧ PE22/153
- Q. al(a)- “in-, un-, not; †-less, without” ✧ PE22/153; VT42/33
- Q. ala- “to deny”
- Q. la- “not, in-, un-”
- Q. lá- “to not be” ✧ PE22/156; VT42/33; VT49/13
- Q. lá “no, not” ✧ PE22/153; VT42/33
- ᴺQ. lana “no, not any, not (a); none”
- S. al- “no, not”
- ᴺS. lad “nothing, zero”
- ᴺS. law “not”
Variations
- AL ✧ PE17/143 (
AL); PE17/146; PE22/140- al ✧ PE18/088; PE22/140; VT42/32 (
al)- la ✧ PE18/088; VT42/32 (
la)- lā ✧ PE22/140
- LĀ ✧ PE22/153
- ALA ✧ PE22/153
- (A)LA ✧ PE22/156
- ala ✧ VT42/33; VT49/13
- al/la ✧ VT48/25
This root was associated with Elvish words for “birth” for most of Tolkien’s life. It first appeared as ᴱ√NŌ “become, be born” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with derivatives like ᴱQ. nosta- “give birth to; cause” and ᴱQ. nosse “folk, kin, people” (QL/66). Likewise in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon there was G. nosta- “am born” and G. nothri “family, kinship” (GL/61), and in the Name Lists for to The Fall of Gondolin (NFG), G. nos was used as the equivalent of ᴱQ. nosse (PE15/22, 24). Both Q. nossë and S. nos(s) appeared regularly in Tolkien’s later writings.
In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien gave ᴹ√NŌ/ONO “beget” as an invertible root, with derivatives of the inverted form including ᴹQ. onta- “beget, create” and N. odhron “parent” (Ety/NŌ, ONO). The invertible root appeared regularly in Tolkien’s later writings, usually with the sense “beget” but in one place also glossed “be born” (PE17/170).