nostari pl. noun "parents", pl. of *nostar* or nostaro** "parent" (LotR3:VI ch. 6, translated in Letters:308)
Quenya
nostar
noun. parent, begetter, *ancestor; parent, begetter
Derivations
- √NŌ/ONO “beget, give birth to; be born, beget, give birth to; be born; [ᴱ√] become” ✧ PE17/111
Element in
- Q. a vanimar, vanimálion nostari “O beautiful ones, parents of beautiful children” ✧ Let/448; LotR/0981; SD/073
- ᴺQ. nostarenca “orphaned, (lit.) parent-less”
Elements
Word Gloss nosta- “to beget, be begotten, to beget, [ᴱQ.] give birth to; [Q.] to be begotten, *be born [impersonal]; [ᴱQ.] to cause” -r(o) “agental suffix” Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources √ONO > nostari [nostarī] > [nostari] ✧ PE17/111
nostari
parents
ontar
begetter, parent
ontar noun prob. *"begetter, parent" (a gender-neutral term, applied to a woman in the source; compare the various gender-specific forms below) (VT44:7). Dual ontaru "(two) parents" (see ontani above).
ontaro
begetter, parent
ontaro noun "begetter, parent" (evidently masc.); pl. ontari or dual ontaru (see ontani) covers both sexes. (ONO, VT46:7)
ontarë
begetter, parent
ontarë noun "begetter, parent" (fem); the pl. ontari or dual ontaru (see ontani) covers both sexes. (ONO, VT46:7)
ontarië
begetter, parent
ontarië noun "begetter, parent" (fem.) (VT44:7)
A word for “parent” appearing only in its plural form nostari in the phrase a vanimar, vanimálion nostari “O beautiful ones, parents of beautiful children” (LotR/981; Let/448). Its singular form is probably nostar, a combination of the verb nosta- “beget” and the agental suffix -r(o).
Conceptual Development: The Etymologies of the 1930s had masculine and feminine forms ᴹQ. ontaro and ᴹQ. ontare “begetter, parent” under the root ᴹ√ONO “beget” (Ety/ONO), along with a dual form ontaru referring to both parents as a pair (EtyAC/ONO). Feminine variants ontaril or ontari appeared in Quenya prayers from the 1950s (VT43/32; VT44/7). The plural form ontari appeared in Lord of the Rings drafts in the precursor to the phrase mentioned above: ᴹQ. O vanimar vanimalion ontari (SD/64, 73).
Neo-Quenya: It is possible that nostar has a meaning closer to “ancestor” than “parent”, since the couple to which the phrase Q. a vanimar, vanimálion nostari was addressed (Galadriel and Celeborn) had only a single child, and so the phrase only makes sense if it refers to them as ancestors of all of their descendants: their daughter Celebrían and her children Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen. If nostar is used in this way, then perhaps the 1930s words ᴹQ. ontaro and ontare can be used for male and female “parents”, along with an unattested ᴺQ. ✱ontar as a neutral word for “parent” independent of gender. Hat-tip to Lokyt for this suggestion, though he is unsure who came up with the idea originally.