A well-attested verb for “to raise, lift (up)”. It was one of Tolkien’s favorite example for causative verbs, as a combination of √OR “rise, up” with the causative suffix ✶-tā, so more literally “cause to rise” (PE17/70). Tolkien used it as an example of the conjugation of this class of verbs in several places (PE17/77; PE22/117, 157, 159, 164), consistently with a weak past ortane as in the Namárië poem (LotR/377).
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had a similar verb ᴱQ. orto- “raise” under the early root ᴱ√ORO, but in that document its past form was oronte (QL/70). At various points in Tolkien’s later writings, he indicated orta- “raise” was blended with an intransitive ta-causative verb orta- “rise”, which had a half-strong past oronte “arose” (Ety/ORO; PE22/159, 164).
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I prefer to use the more distinctive verb orya- for intransitive “rise”, and use orta- only for transitive “raise”. However, using orta- for both “raise” and “rise” is popular among many Neo-Quenya writers. See the entry on orta- “rise” for discussion.
Tolkien defined an intransitive verb orta- “to rise” based on the root √OR “rise”, first mentioned in The Etymologies of the 1930s where Tolkien had ᴹQ. orta- glossed both transitive “raise” and intransitive “rise” (Ety/ORO). This intransitive verb reappeared in the Quenya Verbal System of 1948 as ta-formative ort(a), contrasted with ta-causative ᴹQ. ortā́ “raise, lift” = “✱make rise” (PE22/114). In this paradigm, intransitive “rise” was distinguished from transitive “raise” mainly in its half-strong past tense oronte “rose” (or archaic †ronte), as opposed weak past ortane “raised, lifted” (PE22/115).
In QVS, Tolkien gave another intransitive verb ᴹQ. orya-, and said “to avoid the confusion with the causatives -ya was preferred for intransitives: so oryane, rose, ortane, raised” (PE22/115). This seems to indicate orya- “rise” was preferred. Despite this, intransitive orta- “rise” continued to appear in Tolkien later writings (PE17/52, 64; PE21/77; PE22/164) as an alternate to orya- “rise”, which appeared regularly as well (see that entry for details).
Conceptual Development: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I prefer the more distinctive verb orya- for “rise”, and I use orta- only for transitive “raise”. However, some Neo-Quenya writers like the idea of a transitive/intransitive verb distinguished by different past forms. For example Helge Fauskanger used orta- for both “rise” and “raise” in his NQNT (NQNT).