A noun for a “shingle, pebble bank” in The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor from 1967-69 from primitive ✶sarniye, the basis for the river name S. Serni (VT42/11). Here the gloss “shingle” is used in the sense of a mass of smell pebbles rather than as a roofing tile. This word is an unusual example of a final -i in Sindarin, because the i was protected by the final e that was itself lost. Tolkien indicated it might instead be an adjective formation (“pebbly”?) from the (rare) adjective suffix -i derived from primitive ✶-īya, -ēya (VT42/10-11).
Sindarin
sarn
noun/adjective. (small) stone, pebble, gem; stony (place), (small) stone, pebble, gem[stone]; stony (place); [N.] stone as a material
serni
noun. shingle, pebble bank
serni
place name. Pebble Bank
A river in Gondor appearing on the maps of The Lord of the Rings (LotR/1186). In his discussion of The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor, Tolkien indicated this name was a collective noun or adjectival formation meaning “shingle, pebble bank” (VT42/11).
Conceptual Development: In Lord of the Rings drafts from the 1940s, the name N. Serni appears in a list of rivers (TI/312, WR/436).
sarneg
noun. pebble
A neologism for “pebble” coined by Paul Strack in 2021 specifically for Eldamo, a diminutive form of S. sarn “stone”.
serni
pebble-bank
serni (i herni, o serni) (shingle), no distinct pl. form except with article (i serni)
serni
pebble-bank
(i herni, o serni) (shingle), no distinct pl. form except with article (i serni)
serni
shingle
serni (i herni, o serni) (pebble-bank), no distinct pl. form except with article (i serni)
serni
shingle
(i herni, o serni) (pebble-bank), no distinct pl. form except with article (i serni)
A Sindarin noun for a small individual stone or pebble (RC/327; VT42/11) in contrast to S. gond for large blocks of stone or rock (Ety/GOND) or stone as a material (PE17/28). However, sarn also functioned as an adjective “stony”, and when used unqualified could also refer to a “stony place” (RC/163). It was a derivative of the root ᴹ√SAR (Ety/SAR). In notes on the Common Eldarin Article (CEA) from 1969, Tolkien translated this word as “small stone, pebble, gem” (PE23/139), and I think the last gloss indicates this word can be used for valuable stones as well, in the sense “gem[stone]”.
Conceptual Development: This word dates all the way back to the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s where Tolkien had G. sarn “a stone” (GL/67), and it was also an element in the negative word ᴱN. orsarn “stoneless” in Early Noldorin Word-lists of the 1920s (PE13/156). It appeared as N. sarn, a derivative of ᴹ√SAR, in The Etymologies of the 1930s, but in this document it was glossed “stone as a material”, and also functioned as an adjective, apparently a blending of ✱sarnē and ᴹ✶sarnā (Ety/SAR), in contrast to N. gonn which in this document was only “a great stone or rock” (Ety/GOND). In later writings sarn could still function as an adjective “stony” (RC/163) but as a noun generally referred to an individual (small) stone, as in the name S. Edhelharn “Elfstone” (SD/128).