sí adv. "now" (Nam, RGEO:67, LR:47, SD:310, VT43:34, VT49:18, PE17:94), sin (SI, LR:47) or sín _(SD:247, 310) _before vowels. Compare the distribution of a/an in English, though in his Quenya version of Hail Mary, Tolkien used sí also before a vowel (sí ar "now and", VT43:28). Si, a short (or incompletely annotated) form of sí (VT43:26, 34). In Fíriel's Song, sí is translated "here".
Quenya
sí
adverb. now
sí
now
sí
adverb. now
sí ar lúmessë ya firuvammë: násië
now and at the hour of our death: Amen
The seventh line of Aia María, Tolkien’s translation of the Ave Maria prayer. The first few words are sí ar lúmessë “now and at [the] hour”, the last being a combination of the noun lúmë “time” (“hour”) and the locative suffix -ssë “at, in, on”. The next two words are a subordinate clause: ya firuvammë “✱when we will die”, the latter being future 1st-person-plural-exclusive form of the verb fir- “to die”. The last word, násië “Amen”, is also used by Tolkien in the Quenya prayer Átaremma.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> sí ar lúme-ssë ya fir-uva-mmë: násië = “✱now and time-at when die-(future)-we: amen”
Less literally: “✱now and at the time when we will die”.
Conceptual Development: The first few words sí ar lúmesse are the nearly same in all versions of the prayer, except (a) the accents are omitted from si and lumesse in version I and (b) Tolkien considered and rejected a variant form are for ar “and” (as he did in line four).
In the first two versions of the prayer Tolkien used a Quenya word for “of our death”: fíriemmo (I) and effíriemmo (II). In both cases, the noun is (ef)fírie “death” with the first person plural exclusive possessive suffix -mma “our” and the genitive suffix -o “of”. In the version I, these forms were preceded by some incomplete and difficult-to-decipher forms; for details see VT43/27, 34-35.
The word násië “Amen” appears only in the last two versions of the prayer (III-IV).
| |  I  | II |III|IV| |si|sí| |ar|{are >>} ar|ar| |lumesse|lúmesse| |{urtulm >> urt >> menya >>}|i fíriemmo|effíriemmo|yá firuvamme|ya firuvamme| | |násie|
an sí varda, tintallë, elentári ortanë máryat oiolossëo ve fanyar
for now Varda, Star-kindler, Star-queen [has] lifted up her (two) hands from Mount Everwhite like (white) clouds
The 9th and 10th phrases of the prose Namárië, corresponding to the 9th and 10th lines of the poem. They are combined here for purposes of discussion because Tolkien moved words between the two lines. Tolkien dramatically reorganized the text from the poetic version as follows:
> an sí Tintallë Varda Oiolossëo ve fanyar máryat Elentári ortanë >>
an sí Varda, Tintallë, Elentári ortanë máryat Oiolossëo ve fanyar
Tolkien grouped together the three names of Varda (Varda, Tintallë, Elentári) as the subject of the phrase. He moved the object máryat “her (two) hands” immediately after the verb, which is the usual Quenya word order. He also moved the two modifying clauses, Oiolossëo “from Mount Everwhite” and ve fanyar “like (white) clouds”, to the end.
The revised Quenya ordering would match the poetic English translation quite closely if the phrase “from Mount Everwhite” were moved closer to the end:
> “for now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds” »»»
“✱for now Varda, the Kindler, the Queen of the Stars has uplifted her hands from Mount Everwhite like clouds”
sí vanwa ná, rómello vanwa, valimar!
now lost is, [to one] from the East lost, Valimar!
The 15th phrase in the prose Namárië, which is essentially the same as its poetic version, differing only in its more literal translation. The phrase still seems somewhat poetic. In most (but not all) cases, the Quenya verb ná- “to be” appears at the end of the phrase. Hypothetically, a more “normal” rendering might be:
> ✱sí Valimar vanwa Rómello ná “now Valimar lost from-the-East is
ai tó sí ilyama menta hwirya hondoringe fúmenen istarion
alas for now all begins to wither in the breath of cold-hearted wizards
an sí tintallë varda oiolossëo ve fanyar máryat elentári ortanë
for now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds
Ninth and tenth lines @@@
löa yucainen avar anduinë sí valútier
twenty years have flowed away down the Long River
ma varda enquantuva i yulma nin sí
will Varda now refill the cup for me?
sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?
who now shall refill the cup for me?
Eighth line @@@
sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?
now who the cup for me will refill?
The 8th phrase in the prose Namárië, which is essentially the same as its poetic version, differing only in its more literal translation.
This phrase is interesting in that it places the direct and indirect objects of the phrase (i yulma nin “the cup for me”) in between the subject (man “who”) and the verb (enquantuva “will refill”). This indicates that even in ordinary speech, the normal Quenya subject-verb-object word order was somewhat free, with objects able to appear in other positions.
sí man i yulmar men enquantuva?
*who now shall refill the cups for us?
sí man i yulmar n(g)wen enquantuva
*who now will refill the cups for us (dual)
sí vanwa ná, rómello vanwa, valimar!
now lost, lost to those from the east is Valimar!
Fifteenth line @@@
á carë (sí) ancárië
try harder
ási, sí
interjection. come now, now
The Quenya word for “now” which is very well attested. In notes on demonstratives from 1968, it is a vowel-lengthened form of demonstrative si “this” (VT49/18) which seems to be a standard way of forming adverbs of time in Tolkien’s later writings; compare tá “then” (VT49/11) and yá “when” (VT49/23). This vowel-lengthening construction was explicitly described in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948: “The bare stems lengthened are used [for adverbs of time]” (PE23/109).
In Tolkien’s writings from the 1930s and 40s, he occasionally had sin or sín “now” with an n (Ety/SIN; LR/47; SD/247; SD/310). One working theory is that this is the form of sí when it appears before a vowel. However, in the aforementioned DRC from 1948, Tolkien had a variant form ᴹQ. sin(an) “now” using the suffix ᴹQ. -n(an), also used for adverbs of time.
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. tyá “now” based on the early root ᴱ√KI “this by me” (QL/46, 49). In the Early Qenya Grammar (EQG) from the 1920s he had ᴱQ. qí or qin for adverbs of time based ᴱQ. qi “this”, hence = “✱now”. However, the untranslated text Sí Qente Feanor from the 1910s seems to use sí = “now” (PE15/32, 34).
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would mostly use sí “now”, but I would also use sín or sin in cases where the results are more euphonic, particularly preceding a word starting with a vowel.