Beware, older languages below! The languages below were invented during Tolkien's earlier period and should be used with caution. Remember to never, ever mix words from different languages!

Early Quenya

silmeráno tindon

shining in the silver moon

The twelfth phrase of the first version of the Oilima Markirya poem (MC/220). Its first word is the genitive form of silmerána “gleaming moon” followed by the aorist 3rd-plural masculine form of the verb tini- “to shine, gleam”. The subject of this phrase is actually ondolin “rocks” appearing in the previous phrase, with the genitive silmeráno giving the context in which the rocks shine. A more literal translation would be “✱of the gleaming moon they shine”.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> silme-rán-o tin-don = “✱gleaming-moon-of shine-they”

Conceptual Development: This phrase appeared in the fourth draft of this poem as no silmerána tindon, with no “under” serving the same role as the genitive (OM1d: PE16/62), hence “✱under the gleaming moon they shine”. Tolkien switched to the final form of the phrase in the sixth draft (OM1f: PE16/74).

Element in

Elements

WordGloss
silmerána“gleaming moon, silver moon”
tini-“to gleam, shine as a star”

Variations

  • Silmeráno tindon ✧ MC/220
  • {ranainen >> ránasi >> silmerána >>} no silmerána tindon ✧ PE16/062
  • no silmeraana tindon ✧ PE16/072
  • {no} silmeráno tindon ✧ PE16/074
Early Quenya [MC/220; PE16/062; PE16/072; PE16/074] Group: Eldamo. Published by