Middle Primitive Elvish
way
root. enfold
Changes
- WAY → VAY “enfold” ✧ Ety/WAY
Derivatives
- ᴹ✶vaiā “sea”
- ᴹQ. vea “sea” ✧ PE21/17
- ᴹ✶wāyā “envelope” ✧ Ety/GEY; Ety/WAY
- ᴺQ. vaima “wrap, robe”
- ᴺQ. vaina “clad”
- ᴺQ. vainë “sheath, pod”
- ᴹQ. vaita- “to enfold, to enfold, [ᴱQ.] wrap” ✧ Ety/WAY
- N. gwaeda- “to enfold” ✧ Ety/WAY
- ᴺS. gwaef “wrap, binding”
- ᴺS. gwael “sheath, case, cover; pod”
- N. ui “envelope” ✧ Ety/GEY
- N. Uiar “Ulmo” ✧ Ety/LEP; Ety/ULU
Variations
- VAY ✧ Ety/WAY
wā
root. blow
Derivatives
waw
root. blow
lan
root. weave
Derivatives
waiwa
root. blow
Derivations
- ᴹ√WĀ “blow” ✧ Ety/WĀ
Derivatives
Variations
- WAWA ✧ Ety/WĀ
len
root. (?road), way
Derivatives
- N. lembas “waybread” ✧ EtyAC/LEN
Element in
- N. lembas “waybread”
khap
root. enfold
Derivatives
teʒē
noun. path, course, line, direction, way
Derivations
- ᴹ√TEÑ “line, direction” ✧ Ety/TEƷ
Derivatives
The earliest iteration of this root was ᴱ√VAẎA “enfold, wind about” from the Qenya Lexicon from the 1910s with derivatives like ᴱQ. vaile “covering”, ᴱQ. vaima “wrap, robe”, and ᴱQ. vaita- “wrap” (QL/100). The contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon had derivatives like G. baidha- “clothe”, G. bail “sheath, case, cover; pod”, and G. bain “clad”, based on the primitive form Baʒ̔- (GL/21). This likely meant the medial consonant of the root was actually the voiced palatal spirant [ʝ], which Tolkien generally represented as ẏ in Qenya roots (PE12/15-16).
{ᴱN. bain >>} ᴱN. bai “clad” and ᴱN. bail “sheath” from Early Noldorin Word-lists of the 1920s were probably related (PE13/138). In The Etymologies from the 1930s the root appeared as ᴹ√WAY “enfold” with derivatives like ᴹQ. vaita-/N. gwaeda- “enfold” and N. ui “envelope” (Ety/WAY; EtyAC/WAY). In this entry the form was revised to ᴹ√VAY (Ety/WAY). Tolkien also indicated that it was “confused in later Q with BAYA”, perhaps an attempt to salvage the bai- forms of Gnomish and Early Noldorin, but this sentence was struck out and there is no other sign of ᴹ√BAY in The Etymologies.
Neo-Eldarin: In The Etymologies, the Noldorin words for “clothing” seem to have moved to a new root, ᴹ√KHAP “enfold”, but this root had no Quenya derivatives. I think it is best to reconceive of the Early Qenya derivatives of ᴱ√VAẎA related to “clothing” as derivatives of ᴹ√WAY instead. The Gnomish derivatives of ᴱ√VAẎA can’t be easily salvaged, however, since the later roots changed to make it difficult produce their initial b.