Primitive elvish
wē/ewe
root. person, being, individual
Derivatives
- ✶-wē “person; male suffix” ✧ PM/340
- Q. -wë “ancient name suffix (usually but not always masculine)” ✧ PM/340
- Q. véra “personal, private, own” ✧ PM/340
- Q. -wë “ancient name suffix (usually but not always masculine)” ✧ PE17/189; PE17/189
- S. gwaith “people; region, people, [ᴱN.] men, folk; [N.] manhood; man-power, troop of able bodied men, host, regiment; [S.] region” ✧ PE17/190
- S. -u “a person or being” ✧ PE17/190
- S. -we “person, being, individual, person, being, individual; [N.] masculine suffix” ✧ PE17/189; PE17/190
- T. evë “a person, somebody (unnamed)” ✧ PM/340
Element in
Variations
- WĒ ✧ PE17/189 (WĒ); PE17/189
- WEƷ ✧ PE17/189 (WEƷ)
- WE ✧ PE17/190
- EWE ✧ PM/340
A root mentioned in notes from the late 1950s having to do with “persons” serving as the basis for the suffix Q. -wë common in ancient Quenya names (PE17/189-90). In The Etymologies of the 1930s this suffix had two variants: masculine ᴹQ. -we derived from root ᴹ√WEG “(manly) vigour”, but also abstract ᴹQ. -we derived from unrelated ᴹ✶-wē (Ety/WEG). The suffix was masculine in some later notes as well, where Tolkien said “√WEG, WEƷ, √NES, NETH- referred to masculinity and femininity apart from sex and so could refer to the Valar and Maiar” (PE17/190), but this etymology was rejected and in its place Tolkien wrote: “√WE ? WEƷ ‘person’, individual (only used of Elves and Men), thus origin of -we in Quenya names as Manwe, Voronwe” (PE17/189). In Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 Tolkien wrote:
> -we in Quenya names (Manwe, etc.). This is in origin a separate word √WĒ (WE’E ?), from its form an ancient element of Eldarin vocabulary. Probably related to Q ve “as, like”; vëa “seeming, apparent”; vávea, ovéa “(con)similar, alike”. In Sindarin adoption of Quenya names (as Voronwe > Bronweg) -we was sometimes used to represent -we, which historically had become w or u (as in Elu = Elwe). But this S -we is of distinct origin, √WEG- “live, be active”. Hence ✱wego(n) “living creature”: Q weo, vëo, S gwê (PE17/189).
In these Quenya Notes, √WĒ as a name element was distinct from √WEG “active”, and neither were distinctly masculine. The initial version of this note glossed √WE as “a person or being” (PE17/190), but in revision Tolkien connected it to Q. ve “as, like” (PE17/189). The interpretation of the suffix -we as gender-neutral was mentioned again in The Shibboleth of Fëanor from 1968 where Tolkien said it was derived from √EWE “person” (PM/340). However, the only feminine name where this element appeared was Q. Elenwë the wife of Turgon (S/90, PM/345), and most of the names with this element were both masculine and ancient.
See the entry on √WEG for more on the evolution of earlier, largely masculine, forms.