Download - rtlinyar Tengwar;...rtlinyar Tengwar; Number 49 · June 2007 Contents Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals and Related Writings-Part Three· -f.R.R. Tolkien ISSN 1054-7606 Five Late Quenya

rtlinyar Tengwar; Number 49 · June 2007

Contents

Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals and Related Writings-Part Three·

- f.R.R. Tolkien

ISSN 1054-7606

. '

Five Late Q uenya Volitive Inscriptions ' :$.� ' -f.R.R. Tolkien

Departments

E ditor's Musings 2 Resources 59

Vinyar Ter{gwar · Number 49 June 2007 --�----------------�----�------�------------------

Editor's Musings I must apologize for the vast length of time between this issue and the

last. This is partly due to the tim� it can take to research matters in Tolkien's linguistic papers, as was done extensively for this issue; but it is mostly due to your editor having been asked to contribute two distinct and substantial accounts of Tolkien's invented languages to Michael Drout's f.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (Routledge, 2006) and to a forthcoming book on invented languages edited by Michael Adams for Oxford University Press, and to write a lengthy account of the first fifty years of Tolkienian Linguistics for the forthcoming vol. 4 of Drout et al., eds., Tolkien Studies (West Virginia University Press). Whew!

This issue features the third and final part of Patrick Wynne's presentation of "Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals and Related Writings': which concludes with an analysis of the seven versions of a Quenya text concerning Elvish ambidexterity, and features an appendix presenting Tolkien's late writings on the verb nii 'to be: several forms of which appear in these texts.

This issue also features my prese ntation of five late Quenya volitive inscriptions in nai, ranging from 1964 to 1969, one of which arose on the same sheet as the Ambidexters Sentence XAS). Presented as appendices to this are two late sets of notes on Quenya pronominal inflections and related forms-dating from 19 64 and c. 19 68, respectively-which shed further light on the pronominal endings encountered in the inscriptions, and in the AS.

Please note the addition te the standard bibliographic citations on the back cover of an important new work from Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond, the two- volume ].R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide (HarperCollins, 2007), which is both an important new source and a new standard reference for Tolkien's life and writings. Citations of the two volumes use the forms CG1 and CG2, respectively. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Christina and Wayne for this monumental work, without which I would not have deduced the meaning of the first inscription presented in my article.

Finally, I remind all readers that Vinyar Tengwar will undergo a format change and a switch to per-issue ordering after the publication of issue so. Starting with issue 51 , VT will be produced and published solely through the printon-demand services ofLulu.com (http://www.lulu.com/ELF).

- Carl F. Hostetter

"cor sapientis in dextera eius et cor stulti in sinistra illius." 'A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left:

- Ecclesiastes 10:2

Vinyar Tengwar is produced by the editor on an Apple MacBook Pro with Adobe InDesign CS3. V T is set in the Adobe Minion Pro and Gentium OpenType font families,

and further employs Johan Winges Tengwar Annatar True Type font.

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 ___________ _:___

Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals and Related Writings-Part Three

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Edited by Patrick H. Wynne

Tolkien's texts copyright ©2007 The Tolkien Trust

IV. The Ambidexters Sentence

In the late essay Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals (HFN), J.R.R. Tolkien describes the concept of handedness among the Eldar in a section entitled "Left and Right': which begins with the following passage (VT 47=9 ) :

No distinction was felt between right and left by the Eldar. There was nothing queer, ill-omened (sinister) , weak, or inferior about the 'left'. Nor anything more correct and proper (right) , of good omen, or honour about the 'right'. The Eldar were 'ambidexters', and the allocation of different habitual services or duties to the right or the left was a purely individual and personal matter, undirected by any general inherited racial habit.1

As I noted in my introduction to HFN in VT 47, there also exist "two untitled pages, one in manuscript and the other typed, bearing several successive versions of a sentence in Quenya (with English translation) concerning Elvish ambidexterity and the significance of the left hand; this 'Ambidexters Sentence' appears to have been based on portions of the section 'Left and Right' in HFN" (VT47:4-5 ) . There are seven versions o f the Ambidexters Sentence i n all, which will b e referred t o here a s A S 1-7. Th e two pages o n which these versions occur were not placed with HFN but are found instead in two separate locations in "Quenya C': a boxfile containing many writings contemporary with HFN (c. 1968); Tolkien later used the backs of both pages for notes unrelated to HFN, and then placed each page with other manuscripts to which the new notes pertained.

AS 1-3 were written in ballpoint pen on the blank side of a torn half-sheet, the lower half of an Alien & Unwin notice of out-of-print books dated 12th January, 1968 . The half-sheet itself bears no date, but intact copies of the same notice found in this bundle of manuscripts (a sheaf of miscellaneous notes placed in a brown folder, mostly written on A&U waste paper from 1968) have this date printed at the top. Tolkien began the manuscript by writing a sentence in English at the top of the half-sheet:

Elves were ambidextrous :. left had no "sinister" connexions (rather the reverse) since facing West (usual) left pointed away from Morgoth, and facing North it pointed to Aman. 2

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The similarity between the first two lines of this sentence and phrases from the section "Left and Right" in HFN is obvious-HFN states that "The Eldar were 'ambidexters"' and "There was nothing queer, ill-omened (sinister) , weak, or inferior about the 'left' " -and there seems little reason to doubt that the Ambidexters Sentence was inspired by HFN, a conclusion further supported by the contemporary date of the texts. While it is also possible that the order of influence was the other way round, the idea that the left hand had a specifically positive connotation in addition to its lack of "sinister connexions" has no equivalent in HFN, which suggests that this concept in the Ambidexters Sentence is a later elaboration.3

AS 1 was written a short distance below the English sentence, and in the space between them Tolkien also wrote a partial conjugation of '>lna 'to be' (this is presented in an appendix below, along with other late writings on the verb 'to be' ) . This conjugation was added only after AS 1 had been begun, since the past, perfect, and future forms in the paradigm were written to avoid the first line of the Quenya sentence. Tolkien emended the Quenya word for 'were' in the first line of AS 1 at least twice before finally settling on ntlner, and this uncertainty apparently led him to clarify his thoughts on 'to be' at this time. AS 2 was mostly written in the narrow margin to the left of AS 1, with one phrase squeezed in between the second and third lines of the earlier version. AS 3, which appears at the bottom of the half-sheet, is also accompanied by two alternative endings for the first line, one written above the text and the other below.

Also sharing the page with AS 1-3 is an unrelated Quenya sentence without translation, the beginning of which, Nai siluvat elen atta renna, appears immediately below AS 1 and 2. The conclusion of the sentence, veryanweldo, was written at the bottom of the page below AS 3 and its two alternative phrases. This sentence is the first draft of a Quenya wedding greeting also extant in two later versions; see Carl F. Hostetter's article "Five Late Quenya Volitive Inscriptions" in this issue.

On the printed side of the half-sheet Tolkien also wrote a short glossary of Quenya words from the Ambidexters Sentence, hastily jotted in ballpoint using the same orientation as the printed text of the notice; this will be referred to as "Glossary 1" (for citations from this glossary, see entries hya, umara, sfmaryassen, ve senya, tentane, and Melcorello in the analysis below) . Tolkien subsequently rotated the half-sheet 90° and overwrote both Glossary 1 and the printed text with a new layer of notes using a different, wide-nibbed pen. These new notes concern the etymology of S . mae govannen and are clearly related to another page of notes on mae govannen, placed in the same bundle of manuscripts and written on both sides of an intact copy of the same A&U notice appearing on the torn half-sheet. The nib pen used to write this related page-on which Tolkien wrote the date "Aug. 23, '69"-was apparently the same pen used for the overwritten notes on the half-sheet. Since one of the later versions of the Quenya wedding greeting also bears the date '1\ug. 1969", it seems likely that AS 1-3 were written in August 1969 or shortly before.

Additional vocabulary notes pertaining to the Ambidexters Sentence are found on one of several narrow slips of paper placed immediately after the half-

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49

sheet; the contents of this slip will be referred to as "Glossary 2': The notes on m6 'anyone, someone',4 mii 'anything', im- 'same: etc. presented in VT47:37 n.s8 were taken from Glossary 2, and the remaining material found on this slip is given in the entries for an and ke in the analysis below.

AS 4-7 were typed on the blank side of yet another copy of the same A&U notice appearing on the half-sheet used for AS 1-3. This in itself suggests that no great time passed between the composition of the manuscript and typescript texts of the Ambidexters Sentence. Moreover, Glossary 1 on the reverse side of the manuscript lists Q. senya 'usual: a word that appears in all the typescript texts but is not used in the manuscript versions-AS 3 has senwa instead, and no Quenya form for 'usual' appears in AS 1 and 2 .

The printed side of the typescript was later used for notes in ballpoint pen detailing the development of medial consonant combinations in Quenya, and the page was placed, along with two other sheets of contemporary notes about Quenya consonant combinations, after a cardboard divider labeled "Phonology':

AS 4, AS 6, and AS 7 are each accompanied by English translations; AS 5 is not, since the Quenya text of this version was not completed. The translations of AS 4 and AS 6 are unfinished and tend to the literal; for example, in AS 4 hyarmen is glossed 'lefthand-directioll. The translation accompanying the final version, AS 7, is complete and more polished in style, and below the Quenya text of this version Tolkien also typed an etymological note on epetai 'consequentlY: All the emendations made to AS 4-6 were done in the act of typing, while AS 7 has one typed emendation and two made in ink using a nib pen.

All seven versions of the Ambidexters Sentence were written as single, continuous paragraphs. The Quenya and English texts are here editorially arranged into five lines corresponding to the lineation of the original English sentence preceding AS 1 , in which each line forms a convenient and coherent phrase.5 Each version of the Ambidexters Sentence is presented in its final emended form, followed by a list of emendations made to that version. The texts are followed by a detailed analysis of forms, which draws extensively on Tolkien's contemporary unpublished linguistic writings.

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Elves were ambidextrous :. left had no "sinister" connexions (rather the reverse) since facing West (usual) left pointed away from Morgoth, and facing North it pointed to Aman.

i Eldar miner attaformor potai hyarmen lane sinister simaryasse: lasir an ke mo querne immo numenna (ve ... ) i hyarma tentane ollo Morikotto, ar formenna tentane Amanna.

Emendations:

June 2007

Line 1: nar (possibly emended to niir) > > na > > naner. attaformor was preceded by at» ata » tatafor (all unfinished) .

Line 2: tanen >> ta >> etta >> potai. simasse >> simaryasse. Line 3: lasi >> la >> lasir. pan nanquerne >> an numenquerna >> an ke mo

querne immo numenna. The " . . . " after ve appears in the manuscript. Line 4: tente >> tentane, here and in line 5· Moringotto >> Morikotto.

AS2 [ • • • ]6 ataformor hyarmen aune "sinister" simaryassen. an ke mo quernes immo numenna i hyarma tentane ollo Melcor ar formenna Amanna.

Emendations:

Line 3: quernesse >> quernes. AS3

mahtane yuyo ma vela

i-Eldar "ataformaite" etta hyarmen lane ulca hya umara simaryassen usir, an ke mo querne kanwarya Numenna ( ve senwa) i hyarma tentane Melkorello, ar formenna tentane Amanna.

(naner ataformaite ve firimor quetir)

Emendations:

Line 1: "attaformaite" >> "ataformaite': Line 2: potai was added above etta as an alternative. khe >> hela >> hya.


Line 3: lasir >> usir. The n in kanwarya was apparently emended or struck out; see the discussion in the analysis below.

Line 4: Morikottollo » Melkorello.

Eldar ataformaiti; epetai hyarmen u tena ulca hya umara s{maryassen: usir, an ke mo querne kendele numenna (ve senya) ihyarma tentane Melcorello, ar formenna tentane Amanna.

Elves are/were ambidextrous; consequently lefthand-direction is/was not to them evil or {sinister} {for if one turned face}

Elves are/were ambidexters

Emendations:

Line 1: This was first typed as Eldar nar ataformaite, after which nar was struck out and ataformaite >> ataformaiti.

Lines 2 & 3 (English translation): Deleted words or phrases in the texts are enclosed in curly brackets, as " {sinister}", etc.

ASs

Eldar ataformaiti; epetai i hyarma u tena ulca hya umara s{maryassen, an ke mo quere kendele (ve senya) numenna tentane Melcorello

Emendations:

Line 3: (ve senya) i hyarma numenna >> (ve senya) numenna.

AS6

Eldar ataformaiti; epetai i hyarma u tena ulca simaryassen. usir, an ke mo quere kendele numenna ve senya i hyarma tentane Melcorello, ar ke formenna tentane Amanna.

The Elves are/were ambidexters; consequently the left-hand is/was not to them evil in their imagination. On the contrary-for if one turns the face westwards as usual the left-hand pointed away from Melkor


Eldar ataformaiti; epetai i hyarma u ten ulca simaryassen. usie, an ke mo querne kendele numenna, ve senya, i hyarma tentane Melcorello, ar ke mo formenna tentanes Amanna.

epetai : epe-ta-i 'following which (fact) '

The Elves were ambidexters;

June 2007

consequently the left hand was not to them evil in their imaginations. On the contrary. For if one turned the face westwards as was usual, the left hand pointed away from Melkor (in the North) , and if northwards, it pointed towards Aman (the Blessed Land) .

Emendations:

Line 2: u tena >> u ten. Line 3= usir » usie (emendation in ink) . Line s : tentane >> tentanes (emendation in ink) .

Analysis of Forms

Note: Bold headwords are for the most part from AS 7, with earlier forms discussed under their later counterparts. In those instances where a form appearing in an earlier version has no equivalent in AS 7 (for example, nt'iner 'were' in AS 1,

or hya 'or' in AS 3-5) , the headword is taken from the earlier version. All words cited are Quenya unless otherwise noted.

Line 1 :

Eldar 'the Elves': The definite article i 'the' is used before Eldar in AS 1 (i Eldar) and AS 3 (i-Eldar) but is absent in AS 4-7 (Eldar is nonetheless translated as 'the Elves' in the English glosses accompanying AS 6 and 7). Tolkien's decision to omit the article in this instance might be explained by a note (apparently dating to the early 1950s) describing the distinction made in Eldarin between the definite or group-plural and the indefinite or partitive plural; this conveniently uses the word Eldar as an example: "Definite were plurals referring to whole classes, to things naturally or habitually considered in plurality [as English heavens = 'the sky', the sands = 'all the sand in a given locality: etc.], and in the syntax of many languages a plural with a definite article, meaning all the members of a group previously mentioned, or in mind. Thus in Q. Eldar (not with article!) = Elves, The Elves, All Elves; i Eldar = (all) the Elves previously named (and in some cases distinguished from other creatures); but Eldali, Elves, some Elves. With Eldali the definite article is seldom used."


naner 'were': In AS 1 Tolkien first rejected nar (present plural, apparently emended to niir) and na (perhaps unfinished) before settling on naner (past tense plural). The copula is omitted in AS 3, i-Eldar "ataformaite': but it appears in the second alternative ending to the first line of this version, nciner ataformaite ve firimor quetir. The copula was also used in line 1 of AS 4 as first typed, Eldar nar ataformaite, but this was emended to Eldar ataformaiti, and this form of the phrase was retained unchanged in AS 5-7 (the omitted copula is glossed as 'are/were' in AS 4 and 6 , 'were' in AS 7). The grammatical rules for omission of the copula in Quenya are discussed in a note to an essay on comparison dating to c. 1966 or later (see VT 47:30 n.44). This note cites .Yna 'to be, exist', and states that "As a copula 'be, is' is not usually expressed in Quenya where the meaning is clear: se. in such expressions as 'A is good' where the adjective (contrary to the usual order in Quenya of a qualifying adjective) follows: the normal Quenya for this is A mara. But when the subject is not expressed, as usually in the impersonal 'neuter: e.g. 'it is good' = that is good, very well, na is used: so mara na; also when it is postponed as in Galadriel's Lament, Si vanwa na, Romello vanwa, Valimar:'7

For a fuller overview of Tolkien's late writings on the conjugation of na 'to be', see the appendix at the end of the analysis.

ataformaiti 'ambidexters': English ambidexter and ambidextrous are from Latin ambidexter, lit. 'right-handed on both sides' (ambi- 'on both sides' +

dexter 'right-handed'), and the Quenya forms closely follow this semantic model.

The prefix ata- in ataformor (AS 2) and ataformaite/-i (AS 3-7) appears in the appendix on Eldarin numerals from The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor, which cites an adverbial or prefixal element at(a) 'double, bi-, di-' derived from AT, the most primitive form of the stem for 'twd (VT 42:26-7, author's notes 1 and 4). In reduplicated form Atat this stem was the source of Q. atta 'two' (ibid.), which appears in attaformor in AS 1 and attaformaite (>> ataformaite) in AS 3.8 Prefixed tata in the unfinished form tatafor (AS 1) is a variant word for 'two'; compare the C.E. stem TATA 'two' cited in the numerical appendix to Rivers (VT42:24), and Tata 'Two: name of the primeval Elf-father of the Noldor in the Cuivienyarna (XI:J8o, 421-23).

The element forma in attaformor (AS 1) and ataformor (AS 2) must mean 'right-handed one: evidently a personalized form of forma 'right hand' (VT 47:6). The ending -o could be added to both adjectives and nouns to make personalized or agental forms, e.g., Ovanimo 'monster (creature of Melko)' < vanima 'fair' (V:351), and Q. tolbo 'big toe: described as "an 'agental' form" of C.E. tolba 'a protuberance, esp. one devised for a purpose: a knob, or rounded tool-handle' (VT 47:10-n). Alternatively, forma may have been derived directly from the base PHOR- 'right-hand' + the indefinite personal pronoun mo 'somebody, one' (VT 42:34 n.3). Sg. ataformaite, pi. ataformaiti (AS 3-7) end in formaite 'righthanded, dexterous: given in the Etymologies s.v. PHOR- 'right-hand' (V:382).9


Alternative endings of line 1 (AS 3).

When writing AS 3, Tolkien became aware of a semantic difficulty in the Quenya adjective ataformaite 'ambidextrous': like the English/Latin word after which it was modeled, this defines ambidexterity from the viewpoint of a predominantly right-handed culture, i.e., describing the Eldar as ataformaite, lit. *'doubly right-handed: implies that their right hand was normally the more skilful. Tolkien attempted to resolve this difficulty by composing two alternative endings to line 1:

mahtane ytlyo ma vela-This phrase was written directly above ataformaite in AS 3 and attempts to circumvent the right-handed bias of the original term by offering a neutral paraphrase, apparently meaning * 'used both hands alike:

HFN §2 cites mahta- 'handle, wield, manage, deal with: a verbal derivative of C.E. ma3a 'hand' (VT 47:6). mahtane is clearly the past tense of this verb, singular despite the presence of a plural subject, i-Eldar. This disparity cannot simply be dismissed as a slip, as other late examples of a plural subject with singular verb occur, e.g., 1-oromandi tanna lende * 'the mountaindwellers went thither', in version N2 of Nieninqe dating to 1955 (PE16:96-7).

In yuyo ma * 'both hands', ma 'hand' (VT 47:6) is also in the singular, the modifier yuyo 'both' (V:400) evidently being sufficient to express its duality. Compare yuyo 'two' in the Early Qenya Grammar of 1923, said to be used with a noun in the singular, e.g., i·yuyo elda * 'the two elves' (PE14:5o ); elen atta 'two stars' in the wedding sentence draft on the same page as AS 3 exhibits similar syntax, atta 'two' being used with sg. elen 'star'.

Although the final word vela is identical in form to vela 'see' in the 1929 '�rctic" sentence (Letters from Father Christmas, pp. 46-7), 'see' is clearly not the meaning intended here. vela in AS 3 is perhaps derived from ve 'as, like' (R:66), which is cited as v� < ..fwe (wee?) in etymological notes dated 1957.10 The ending -la is probably the same adjectival suffix seen in Q. faila 'fairminded, just, generous: lit. 'having a good fta, or a dominant foa' < ..Jphaya 'spirit' (XII:352). So vela might mean *'alike, having a likeness or similarity'.

naner ataformaite ve firimor quetir-The second alternative phrase, placed in parentheses below AS 3, means *'were ambidextrous as mortals say: explaining ataformaite as an expression used in Quenya as spoken by Mortal Men, or as a Quenya translation of an unspecified Mannish word (the quotes around "ataformaite" in the main text of AS 3 thus serve to mark it as a citation of a peculiarly Mannish term). In Tolkien's mythology, as today, Men are predominantly right-handed-for example, HFN notes that the gesture made by Halbarad in The Passing of the Grey Company (LR:774) consisted of his right hand held up palm outwards to indicate that no weapon was held (VT47:9, 13 n.9); similarly, the Argonath held up their left hands in a Mannish gesture of prohibition that was considered hostile, because it left the right hand free to display a weapon, in this case an axe (VT 47:10 ).


Both the main text of AS 3 and the second alternative phrase use the singular form ataformaite, though this refers to pl. i-Eldar; in Quenya, adjectives normally agree in number with the noun they modify. The fact that sg. ataformaite is given twice makes it less easy to dismiss as a mere slip, so perhaps this is another instance of Tolkien's occasional late experimentation with forgoing adjective-noun number agreement. For example, in the two texts of the latest version of "The Last Ark" (dating to the last decade of Tolkien's life), the first has i neka fairi 'the pale phantoms' (with sg. neka 'vague, faint, dim to see' + pl. Jairi 'phantoms'), while the second has i fairi neke, in which both noun and adjective are plural (MC:221-23). Tolkien also first typed ataformaite in AS 4, but emended it to ataformaiti, and this plural form appears in all subsequent versions.

The name F£rimor 'mortals' first appears in the Quenta Silmarillion of c. 1937 {V:245, footnote); it is a personalized form of the adj . firima 'mortal' < PHIR- {V:381). In Quendi and Eldar ( 1959-60) Tolkien uses F£rimar 'those apt to die' instead (XI:387), but in the earliest of the Quenya translations of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, dating to the mid-196os (see VT44:31), the original form reappears in the allative pl. j{rimonnar 'to mortals' (VT 44:35). The use offtrimor again in AS 3 (c. 1969) shows that this reversion to the form in -mo rather than -ma was not ephemeral.

quetir is an aorist plural form; the sg. quete is also attested, e.g. , in the phrase 6renya quete nin 'my heart tells me: lit. *'my heart speaks/ says to me' (VT 41: 11, 15 n.4). The aorist was used in Quenya to make general statements with no specific temporal reference, e.g., i karir quettar 6mainen 'those who form words with voices: a gloss of Quendi ( 'speakers') used by Noldorin Loremasters cited in Quendi and Eldar (XI:391), with aorist pl. karir-the aorist singular of this verb appears in the phrase ava kare! 'Don't do it!' in the same essay (XI:371).

Tolkien's concern about the suitability of ataformaite was only temporary, for there is no evidence of it in the subsequent versions AS 4-7, in which Tolkien uses ataformaiti throughout without quotation marks or circumlocutions.

Line 2:

epetai 'consequently': In AS 1 Tolkien first translated 'therefore' in the English text {indicated by the symbol ":. ") as tanen, apparently an instrumental form. A bundle of three pages of late notes on demonstratives (which will be referred to as "DN"), written on A&U waste paper from 1968, gives tanen 'in that way' (with a short vowel) in a long list of derivatives made from ta (adj . tanii) 'that'; other forms include, inter alia, tii 'then' ; to, talo 'thence'; tar, tara 'thither'; taite 'of that sort'; tama 'that matter'; tiis, tasse 'there'; tanome 'in the place (referred to)'; talume 'at this time'= 'at the time we are thinking of or speaking of' (in contrast to silume 'at this time', "which

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only referred to the present of the time of speech"); and ta 'so, like that, also; as in ta Yrfcira 'so good'. For corresponding forms in DN derived from the stem si- 'this (by me): see below s.v. usie in line 3·

tanen was replaced by ta, which (if not simply an unfinished form) can perhaps be equated with ta 'so, like that, also' in DN. ta was in turn replaced by etta, lit. *'out of that: Other examples of et 'out' with suffixed pronouns appear on the verso of the manuscript of Ataremma III and IV and associated texts, including 1 pl. excl. etemme, 1 pl. incl. etengwe, 2 sg. etel(ye), and 2 pl. etelle (VT 43:36 n.1) . Finally, etta in AS 1 was replaced by potai. AS 2 lacks a Quenya form for 'therefore', while AS 3 reverts to etta, with potai added above as an alternative.

Both potai 'therefore' and epetai 'consequently' (the latter used in AS 4-7) consist of a preposition meaning 'after (in time)' + a pronominal form tai. The etymological note typed below AS 7 analyzes epetai as epe-ta-i 'following which (fact): In Tolkien's late writings, epe is glossed as both 'before, in all relations but time' and 'after, of time;11 and this variation in meaning, dependent on whether place or time was referred to, was due to a visual metaphor by which the Elves imagined their progression through time. This is succinctly described in a text probably dating to the mid-1950s, which notes: "The Eldar regarded all that was past as behind them, their faces being towards the future. With reference to Time therefore words with a basic sense 'behind, at the back' = before; and those originally meaning 'in front, ahead' = after:' Thus epe 'before' (of place) is used as 'after' when referring to time in such forms as epetai 'consequently; and epesse 'after-name; a nickname acquired later in life (UT:266). Similarly, notes on prepositional stems placed after the manuscript of AS 1-3 give opo, po 'before, in front of' (also pona, ompa 'forward; evidently allative forms), used as 'after' (of time) in potai 'therefore:12

The pronominal form tai in potai and epetai can probably be identified with tai 'what' attested in the sentence alasaila na za kare tai mo nave (or navilwe) mara 'it is unwise not to do what one judges (or we judge) good' (VT 42:34). DN also mentions tai 'that which, what', though this was emended to ita; a separate note in DN explains, "note relative i preceded ta: ita that which':13 In the analytical form epe-ta-i 'following which (fact) ', tai corresponds to 'which (fact)', with ta 'that' expressing 'that fact previously mentioned; followed by relative i 'which'. DN also gives forms of this word without the relative element: epeta, epta 'following that, thereupon, thence, whereupon'. With the enclitic relative i 'which' in tai, compare the enclitic conjunction i 'that' in nai 'be it that' (R:68) , and mennai 'until' (lit. *'toward the place that') from the Koivieneni sentence of the early 1940s (VT14:13) .

i hyarma 'the left hand': AS 1-4 have hyarmen, glossed as 'left' in AS 1 and 'lefthand-direction' in AS 4, the latter providing the literal meaning of the word's constituent elements. The Etymologies gives hyarmen 'south' s.v. KHYAR- 'left hand; and the suffix -men 'direction' is from ...fmen 'move, pro-


ceed (in a direction intended by a person)' (VT 41:6). AS 5-7 have hyarma 'left-hand' (VT47:6), in which the final element is ma 'hand' (ibid.).

u 'was not': In AS 1, Tolkien did not render the English phrase 'left had no "sinister" connexions' literally; instead, this is expressed in Quenya as *'left was not sinister in their mind' : "hyarmen lane sinister simaryasse': This same locution, 'was not . . . in their mind(s)', was used in all subsequent versions, though Tolkien hesitated over the Quenya form meaning 'was not:

AS 1 and 3 have lane 'was not: This form also appears in an earlier version of Tolkien's text on negation, a portion of which was cited by Bill Welden in VT 42:33-4 (the earlier draft was typed on the back of pages from a script of the BBC radio adaptation of The Hobbit, which aired in Sept.-Nov. 1968). In the draft text, after stating that u is to be replaced by V ala as a negative element, Tolkien gives the following conjugation: ''As a quasi-verb its form is to be la. Aorist [lam in » ]lanye (I do not, am not); present *liijii > laia; past lane; perfect alaie; future lauva. The imperative ala, alii = don't! The simple form la = no, not (it isn't, it doesn't):' Tolkien subsequently wrote against this in the margin: "Abandon conjugation of la except when verb is not expressed"; and so in the later version (in a passage also cited by Welden) Tolkien writes: "This stem should not form a negative verb or take pronominal affixes, unless the verb is not expressed . . . the la does not express difference of tenses, normally unnecessary: the tense of la plus pronominal affix is always that of the previous verb, now negatived" (VT 42:33).

AS 2 has instead aune, which is also attested as a past tense of the verb ava- 'refuse, forbid' (from the base ABA 'refuse (an order, request, petition); prohibit, discountenance another's proposed or likely action') in the later version of the essay on negation cited in the discussion of lane above. Marginal notes added to this later text (which was typed on A&U waste paper from 1968) include several versions of the conjugation of ava-, one of which reads "avan, iivan (iivean), avuvan > auvan, avanen (aunen), aviivien': i .e . , the 1 sg. aorist, present, future, past, and perfect forms. In another version of this paradigm, pres. iivean and past avanen are marked with "t': Tolkien's usual notation for poetic forms. The earlier essay Quendi and Eldar ( 1959-60) also cites ava- (weak pa.t. avane) as a derivative of a primitive negative element or exclamation *BA 'no!: meaning 'to refuse, to forbid' and expressing "concern or will" rather than denial of facts (XI:370). In AS 2, however, aune clearly serves as a simple negative 'was not: probably a transient reimagining or expansion in sense of ava-.

AS 4-7 simply have the negative particle u, glossed as 'is/was not' in AS 4 and 6, and 'was not' in AS 7· In these texts u apparently serves as a "quasiverb': similar to la 'no, not (it isn't, it doesn't): as described in the discussion of lane above. It is noteworthy that even at this late date, we still see Tolkien hesitating between three possible negative stems-la, *BA, and u-while composing a simple negative statement in Quenya, once again exemplifying Welden's observation that "the Elvish languages were continually in flux as


Tolkien tried one approach and then another to solving the dozens of problems they presented . . . . So the question of whether a word or grammatical construct is 'proper Quenya' turns out to become, paradoxically, more uncertain the more we learn about how Tolkien worked" (VT 42:34).

ten 'to them': This phrase is absent in AS 1-3. AS 4-7 have tena 'to them: which in AS 7 was emended to ten; both are dative forms of the 3 pl. pronoun te (cf. laita te 'praise them', LR:932).l4 Dative pronouns in -n are well attested in Tolkien's late writings, e.g. , 1 sg. nin 'to me' in 6renya quete nin 'my heart tells me' (VT 41:11, 15 n.4), and 1 pl. excl. men 'to us' in Alye anta men 'give us' in At. II-IV, (VT 43:9-11). Yet dative pronouns in -na also occur in the late material; e.g. , an essay on the future tense (written on A&U waste paper from 1968) gives the sentence hrive uva vena 'winter is drawing near (to us)' (the independent verb uva, cognate with the future tense suffix -uva, is said to mean 'impend, be imminent', nearly always in a bad sense: 'threaten (to come)'). Another example appears in a late typescript text on "Homophonic stems" (A&U waste paper dated 1968), which notes that Q. anta-, the usual word for 'give; was also often used with an "ironic tone" to refer to missiles, so that the sentence antanen hatal sena 'I cast a spear at him' might also mean 'I gave him a spear (as a present):15 This variation between pronominal dative -n and -na is not surprising; as Tolkien wrote in a late isolated note, "The 'dative' -n was of course in origin a reduction of -nii 'to: " This note also states that adverbial -nna (i.e. , the allative case ending) was of the same origin, with fortified n, confirming a long-standing supposition among Tolkien scholars as to why the Plotz declensions (PE10:27, VT1q) list dative forms in parentheses below the allatives.

ulca 'evil' : This word, occurring in AS 3-7 (see below s.v. umara), dates back to the Qenya Lexicon, which lists ulca 'bad, wicked, wrong' under the root ULU(2). It is also attested in the compound henulka 'evileyed', from a longer version of Treebeard's ore-curse in Quenya found in an early draft of Many Partings ( IX:68, 72 n.12), and the ablative form ulcallo 'from evil' is used in Ataremma I and Ila (VT43:8, 10). An etymological note from c. 1957-59 gives Q. olea as a derivative of a stem aka- 'wicked, evil; beneath which was added in pencil, "? uk: ukla > Q. ulca" ; the queried stem uk in this note is perhaps the same as later UK 'nasty; a base cited (without derivatives) in the text Variation DIL in Common Eldarin, c. 1968 (VT48:32 n.15).

hya 'or': The conjunction hya 'or' only appears in AS 3-5, in the phrase ulca hya umara 'evil or sinister' (see below s.v. umara). In AS 3 Tolkien first wrote khe; this was replaced by hela, which in turn was replaced by hya. Glossary 1 lists hyd 'or' with no further information. However, a probable etymology for hya is suggested by a late note (on A&U waste paper, probably from 1968 or later), which cites a stem khy- 'other: with derivatives khy� 'other person' (Q. hye), khyli 'other thing' (Q. hya), and adj. khyana (Q. hyana) corresponding to khyli. The form hye was "also used as a 3rd


person entering account [who is] not subject of the original verb'; which Tolkien illustrates with a diagram:

A struck B, and B fled. he struck him and he fled se - hye hye

It seems likely then that hy& 'or' in AS 3-5 is cognate with khy& 'other thing' (Q. hya) in this late note, comparable to the connection between the words for 'or' and 'other' in the Qenya Lexicon, which lists var 'or' and vara 'other: joined by a brace, under the root VARA. The form khe first written in AS 3 is certainly etymological, indicating the base underlying subsequent Q. hela, since initial kh- in Common Eldarin became h- in Quenya. A text on reflexives dating to c. 1965 gives a base .YkhJ, whence Q. he, "used for a 3rd person of second reference which was not the subject of a 3rd person sentence, or was not the same as the 3rd person of first reference in a sentence with 1 or 2 person subject': The latter use is illustrated by the sentence melinyes (or melin se) apa la he (or lanye he) ' I love him but not him (the other, etc.): The gloss of he as 'him (the other, etc.)' suggests that .Ykh� probably meant 'other (person)' and was a variant conception of khy� 'other person'.l6 The ending -la in hela might be the adjectival suffix -la (see the discussion of vela above, s.v. mahtane yuyo mti vela); another possibility is la 'beyond', which according to a late essay was also used as 'than' in expressions of comparison (VT 42:32), and is identified in other late writings as the final element -la in pella 'beyond' in Galadriel's Lament. So perhaps hela 'or' literally meant *'other than:

umara 'sinister' : AS 1 and 2 state that the left is not 'sinister', with Tolkien using the English word sinister17 as a placeholder in both Quenya texts pending the invention of an Elvish equivalent. The Quenya form umara 'sinister' finally appears in AS 3, and in AS 3-5 the description of the left is expanded to not 'evil or sinister: ulca hya umara. In AS 6 and 7, the words hya umara 'or sinister' are omitted, and the left hand is only said to be not ulca 'evil:

Glossary 1 lists umara 'bad, ill-used, evil, sinister', which is transparently the negative prefix u- + mtira 'good' (VT 42:33-4). The Etymologies lists mtira (*magra) 'useful, fit, good (of things)' under the base MAG- 'use, handle', while HFN has instead C.E. MAGA 'good', said to be "without moral reference, except by implication: se. it was not the opposite of 'evil, wicked' but of 'bad (damaged, imperfect, unfit, useless): and the adjectival stem derived, *magra, meant 'good for a purpose or function, as required or desired, useful, proper, fit' " (HFN VT 47:6). Both MAG- in the Etymologies and C. E. MAGA in HFN are said to be related to mti 'hand; so umara, like Eng. sinister, has an association with hands (though in the Quenya form this is purely etymological, and does not specifically allude to the left hand). In umara the prefix u- is not simply negative but pejorative, for while the glosses 'bad,


ill-used' could be interpreted as merely negative ('not fit, not used well'), the moralistic nature of 'evil, sinister' is unambiguous. Compare the Etymologies, which notes that the Q. prefix u 'not, un-, in-' ( < ugu, or gu) was "usually with bad sense", e.g., vanimor 'fair folk' = (men and) elves, uvanimor 'monsters' {V:396). The moral sense of u- is also seen in ucaremmar 'our trespasses' in Ataremma V-VI; ucar( e) 'trespass' obviously has the literal meaning 'evil deed' (VT43=19).

simaryassen 'in their imaginations': The form first written in AS 1 was s{masse, immediately struck out and replaced with s{maryasse. AS 2-7 all have s{maryassen, consisting of s{ma 'imagination' + 3 pl. possessive -rya 'their' + locative pl. -ssen.

Glossary 1 lists "s{ma mind (related to ista}; isima"; AS 6-7 translate s{ma as 'imagination'. The essay Variation DIL in Common Eldarin (c. 1968) notes that the verb ista- 'to know' was derived from the base IS 'know: while its older past tense sinte 'knew' was "certainly irregular'; being derived instead from a reversed form of the base {VT 48:25). s{ma 'mind, imagination' must also derive from this reversed form, *SI-. A later past tense isinte is also cited in VDL, evidently a regularized form reintroducing unreversed IS, and this same process perhaps accounts for the untranslated form isima in the glossary entry, probably an alternative form of s{ma derived from IS rather than *SI-.18

The use of -rya as 3 pl. possessive 'their' appears here for the first time in a published text. The only instances of -rya published in Tolkien's lifetime were both feminine singular, maryat 'her hands' and 6maryo 'of her voice' in Galadriel's Lament. The masculine singular sense is attested in Quendi and Eldar, which cites koarya Olwe 'the house of him, Olwe' = 'Olwe's house' {XI:369). A chart giving the aorist conjugation of car- ('do, make') with singular, plural, and dual pronominal inflections and corresponding possessive suffixes, is found in the brown folder in which the manuscript of AS 1-3 was placed, written on the back of another copy of the same A&U notice of 12 Jan. 1968 as the manuscript. This provides a useful overview of the subject inflections and possessive pronoun suffixes as they were envisioned at a point closely contemporary with the writing of the Ambidexters Sentence:

[Singular] [Plural] [Dual] carin I -nye -nya a r carilme -lma a r carimme -mm a caril I -lye -lya b lcarilwe -lwa b lcaringwe -ngwa caritye -tya carilde -lda cariste19 -sta caris -rya carilte (-lta) [tcariste] [ -sta] care -ya carir -rya carit -twa

Here, beside the 3rd person forms ending in a pronominal suffix (sg. caris, pl. carilte, du. tcariste), there are impersonal forms indicating only number (sg. care, pl. carir, du. carit}. The possessive suffix -rya corresponds to both


3 sg. caris and impersonal pl. carir, while impersonal sg. care has possessive -ya. The development and use of -ya and sg. and pl. -rya is described in a text written a few years earlier, entitled "Notes on Verbal Inflexion in Quenya'; probably dating to the mid-196os.20 According to this text, the "pronominal adjectival affixes" of the 3rd person employed the adjectival element -jii, which was originally used for all numbers. In Old Quenya (OQ), more distinctive forms incorporating the pronouns s(e), t(e) and numerical infixes were established as well, though the simple form -ya "remained in Quenya the 3 pers. sg. adjectival form in cases where the later elaborated forms were awkward: e.g. especially attached to old nouns with consonantal stems such as tiil foot, kas head, ner man, sir river, makil sword, etc:' The discussion concludes:

The 3rd sg. remained aberrant and gave later trouble. The full OQ forms -sjii > sya became zya and in Q. -rya. This still survived in Q. as a 'correct' form, and was used in writing, especially formal or poetic. But -rya now suggested plurality, as if ya had been added to -r plural. In colloquial Q. it thus became used for the plural replacing the 'archaic' -ntya, and in the sg. the r was dropped. (The continued existence of such forms as talya 'his foot' assisted this. ) That these forms, such as kambeya 'his hand; yulmaya 'his cup; were recent is shown by their forms: older eya, aya would have become -ea.

If Tolkien intended this account to be compatible with examples of Quenya already published in The Lord of the Rings, then use of sg. -rya instead of -ya in maryat and 6maryo in Galadriel's Lament constitutes "formal or poetic" language. Also noteworthy here is the reference to "archaic" -ntya. A chart of Old Quenya and Quenya verbal inflections in this same text (with the aorist of Vkar- 'do, make' again used as an example) lists the 3 pl. forms as OQ karinte, t-lte, with adj. suffixes -(i)nta, (i)ntya and -(i)lta, (i)ltya (the forms with i are used after a consonant}; and Q. karinte, with adj . -(i)ntya I -rya. In Tolkien's post-Lord of the Rings writillgs there is an ongoing hesitation between -nte and -lte a

·s the 3 pl. inflect.ion, with both forms sometimes

existing side by side in the same paradigm. This vacillation extends into the latest period; for example, beside carilte in the aorist conjugation from c. 1968 given above, the narrative Cirion and Earl from the same period (see XI1:293) has tiruvantes 'they will guard it' in Cirion's oath.

Line 3:

usie 'on the contrary': Line 3 of AS 1 originally began with an uncompleted phrase, lasi pan nanquerne, probably meaning * 'not so, since turned back: Here lasi * 'not so', more loosely rendered as 'rather the reverse' in the English translation, evidently consists of la 'no, not' (VT 42:33) + the stem si- 'this (by me); lit. * 'not this: The forms la and lasir were added above pan


nanquerne (which phrase was struck out), and both lasi and la were then struck out simultaneously with a single diagonal stroke, leaving just lasir.

e The surviving form apparently contains sir, sira 'hither' (sidd), one of several adverbs derived from the stem si- 'this (by me)' listed in DN (see above s.v. epetai in line 2); other forms include Q. s{ 'now'; sie 'thus'; sinen 'by this means, so'; silo (sio) 'hence'; site 'of this sort'; sfs, sisse 'here'; slnome 'in this place, here'; sllume (sl-lume) 'at this time, now'; and adj. sina < slna.21 The forms sir, sira are allative, literally meaning * 'to( wards) this'; the ending -dJ is described in Quendi and Eldar as "the ending -d (prehistoric -da) indicating motion to or towards a point': seen also in the adverb oar * 'away' (XI:366); the Etymologies also cites tar (*tad) 'thither' and mir 'to the inside, into: In lasir, the reference is not to physical motion but rather to direction of thought: * 'not to this way of thinking: It is possible that "la lasir" written above pan nanquerne does not indicate two successive forms but rather a single phrase, *'no, not so: with emphatic repetition of the element la perhaps indicating that reversal rather than mere negation was intended.

AS 3 also had lasir as first written, emended to usir, in which negative la- is replaced by u-. usir also appears in AS 4, 6 and 7, glossed in the latter two texts as 'on the contrary: In AS 7 usir was subsequently emended in ink to usie, in which the final element is sie 'thus: given in the list of derivatives of si- in DN. sie 'thus' also appears earlier as the final element in nasie 'amen, may it be so' in Ataremma V and VI (VT 43:12, 24). No form corresponding to 'rather the reverse, on the contrary' appears in AS 2 and 5·

an 'for': In the rejected phrase pan nanquerne in AS 1, pan appears to correspond to 'since' in the English translation. Eng. since derives from OE. sippan, sfp pam 'after that: and on this basis it is possible that Q. pan 'since' could be a form of apa, pa, pa 'after: of time (VT 44:36); cf. the phrase yeni pa yeni *'years after years' in a fragment associated with Tolkien's Quenya translation of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo (ibid.), and the name Apan6nar 'the After-born' given to Men by Elves (XI:386). The derivation of pan 'since' < pa 'after' would parallel certain adverbs formed by addition of -n to a monoconsonantal stem ending in a vowel; examples from the 1950s include san 'so < sa 'that' (for this gloss, see below s.v. ke) and yan 'as' < the relative stem ya-, both appearing in Ataremma lib-IV (VT 43:10-u); and sin * 'thus' < si- 'this (by me): from the sentence Sin Quente Quendingoldo Elendilenna *'Thus spake Pengoloo to .t'Elfwine' that concludes the Dangweth PengololJ (XII :4o1). It is also possible that pan 'since' is derived instead from the preposition pJ 'touching, as regards, concerning' < --/ apa 'touch' (VT 44:26), with pan 'since' referring to 'touching' in a causal sense. It is perhaps significant that a list of prepositional stems on one of the narrow slips placed after AS 1-3 includes apa, pa 'on (above but touching): while apa, pa, pa 'after' is not mentioned.

After pan nanquerne was struck out, Tolkien wrote an numenquerna * 'for turned westward'; numenquerna was in turn struck out and replaced by the words ke mo querne. The resulting phrase, an ke mo querne 'for if one


turned; is used (with only minor variations) in all subsequent versions of the Ambidexters Sentence. Glossary 2 lists an 'furthermore, and so, - (for): An essay on comparison dating to c. 1966 or later (see VT 42:32 and VT 47:30 n.44) similarly gives an 'moreover, further(more), to proceed; derived from the "intrinsically 'comparative' " base .Y AMA, which is also the source of the intensive prefix in ankalima 'extremely bright, brightest: Tolkien explains that an "is very frequently used after a 'full stop; when an account or description is confirmed after a pause. So in Galadriel's Elvish lament, I 394: An si Tintalte: etc. This is translated by me 'for: since an is (as here) often in fact� used when the additional matter provides an explanation of or reason for what has already been said:'

ke 'if': AS 1 and 3 have ke, while AS 2, 4, 5, and 7 have ke; AS 6 has both ke (line 3) and ke (line 5 ) . This variation is probably not significant, and in any event Glossary 2 cites k� 'if', allowing for both forms. These notes add: "ke usually [used] with aorist", which is followed by two unglossed (but readily interpretable) examples: ke mo qete ulca *'if one speaks evil; and ke tulis, tanome nauvan *'if he/she comes, I will be there' (for tanome 'in the place (referred to)', see above s.v. epetai in line 2). The second example also has an alternative ending, probably emphatic: ni nauva tanome *'I (too) will be there: Only the typescript versions AS 5 and 6 feature ke used with an aorist verb: ke mo quere 'if one turns' ; in the other versions pa.t. querne is used. Glossary 2 also lists a few related forms: kenai 'if it be that'; CQ kita-, kitan 'I suppose' (from keye, apparently an extended form of ke); and kenasit, kenasta (*kenasrta) 'if it be so, may be, perhaps:22 In this last group of forms, * kenaslta is transparently ke 'if' + na 'it is' (in the etymological form above, the acute accent probably indicates stress, not quantity) + sl-ta 'so' (cp. sie 'thus' s.v. usie and ta 'so, like that' s.v. epetai). The variants kenasit, kenasta apparently resulted from shifts in primitive stress. Tolkien writes in The Road Goes Ever On that in Quenya " [t]he main (high-toned) stress was originally on the first syllable of all words" (pg. 68): thus kenasit probably derives from original *kenasita (though this form is not recorded by Tolkien). Later the main stress moved forward to fall on the antepenult, if the penultimate syllable was short (ibid.); thus *kenasrta > kenasta.

In the late essay on negation (c. 1968) cited in VT42:33-4, ke occurs as a particle indicating uncertainty, used in the sentence la karitas alasaila ke nauva 'not doing this may be/prove unwise: This particle was a very old concept, originating some 45 years earlier in the Early Qenya Grammar of 1923, in which ki 'may' (emended from ke) is a conditional/subjunctive particle expressing nearer possibility, as in hi·tule ki 'she may be coming, may come' (PE14:59). The conjunction ke 'if' in the Ambidexters Sentence, while obviously a variation of this concept, was probably not imagined as coexistent with ke as a particle 'may: A vocabulary riote written on A&U waste paper dated 1968 and placed in the same brown folder as the manuscript of AS 1-3 gives qui 'if' ( < kwi- 'suppose') and ke 'may be' as distinct forms. Similarly, in


the EQG ki 'may' is distinct from mai 'if', as in mai ni·tuluva, tu·tuluval ki 'If I come, they will come' (ibid.).

The late essay on negation also has a parenthetical note, " (On ke see notes on translation of 'can, may, etc:) :· This apparently refers to a page of notes in pencil (on A&U waste paper dated 1967) placed near the typescript in the boxfile, which states that 'may: in the sense 'have chance, opportunity or permission', was expressed by a base .Y ek 'it is open. Though the particle ke is not cited, various examples of Vek used as a verb are given, including eke nin kare sa 'I can do tilat: eke nin? 'please, may I?; and ekuva nin kare sa noa ' I "may" do that tomorrow, I have a chance of doing that [tomorrow] :23 It may be tilat ke 'if' was also conceived as a derivative of tilis same base.<:>(

mo 'one': This appears in AS 1-7 as the subject of the verb 'turned/turns' (see querne below). Glossary 2 lists mo 'anyone, someone' (VT 47:37 n.sB; see also endnote 4 of tile present article). The essay on negation cites the "indefinite personal pronoun" mo 'somebody, one: as in tai mo nave . . . mara 'what one judges . . . good' (VT 42:34).

querne 'turned' : In AS 1 , Tolkien first wrote lasi pan nanquerne * 'not so, since turned back' (see above s.v. usie and an), in which nanquerne * 'turned back' apparently consists of the prefix nan- 'backwards' < NDAN- 'back' (V:375), a base also seen in nanwe (C.E. ndanme) 'ebb, lowtide' (VT48:26 n.2); and querne 'turned; past tense of quer- 'turn', a verbal stem familiar from the adjective or passive participle nuquerna 'reversed' (lit. * 'turned under') in the names of tengwar nos. 30 silme nuquerna 's reversed' and 32 are nuquerna, referring to inverted forms of silme (29) and are (31) (LR:n23). nanquerne might also be tile plural of an adjective or participle *nanquerna 'turned back', perhaps referring to i Eldar. The notion that facing westward meant 'turning back' suggests a Noldorin viewpoint, since the Noldor had come to Middle-earth from Eldamar in tile West. The phrase pan nanquerne was replaced by an numenquerna * 'for turned west: in which numenquerna is clearly an adjective/participle translating 'facing West' in the English text. This still might refer to pl. i Eldar, despite being singular (see the discussion above s.v. naner ataformaite ve f£rimor quetir in line 1); alternatively, numenquerna might be used substantively as singular 'one who is facing West: Finally, numenquerna was struck out and replaced by tile more analytical phrase an ke mo querne immo numenna *'for if one turned oneself westward:

AS 2 has an ke mo quernes immo numenna, in which quernes was first written as quernesse. A page of notes on the conjugation of na 'is' from 1969 states that the original form of the 3 sg. inflection -s(e) was -sse (see the appendix below), which may be the ending present in quernesse. If so, this appears redundant, since tile pronoun mo 'one' already provides the subject of the verb, and Quenya pronominal inflections are typically used only when an overt subject is not present. The text on reflexives from c. 1965 cited above s.v. hya in line 2 mentions a 3 sg. reflexive inflection -sse derived from -se-s� (in which -se apparently indicates tile subject and -s� the object), e.g.,


meli-se-s� > melisse 'he loves himself' (there was also a 3 pl. equivalent from te 'they': meli-te-t� > melitte 'they love themselves' ) . If this is the inflection present in AS 2, then quernesse is *'he turned himself: This would seem to introduce an additional redundancy, since besides the preceding subject pronoun mo 'one: quernesse is also followed by a reflexive object pronoun immo 'same one, self' (VT 47:37 n.58) ; however, it is possible that Tolkien emended quernesse to quernes before continuing on to write immo. The emended form quernes has the more typical short form -s of the 3 sg. inflection, as in caris in the late conjugation cited above s.v. s{maryassen in line 2 (also cf. eques 'said he/she' in Quendi and Eldar, Xl:415 n.29) . This might also be interpreted as the object suffix -s, as in melinyes 'I love him' (see above s.v. hya in line 2) . In either case the potential redundancies noted for quernesse remain, and it is perhaps significant that in all subsequent versions Tolkien uses only impersonal forms, pa.t. querne in AS 3, 4, and 7, and aorist quere in AS 5 and 6.

immo *'oneself'-This only appears in AS 1 and 2, in which it serves as the direct object of querne 'turned' (AS 1) and quernes(se) *'he turned (himself) ' (AS 2). The general reflexive immo 'same one, self' appears in Glossary 2 along with several related forms,

" presented in VT 47:37 n.58. The gloss

'same one' gives the literal meaning of this compound: im- 'same' and mo 'one' (ibid.) .

kendele 'the face' : In AS 3 Tolkien introduced the phrase * 'for if one turned his face westward: replacing the reflexive object immo 'oneself' of AS 1 and 2 with kanwarya *'his face'. The noun kanwa 'face' probably derives from the base KAT- 'shape' (V:362),24 with *katmii > Q. kanwa (for the development of *tm > Q. nw, see Carl F. Hostetter's "Five Late Quenya Volitive Inscriptions" in this issue, inscr. IV s.v. veryanwesto). Tolkien apparently devised this form on the etymological model of Lat. facies 'face: which originally meant 'form, shape' ( < facere 'make') . Eng. face is itself derived from this Latin word. 25

AS 4-7 all have kendele 'face: with no possessive suffix. This clearly derives from kenda- 'watch, observe for some time (to gain information etc . ) : an intensive form of ·Jken 'see, perceive, note' (VT 41 :5) . Words for 'face' in the Indo-European languages often tra.ce back to roots meaning 'see, look: e.g., French visage, older vis, from Lat. vlsus 'sight'. The same holds true for many of the attested Elvish forms, e.g., Q. alma 'face, visage' < ALA (l) 'gaze' (QL); Gn. gwint 'face' < gwinta- 'see' (GL); and Q. yema 'face' in Valmaric document V6 (PE14:117), probably from the same root DYt(1) as 'yeta 'look at' and 'yesta, 'yendo 'glance, gaze' (QL) . The formation of kendele 'face' < kenda'watch, observe' parallels fiandele 'harping' < fianda- 'to harp' in the Etymologies s.v. NGAN-, NGANAD- 'play (on stringed instrument): The text Noldorin words for Language (the germ for Appendix D to Quendi and Eldar, c. 1959-60) notes that "Nouns made with the ending -le seem properly to have been universal and abstract; though naturally in colloquial usage they often became particular in reference" (VT39:16) ; the reference to colloquial

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 -------------�----� -----------------------

usage would seem to account for kendele as 'face' rather than *'watching, observation:

numenna 'westwards': This form, the allative of numen 'west' (LR: 1123) , i s also attested in V:47 and IX:310. I t appears in all seven versions, the only variation being the use of capitalized Numenna in AS 3.

ve senya 'as usual': Tolkien was at first uncertain how to translate 'usual; and in AS 1 he simply wrote "(ve . . . ) '; with an ellipsis as place-holder for the undecided form. In AS 2, line 3 ends with numenna 'westward; the phrase 'as usual' being omitted entirely. Finally, in AS 3 Tolkien wrote ve senwa, and in AS 4-7 'as usual' is rendered as ve senya (Glossary 1 lists senya 'usual; with no further information) .

The etymology of senwa, senya (which end in the common adjectival suffixes -wa, -ya) is not readily apparent. The element sen- in these forms might be the verbal stem sen- 'let loose, free, let go' seen also in apsene- 'remit, release, forgive' in Ataremma V and VI (VT4p8).26 If senwa, senya originally meant 'freed, unconstrained', this could naturally give rise to the sense 'normal, usual', referring to the "default" behavior or attitude of a person or thing. Phonologically, Q. sen- could also derive from *then- or *sten-. A stem *then- 'look at, observe' might be posited as an extension of THE- 'look (see or seem)' in the Etymologies27 (cp. Gn. the- 'see' in the GL); according to Carl Darling Buck's A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages (pg. 1359) , O.E. peaw 'usage, custom, habit' (whence peawe 'usual') may have originally meant 'observation', cognate with Lat. tueri 'to look at, observe, heed, protect'. (The OED states that peaw is of uncertain etymology, with no cognates recorded outside of West Germanic. ) Etymological notes from c. 1968 give ;/ten 'point' (with derivatives including tenna 'to the point' and tenta 'point to, point out'; see below s.v. tentane in line 4), and an s-prefixed variant *s-ten-28 might be the source of senwa, senya-cp. Homeric Greek oiKYf 'custom, usage, way; which according to Buck (pg. 1358) is cognate with Grk. &iKVVfAt 'point out' and Sanskrit dir;- 'point out' (substantive dir;- 'direction' ) .

The adj. sanya 'regular, law-abiding, normal' < STAN- 'fix, decide' in the Etymologies is also intriguingly close in form and meaning to senya 'usual: Variation between a and e is attested in some Eldarin stems, e.g., am/em, amal/emel 'mother', cited in one of the Rough Notes to HFN (VT48: 19 n.16); apa/epe 'after; as in Apan6nar 'the After-born' and epesse 'after-name' (Xl:J86, UT:266) ; and malo 'friend; derived from MEL- 'love (as friend)' with "irregular vocalism" (V:372).

Line 4:

i hyarma 'the left hand': This appears in all versions. AS 4 has ihyarma with prefixed definite article; cp. ikilyanna 'into [the] chasm' ( IX:247) . i hyarma was struck out in AS 5, though this was merely because Tolkien mis-


takenly typed it before numenna in line 3, then neglected to retype it in its proper place at the beginning of line 4·

tentane 'pointed': In AS 1 the form first written was tente, both here and in line s; this was emended to tentane in both instances, apparently only after AS 1 had been completed. AS 2-7 all have tentane as first written.

Glossary 1 has this entry: "tenta, tenante direct toward, be directed toward; tenta with object = go forth towards; tentane numenna pointed westward:' This shows that tenta could be used both transitively ('direct toward') and intransitively ('be directed toward') , and it is used intransitively in line 4, which states that 'the left hand pointed (i .e. , was directed) away from Melkor: In the statement "tenta with object = go forth towards", the word "object" is apparently intended in the general sense 'goal, thing aimed at' rather than in the grammatical sense 'direct object', since the meaning indicated is intransitive, 'go forth towards'.

The glossary entry cites two past-tense forms, strong tenante with infixed nasal and weak tentane wiili suffixed -ne. Both types of past tense are attested for other derived verbs in -ta, e.g., strong keante, pa. t of ea ita 'lies' (VT 48:13, R:67) ; and weak ortane 'lifted up: pa.t. of orta- 'rise, raise' (R:67, V:379) . It is not uncommon for Quenya verbs to have more than one past tense, e.g., onta- 'beget, create', pa.t. 6ne or ontane (V:379) , and in at least one instance, the two past-tense forms are used to distinguish between transitive and intransitive senses: ulya- 'pour: intr. pa.t. ulle, tr. ulyane (V:396) . Since the weak pa.t. tentane is intransitive in all of its occurrences (Glossary 1 , and lines 4 and 5 of AS) , it seems possible that the strong pa.t. tenante might be transitive.

The rejected pa.t. tente can be compared with Q. vinta- 'fade: pa.t. vinte, vintane in the Etymologies s.v. WIN-, WIND-; pa.t. vinte was also rejected, this verb being emended to vinda- 'fade: pa.t. vindane before the entire entry was struck out (VT 46:21) .

The etymology of tenta appears in a late manuscript text that lists stems expressing various shades of 'go, come' (A&U waste paper, Jan. 1968) . The sense 'to, arrive (at), reach' is here said to be expressed by -Yten:

-Yten-cf. tenna 'right up to a point' (of time/place) = 'go as far as:

Pres. tena- ' is on point of arrival, is just coming to the end: Cf. tul. tenin is indefinite in time. 'When winter comes/arrives/is with us,

it is cold: ya hrive tene, ringa na. 'Whenever I arrive at his house/

come to/get to, he is out: quiquie (or quie) tenin koaryanna I arse.29 � Chiefly in past tenne 'arrived, reached', which is usually used with

locative not allative: tennen sis 'I arrive [ d] here: etenie 'has just

arrived'; tenuva 'will arrive:

Tolkien subsequently emended -Yten in this note to -Ymen; tenna and its gloss were struck out, and ten- was changed to menin all the other derivatives:


tena- >> mena-, tenin >> menin (at both occurrences), tene >> mene, tenne >> menne, tennen >> mennen, etenie >> emenie, and tenuva >> menuva. Perhaps in conjunction with these changes, Tolkien hastily jotted "ten = point; tenna to the point" near the beginning of this note, and further down the page (below a rejected entry for ;/wa) he wrote the forms tenta 'point to, - out, indicate; hententa 'spot with eye', and leptenta-hententa is probably lit. *'direct the eye toward (something) ' (hen 'eye'; V:364), while leptenta evidently means *'point to/indicate with the finger' (lep(e)- 'finger'; VT 47:10) . Similar glosses of ten- appear elsewhere in Tolkien's later writings. A list of prepositional stems written on one of the narrow slips of notes placed with AS 1-3 includes ten- 'towards: Another list of various stems, apparently dating to the late 1950s or early 196os, gives ";/ten- = end in sense of point aimed at (met merely = finality) . tenna to the point, until. t Q tenya, arrive (not

E at speaker's[?] place). · pa.t. tenne': A group of etymological -n�tes from 19Sl

gi�e�en-�'d.ifectiori, with derivative tenna 'to the object; up to, to (reach), as far as: Cp. tenn' Ambar-metta 'unto the ending of the world' (LR:967), and tennoio 'for ever' < tenna + oio 'an endless period' (UT:317 n-43) .

Melcorello 'away from Melkor': In AS 1-2 , 'away from Morgoth/Melkor' is translated as a prepositional phrase: AS 1 has ollo Moringotto, emended to ollo Morikotto 'away from Morgoth'; and AS 2 has ollo Melcor 'away from Melkor'. The preposition ollo 'away from' obviously contains the ablative suffix -llo. The initial a- may simply be a prefixed sund6ma. Alternatively, one of the narrow slips of contemporary notes placed after the manuscript of AS 1-3 cites the stem awa 'away from', with variant forms au, o and va-, and ollo could also be the ablative inflection of the reduced form o 'away from'.

Glossary 1 lists "la 'from; after inflexion''; cp. the Etymologies entry for the ablative element LO-, with derivatives Q. -ello, la (VT 45 :28) . A note written on the back of an A&U publication notice from 1969 describes the use of the independent form: "16 as independent word was used only with person; thus not Manwello but la Manwe, and usually in sense by agent': The phrase nahtana la Turin appears to the left of this, probably meaning *'slain by Turin' ( Q. nahtan 'I slay' occurs frequently in Tolkien's late writings, derived from ndak- 'hew; whence also nakin 'I hew, cut' ) . The idea that prepositional 16 was preferable to the inflection -llo when referring to a person was perhaps a factor in Tolkien's initial decision to use ollo before the names Moringotto, Morikotto, Melcor in AS 1 and 2-though he soon changed his mind, since AS 3 has Morikottollo >> Melkorello, and AS 4-7 all have Melcorello 'away from Melkor'.30

Moringotto (AS 1) as the Quenya form of S. Morgoth 'the Black Foe' also occurs in the later Quenta Silmarillion (LQ), which Tolkien revised in the 1950s (X: 194) ; in the second phase of work on this text, Moringotto was replaced by Moriftgotho (X:294). Morikotto (AS 1 and 3) does not occur elsewhere. Morgoth first appears in the Tale of Tinuviel (1917), in which Beren addresses Melko as "most mighty Belcha Morgoth (for such be his names

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among the Gnomes)" (11 :44), and although this name retained its external form in Tolkien's later writings, there was much hesitation over the years concerning the etymology of the final element -goth (with concomitant uncertainty about the corresponding Quenya form) .31 The Etymologies entry for KOTH- 'strive, quarrel' (first written as KOT-) identifies the second element in Morgoth as N. coth 'enmity, enemy', adding "but this may also contain GOTH, *morn-3oth > morngoth" (VT45:23), referring to the base GOS-, GOTH- 'dread: The Quenya forms Moringotto, Morikotto in AS 1 and 3 show that Tolkien was still hesitating between these bases some thirty years later. ngotto (and iigotho in the later LQ form Moriiigotho) both point to the base *NGOTH -, evidently a form of GOTH- with strengthened initial consonant; ngotto (probably from *iigotthO) shows the development of C.E. tth > Q. tt also seen in netthi > nette 'sister' (VT 47:14 n.21) . Similarly, kotto could derive from either KOTH- (*kotthO) or KOT- (*kotto). Though KOT- was emended to KOTH- in the Etymologies, it may have nonetheless survived; it is apparently present in S. Ihuringud 'the Hidden Foe' (with -gud 'foe' < *-kat) , one of Turin's aliases in Ihe Wanderings of Hurin (XI:256) .

Line s:

ar 'and': This appears in all versions except AS 5 , which was abandoned at the end of line 4· Tolkien usually attributed Q. ar to a stem meaning 'beside', though he continually hesitated over this stem's precise form. The Etymologies, for example, derives ar 'and' and Q. ara 'outside, beside' from the base AR2- , while a text on various Quenya words for 'and' dating to c. 1965 states that ar 'and' was in origin a preposition from .Y ADA 'alongside, by the side of'. Still another form appears in a note from c. 1968 on enclitic -ye 'and' (VT47:31 n-44), which states that in general use this was replaced by ar (as) , from .Yasa 'beside' ; cp. Q. asambar(o), S. ahamar * 'neighbor', lit. *'one who dwells beside', from the Rough Notes placed with HFN (VT 48:20 n.16) . A list of prepositional stems on one of the narrow slips placed with AS 1-3 cites ad( a) 'beside', and another of these slips gives ada- 'besides I [ ?out] '32 followed by a paradigm of a preposition ara with various pronominal suffixes:33

[Singular] [Plural] [Dual] anni > arni anwe > arme anwet > armet astye arwe alle aste > arde arse34 aste > arte

ara, ari ara, arin

Here original *ad- yielded an-, as-, al-, or ar-, depending on the first consonant in the pronominal suffix; but many of these forms were evidently later leveled to ar-, as 1 sg. anni > arni, 2 pl. aste > arde, etc. For the development


of * dm > nw in 1 pl. exclusive an we ( < *ad-me) and 1 du. exclusive an wet ( < *ad-me-t), see "Five Late Quenya Volitive Inscriptions" in this issue, inscr. IV s.v. veryanwesto. The endings -i, -in in ari and arin are perhaps suffixed forms of the relative pronoun i, or else singular and plural forms of the definite article (cp. the two forms of the article in the question Mana i·coimas in·Eldaron? 'What is the coimas of the Eldar? '; Xll:403) .

ke mo ' if one': See the entries for kii and mo in line 3 . In line 5 these words only occur in AS 6-7. The successive versions of line 5 involve varying degrees of ellipsis, beginning in AS 1 with ar formenna tentane Amanna *'and northwards, it pointed towards Aman: se. 'and [if one turned oneself] northwards, [the left hand] pointed towards Amall. This was pared down even further in AS 2, which has simply ar formenna Amanna *'and northwards, towards Aman: while in AS 3 and 4 Tolkien reverted back to ar formenna tentane Amanna, as in AS 1. The succinct syntax in these versions allowed for some potential confusion: ar formenna 'and northwards' might be taken to refer to where the left hand was pointing, rather than to the direction one faced. Tolkien eliminated this possible misreading in subsequent versions, first by adding ke to AS 6 (ar ke formenna tentane Amanna *'and if northwards, it pointed towards Aman') , then expanding this to ke mo in AS 7 (ar ke mo formenna tentanes Amanna *'and if one northwards, it pointed towards Aman') , in which ke mo unambiguously refers back to ke mo querne kendele 'if one turned the face' in line 3.

formenna 'northwards': Allative of formen 'north' (LR:1123, V:382) , appearing in all versions save AS 5 ·

tentanes 'it pointed': See the entry for tentane in line 4· In AS 1, Tolkien first wrote tente, then emended this to tentane, which is the form that appears in AS 3, 4, and 6. This verb was elided in AS 2 (see the entry for ke mo above) , and AS 5 was abandoned before reaching line 5· In AS 7 Tolkien first typed tentane, which was later emended in ink to tentanes; the addition of the inflection -s 'it' more clearly indicates that this verb refers to a different subject (i.e., the left hand) than the pronoun mo 'one' appearing earlier in the line.

Amanna 'towards Am an': Allative of A man 'the Blessed Land' (so glossed in AS 7), appearing in all versions save AS 5 . Quendi and Eldar states that Q. am an 'blessed, free from evil: chiefly used as the name of the land of the Valar, was derived from a Valarin word35 meaning 'at peace, in accord (with Eru)' (XI:399) . This concept also occurs in other late writings; e.g., an essay from the late 196os notes that Q. Valin6re, Valinor 'the land of the V alar' "was the true Eldarin name of Aman, an element borrowed from the 'language of the V alar: " Etymological notes from 1957, on the other hand, derive Aman 'Unmarred State' from Eldarin ..fman- 'good', a root said to imply that a person or thing was (relatively or absolutely) 'unmarred: The concept that man- was a native Eldarin stem meaning 'good' dates back to the Qenya Lexicon, which lists mane 'good (moral): mande 'well', etc. under the root

June 2007

MANA. Regardless of whether Aman was a Valarin loanword or a native Quenya form, the point Tolkien makes in the final line of the Ambidexters Sentence remains the same: the left hand had positive connotations for the Eldar in part because when one faced north, it pointed toward the land whose very name was synonymous with blessedness and freedom from evil or defect.

Appendix: Late Writings on ...J nii 'to be'

There is surprisingly little information on the conjugation of na to be found in Tolkien's late writings, and the few texts that exist are usually no more than terse, hastily jotted notes. The conjugation of -1 na written above AS 1 is, in fact, one of the most complete and clearly written:

...J nii nain naitye nailye na nanye na-lye!tye nii niis(e) [ ?nalme] niine anaie nauva

Following -lna in the first row are four aorist forms: 1 sg. nain, 2 sg. naitye (familiar), 2 sg. nailye (polite),36 and impersonal sg. na-these have the short stem vowel ( na-) and suffix -i typical of the aorist of basic verbs, except for impersonal na, in which -i is perhaps omitted to avoid confusion with nai 'be it that, maybe'. The second row gives the present tense, usually marked by a long stem vowel (na-) : 1 sg. nanye (which replaces a rejected form nain) , 2 sg. polite/ familiar na-lye/tye, impersonal sg. na, and 3 sg. nas(e). The last form in this row certainly begins with nal, but the ending is no more than a horizontal squiggle; 1 pi. exclusive nalme (attested in another text given below) was probably intended. In the third row, pa.t. nane is followed by perfect anaie, which was first written as anaye; for the shortened stem vowel in the emended form, compare Maiar 'the Beautiful' (X:49) and its alternative form Mayar (XII :363-64 n-45, 53) . Future nauva 'will be' is also attested in the late essay on negation cited by Bill Welden in VT 42 (pg. 34); see the entry for ke in line 3.

A few other instances of pa.t. niine can be found elsewhere in Tolkien's late writings. For example, a page of extremely rough penciled notes on verbs with monoconsonantal stems (A&U waste paper dated 1967) cites na- 'be: past tense nane, and perfect anaie. Another example of nane used in a Quenya sentence appears in the following vocabulary note, written on A&U waste paper from 1968 and placed in the same brown folder as AS 1-3 (the note on qui ' if' and ke 'may be' cited above s.v. ke in line 3 appears on the same page):

...JSAB 'believe (that statements, reports, traditions, etc . are) true, accept as fad This in Quenya does not take as direct object a person-in sense 'believe he speaks truly'. Q. savin when it has a noun or name or pronoun as direct object means 'I believe he/she/it really exists/existed': as savin Elessar ar i nane aran Ond6reo 'I believe that E. really existed and that he was a King of Gondor:

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June 2007

To trust a man/woman, as not lying (or twisting words, or concealing something relevant) is expressed by: I believe (that) the words of A (are true) : savin Elesarno quetie I or i E. quetie naite. Or by a different verb, to trust, rely on (a person)Y

Th e genitive form Elesarno in the second paragraph i s evidently a slip for *Elessarno. The form quetie, corresponding to 'the words' in the gloss, must literally mean *' [the) speaking', being a gerundial form of the verb quet- 'say, tell, speak' (aorist quete 'tells: pres. queta 'is saying'; VT 41:11, 13), from *KWET 'speak, utter words, say' (XI:391 ) . The adjective naite 'true' is another derivative of na- 'be', with the common adjectival ending -ite also seen in maite 'handy, skilful' < ma 'hand' (VT47:6) , hlonite 'phonetic' < hlon 'a noise, sound' (VT48:29), and ruskuite 'foxy' < rusko (rusku-) 'fox' (VT 41:10 ). Cp. anwa 'real, actual, true' in the Etymologies s.v. ANA 2-, a variant of NA 2- 'be, exist'; and nanwa 'existing, actual (true)', cited below from notes dating to the late 196os.

There are also conjugations of na in Tolkien's late writings that give the past tense as ne rather than nane. One of the more extensive of these ne-conjugations appears in a bundle of four manuscript pages written on A&U waste paper from 1967. The first page, on which Tolkien wrote the date ''Apr. 6, '69", gives a summary of the distinction between the roots '>/ na and '>/ eiJe:

Stem of verb 'exist' (have being in primary world of history) was ...JeiJe, distinct from ...Jna joining adjs./nouns/pronouns in statements (or wishes) asserting (or desiring) a thing to have certain quality, or to be the same as another.

Present/continuous of ...JeiJe : is ea 'It exists' {Eru ea} ,38 used as noun = the whole created universe. Properly cannot be used of God since ea refers only to all things created by Eru directly or mediately.

It is noted in Appendix D to Quendi and Eldar that ea 'exists' and engwe 'thing' point to " [t] he former presence of intervocalic fi, later lost in Quenya'' (VT39 :6-7), though the root '>leiJe 'exist' is not explicitly cited in that text.

The second page in this bundle bears the heading "Irreg. Verbs" and includes the following notes on na and ea:

nii is, [ ?it is as, ] 39 so. yes na = it is so. nato it is that no ui it is n [ ot] uito it is not that

nake {not as} it is may be seeming una

nii imp. nai let it be that past tense {ne nen} ne

anen anel {an} ne I nese anes

When stem of noun or verb is long & long [ ?markers,] double cons. was simplified after change of s > z.

So ne-sse for nesse has nese.


Exists ea. .YeiJe . pres. & aorist ea, future euva, past enge. perfect e-eljije > eiJie [ > l eije > eye, rare. ana [logical) engie is used often.

The form ui 'no, it is not' is apparently aorist. It is also attested on a page of rough notes on negative forms (c. 1968) , which gives the root iigu, gu 'not' along with a partial conjugation (subsequently struck out) : "u-, verb: uin(ye) I am not;40 uil(ye); uis; uC Related forms written nearby include ui ' it is not'; uilme and uir, probably the 1 pl. exclusive and impersonal pl. forms; and ugin, ugilme, evidently the etymological forms underlying uin and uilme.

nato ' it is that' and uito ' it is not that' might be emphatic forms of 'yes' and 'no: The element - to is perhaps to 'thence', one of several derivatives of ta 'that' listed in DN, which also gives the etymology " ta io > to", indicating that this form is a partitive genitive. According to Quendi and Eldar, the partitive genitive could describe "the source or origin" of things, e.g., r6ma Oromeo 'a horn coming from Orome' (XI:368) ; also cp. Oiolosseo 'from Mount Everwhite' in Galadriel's Lament. So nato and uito are perhaps literally 'it is (from) that' and 'it is not (from) that', se. 'yes, it follows from that (previously mentioned)', etc.

nake evidently ends in the particle ke indicating uncertainty (VT 42:34 n.2; also see the entry for ke above) . Its gloss is best understood as elliptical, 'it is [or] may be seeming', probably indicating a qualified or hesitant 'yes'. As first written, the gloss'was 'not as it is [or] may be seeming', perhaps a qualified 'no'. The form una following the gloss is probably an alternative to ui ' it is not' written above; una is also attested ( in notes closely contemporary with Quendi and Eldar) as an adjective meaning 'deprived of, destitute, forlorn', i.e., u- + adj. ending -na (VT39:14), but this clearly cannot be the word intended here.

The abbreviation "imp:' after na in the next line probably stands for "imperative" rather than "impersonal", since na acts as an imperative in the form that follows: nai 'let it be that'.41 In the row of past-tense forms with pronominal endings, 1 sg. anen, 2 sg. anel (polite) , and 3 sg. anes might have a prefixed sund6ma (cp. the base ANA2- 'be, exist' in the Etymologies, a variant of NA2- 'to be' ) ; alternatively, these forms might be derived from a reversed form of NA, comparable to ista- 'to know' < IS 'know', with pa.t. sinte 'knew' < reversed *SI ( see above s.v. simaryassen in line 2).42 Whatever the case may be, disyllabic past-tense forms such as anen may have been preferable because they were more distinct than monosyllabic forms such as the rejected 1 sg. pa.t. nen. The absence of rhotacism in 3 sg. pa.t. nese is attributed to an original geminate ending -sse; this was simplified to -se following the long vowel in ne, but only after rhotacism had ceased to be an active process in Quenya (the wording of the statement "So ne-sse for nesse has nese" is somewhat confusing, but seems to mean "so ne-sse, instead of becoming nesse, became nese") . This same sequence of developments no doubt also accounts for 3 sg. present nase in the AS 1 conjugation (see also nasse three paragraphs below, and the discussion of quernesse s.v. querne in line 3 ) . A page of notes discussing the adjectival ending -ima dating from the late 196os43 also provides an example of nese used in a sentence: nese n6rima rokko 'he was a horse strong/swift at running'.

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The past tense enge (probably a strong past formed by nasal infixion: *e-IJ-I}e) also occurs in Tolkien's translation of the Gloria Patri (VT 43:36) . A form eane, evidently an alternative weak past, was written in the margin, then struck out. The etymological perfect form e-el}ije bears a close structural resemblance to * awawiie, cited as the "older perfect form'' of Q. auta- 'go away, leave' ( < * AWA) in Quendi and Eldar (XI:366) , the chief difference being that *awawiie features reduplication (aw-aw-) rather than an augment (e-el)-) . The analogical perfect engie is based on pa.t. enge; Tolkien notes in Quendi and Eldar that "the forms of past and perfect became progressively more closely associated in Quenya'', hence *awawiie was replaced by *a-waniie (Q. avanie) "with intrusion of n from the past" (ibid. ) .

A few other inflected forms of na can be found in Tolkien's late writings. A page of rough jottings on A&U waste paper from 196744 gives na, "impers [ onal] only':45 with plural nar and dual nat; the forms ne, ner, net are also cited, unlabeled but clearly the past tense singular, plural, and dual. DN mentions the use of abstract sa 'it'46 as a verbal suffix, as in nas 'it is', nas mara nin 'I like it: This phrase must literally mean *'it is good to me' (mara 'good' is usually attested with a long vowel, e.g., VT 42:33-4), the syntax being reminiscent of German es gefiillt mir 'I like it', lit. ' it pleases me', with dative mir.

Another conjugation of na, probably from the late 196os,47 has "n/i it is, often aorist nanye, nalye, na, nasse, nalme, [nar >>] niir; past ne; future is uva". This apparently indicates that present nli ' it is' was also often used as an aorist, just as ea 'exists' is said to be both present and aorist in the text cited above (such a combining of present and aorist senses would seem to accord with the use of na as 'yes, it is so' on the "Irreg. Verbs" manuscript given above, since the negative counterpart on that manuscript, ui 'no, it is not', appears to be aorist in form). The 3 sg. form here is nasse, in which the original long form of the pronominal marker -sse is retained after a short vowel. To the left of this conjugation Tolkien wrote "nasse also = a person, an individual", in which -sse is not pronominal but rather a suffix used to derive nouns from verbal stems, as kelussi:! 'freshet, water falling out swiftly from a rocky spring' < kelu- 'flow out swiftly' (UT:426 s.v. Celos, cited there from The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Condor; see VT42:11) . Other related forms given on this page include niita, nat 'thing', and nanwa 'existing, actual (true):

Tolkien's ideas about the conjugation of na thus clearly remained in a fairly fluid state even in his latest writings. A final example is provided by the following remarkable statement about the etymology and function of pa.t. ne, appearing in the same late text on "Homophonic stems" (c. 1968) cited above s.v. ten in line 2. Here Tolkien writes that the element ne

. . . played a chief part in the indication of past time in C. E. , being found both as a verbal suffix marking past tenses, and by a curious treatment (probably descending from primitive Quendian methods of agglutination) also in the form of a nasal inserted before the final consonant of a verbal stem, while the e followed. This element with some such sense as 'ago' or 'behind' (se. earlier in time) is found in


both Quenya and Telerin as an independent word ne, functioning as a past tense of the verb 'to be' = it was. It does not, however, take any inflections of person, and is used actually as a curious past form of 'yes' in answers to questions of fact = ' it was so, it was as you say/ ask' (Questions of fact were answered in Eldarin in the positive by an uninflected form of the verb 'to be' : see below) . This element also occurs in Q. neya, nea 'once, at one time' -in the past; anda ne, andaneya 'long ago, once upon a time'; T. andane.

Unfortunately, while Tolkien clearly intended to say more about the verb 'to be' in this essay (cf. his note "see below") , he abandoned the text before returning to the topic.

Notes

1. Tolkien did not originally conceive of the Elves as ambidexters. The earliest lexicons, for example, explicitly portray the left hand as clumsy, the right as skilful. The Qenya Lexicon gives lenka 'slow, dull, stiff; left (hand)' and malenka 'lefthand, -ed', from the roots "? LEKE or LENE" (the latter is glossed in a separate entry as 'long', with derived senses 'slow, tedious, trailing') . The Gnomish Lexicon has gag 'clumsy; left (hand)' (probably cognate with Q. auk 'a fool, clumsy fellow' and auqa 'awkward, clumsy (of things) ; awkward, difficult' in the QL), the opposite of fim 'clever; right hand: Predominance of the right hand is still evident in the Etymologies, which includes Q. formaite 'righthanded, dexterous' s.v. PHOR- 'right-hand'. It is also implicit in the story of Maedhros, who after losing his right hand in his rescue by Fingon from Thangorodrim "lived to wield his sword with left hand more deadly than his right had been" (V:252; S:m). Even in the latest version of this story in the Grey Annals (written in the early 1950s), which simply notes that "Thereafter Maidros wielded his sword in his left hand" (XI:32), the mere fact that this is mentioned implies that the feat was somehow noteworthy or unusual.

2. The idea that facing West was "usual" recalls the statement in Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings that the tengwar m numen 'west', .\ hyarmen 'south', '[! r6men 'east: and h form en 'north' "commonly indicated the points W, S, E, N even in languages that used quite different terms. They were, in the West-lands, named in this order, beginning with and facing west; hyarmen and formen indeed meant left-hand region and right-hand region (the opposite to the arrangement in many Mannish languages)" (LR:1123 ) . The reference to facing North alludes to the watch kept on Morgoth's northern fortress of Angband by the Eldar in the First Age, particularly during the Siege of Angband.

3 · Also placed in the same brown folder as the manuscript of AS 1-3 is a small slip of paper bearing what appears to be the hastily jotted original germ of the Ambidexters Sentence: "Elves generally ambidextrous :. left had no 'sinister' sense': This makes no mention of any positive connotations of the left, and the slip lacks any drafting for a Quenya version. Both sides of the slip were subsequently used for unrelated notes on consonant + nasal combinations and an etymology of pella 'beyond:


4· Please note that the first gloss of mo is erroneously given as 'everyone' instead of the correct 'anyone' at both occurrences in VT 47:37 n.s8.

s . With the exception of "and" ( = Q. ar) at the end of the 4th line of the original English sentence, which I have moved to the beginning of the sth line in the edited AS texts.

6. AS 2 begins with the word ataformor (""'ambidexters') written in the margin to the left of its equivalent attaformor in AS 1. Tolkien presumably intended the opening words of AS 1, i Eldar nt'iner ( 'the Elves were') , to serve as the first words of this new version as well.

7. Romello is given here with a short o; LR:377 and R:67 have R6mello and Romello, respectively.

8. A list of prepositions apparently dating to the mid-1950s (see VT43:29-30 s.v. aselye) gives the root ata-, atta 'across, over, lying from side to side', which suggests that ata-, atta in ataformor, at(t)aformaiti might have the precise sense 'on both sides' rather than simply 'double' or 'twd. The Etymologies also notes that N. ath- 'on both sides, across' (as in athrad 'ford, crossing') "is probably related" to Q. atta 'two' and other forms derived from the base AT(AT)- 'again, back' {V:349) .

9 . The adj. maite means 'handy, skilful: < ma3a 'hand' (VT47:6) . In the Etymologies s.v. MA3- 'hand' the plural of maite is maisi. As the second element in compound adjectives -maite means '-handed', as in hyarmaite 'lefthanded' {V:365 ) , lungumaite 'heavy-handed' {VT47:19) , morimaite 'blackhanded' (LR:979; IX:68, 72 n.12), etc.

10. In another note from the late 1950s or early 1960s ve is said to derive from be, while a note from c. 1968 states that ve is from earlier vai, related to the adjectival ending -va.

n . epe 'before' appears in a late essay on comparison; see Bill Welden's letter in VT 44:38 {Welden does not include the qualifier ' in all relations but time' in his citation) . epe 'after, of time' occurs twice in the notes written on narrow slips of paper placed after the manuscript of AS 1-3.

12. The concept that Eldarin words for 'before' and 'after' varied in meaning according to spatial versus temporal reference dates back to the earliest material; for example, the Qenya Lexicon gives the roots NO- 'ahead, in front; after, of time' and DYE 'behind, back (before of time): Over the years Tolkien frequently changed his mind as to whether any given root meant 'before' or 'after' in a spatial or temporal sense; e.g., while NO- in the QL means 'in front' (of place) and 'after' (of time) , in the mid- 1950s text on Eldarin time cited above no means 'at back, of place' and 'before, of time' (a fact that argues in favor of the authenticity of the "Merin sentence", which contains the phrase n6 vanyalye Ambarello 'before you pass from the world'; see Ales Bican's overview at <http://www.elvish.org/ elm/merin.htmh ). Cp. also the forms noa and noa re in endnote 23. Similarly, the mid-1950s text has opo, po, pono, poto- ' in front, of place: while the QL has pote 'after, behind; of place' s.v. POT-I.

13. DN also gives tai as the plural of ta 'that': "tai is plural. sa had no pi. So sa - tai goes [ ?equivalently] with se - te" (a separate note in DN reiterates that "sa was not declinable") . It seems likely that tai 'that which' was emended to ita


in DN in order to avoid confusion with plural tai (elsewhere in DN pl . tai was emended to t�, perhaps for the same reason) . A brief list of demonstrative forms on one of the slips placed after AS 1-3 also gives ta, tai 'then'; here tai probably ends in the adverbial suffix -i seen also in mai 'well' {VT47:6) . Other forms on this slip not listed in DN include si 'here', ta 'there'; and simen 'hither: tamen 'thither' (cp. simen 'here' in Firiel's song, V:72) .

14. S. den in the Ae Adar Nin might be related to Q. ten, tena; see the discussion in VT44:25.

15. Q. hatal 'spear' probably derives from KHAT- 'hurl', whence also N. hador, hadron 'thrower (of spears or darts)' (V:363) . The Etymologies does not cite any Qenya derivatives of this base, but the QL gives HATA 'hurl, fling', whence hatin 'I fling: hatse 'headlong movement', etc.

16. The Rough Notes associated with HFN cite a base KES, with derivatives ekes 'other', exa 'other', and exe 'the other' {VT47:4o) . KES is perhaps in origin a despirantized variant of ...fkh� with an extension -s. Variation between initial kh-, k- is seen in the Etymologies in the base KHEN- (also KEN-, KYEN-) 'look at, see, observe, direct gaze' (VT45:21) ; also cp. such extended bases in -s as NIS'womall, "probably an elaboration'' of NI 'woman'; and THUS- (whence Q. saura 'foul, evil-smelling, putrid' ) , said to be possibly related to THD- 'puff, blow:

17. Eng. sinister 'ominous, portending harm or evil' is derived {via Old French sinistre) from Lat. sinister 'left, on the left hand', the opposite of dexter. The Latin word acquired the transferred sense 'unfavorable, adverse' from its use in augury: while facing north (as per Greek custom) , omens observed on the left hand were considered to portend misfortune. According to the OED, the earliest attestation of sinister in English dates to 1411, in the transferred sense 'prompted by malice or ill-will: The literal sense 'on the left side' occurs later and is more rare; it is now mainly seen in the heraldic term bend sinister, describing a band from the upper right to the lower left corner of a coat of arms, signifying illegitimacy.

18. With sima 'mind, imagination', cp. intyale 'imagination' < intya- 'guess, suppose', and nause ' imagination' < NOWO 'think, form idea, imagine', in the Etymologies. Other Quenya words for 'mind' from Tolkien's late writings include sama, pl. samar 'mind' < ..J sam 'mind, think, reflect, be aware', from the Osanwekenta, c. 1959-60 (VT39 :23, VT41:5) ; sanar 'mind' (lit. 'thinker, reflector') from the Notes on Ore, c. 1968 (VT 41:13); indo 'the mind in its purposing faculty, the will' < NID 'force, press(ure) , thrust', from notes dating to c. Jan. 1968 (VT 41:17 n.10); and 6re 'heart ( inner mind)' (LR:1123 ) , said in notes from c. 1968 to derive from either 30R 'warn, counsel' or ..JHOR 'urge, impel, move (but only of "mental" impulse)' {VT41:11, 13) . The Qenya Lexicon also gives a 'mind, inner thought' < 'AHA 'know:

19. 2 du. cariste was first written as carinde. Although 2 du. -ste is homophonous with the 3 du. personal, the two inflections are distinct in origin. Rough notes accompanying the conjugation state that "duals were apparently formed by reduplication of elements", and that " -ste 2 is < zd < dd; ste 3 is < st < tt". The etymology of the 2 du. is also given in a more expanded form, "dede > dde > zde >

ste': in which dede is obviously a reduplicated form of the znd person pronominal stem de (see VT48:24, XI :363) .

Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 June 2007 --- ------·

20. The bundle in which this text is found was enclosed in a folded newspaper dated 5 May 1965. Also, a chart of verbal inflections at the beginning of the text includes 1 pl. exclusive karimme and 1 pl. inclusive karilme, indicating that it dates from sometime before the publication of the revised edition of The Lord of the Rings in 1965, at which time the 1 pl. inflections became exclusive -lme (adj . -lma) and inclusive -lve (adj . -lva) .

21. A bracketed note following adj . sina adds: "S . h�n, pl. hfn may be from slna with generalized mutation of initial or from khln-, which appears in Q. hi here (S. si here, hi now):' The Sindarin forms mentioned here all appear in The Lord of the Rings (though with some variation in vowel length) : pl. h'fn 'these' in i thiw hin 'these signs' (pg. 305-6) ; si 'here' in si nef aearon 'here on this side of the Great Ocean' (pg. 238, glossed in R:72) ; and hf 'now' in edro hi ammen 'open now for us' (pg. 307, glossed in VI:463 n.14) .

22. "CQ" here probably = "Classical Quenya''. An unfinished form keit was struck out between klta- and kitan, pointing to the development of klta- < *keita< *key(e)-ta-. For *ei > Q. f, compare Q. mina 'desiring to start, eager to go' and verb mina- 'desire to go in some direction, to wish to go to a place, make for it; have some end in view' < *meina, a desiderative formed by i-infixion of the base *MEN 'go' (from Appendix D to Quendi and Eldar, VT39:u n-7).

23 . In all these examples eke is an impersonal aorist verb, with the putative "subject" of the sentence in the dative: e.g., eke nin 'I can' = lit. *'it is open to me'. In eke nin kare sa 'I can do that' and ekuva nin kare sa noa 'I "may" do that tomorrow', kare 'do' is a general aorist infinitive (see VT 41:17 n.u); another example is quete 'speak' in polin quete 'I can speak (because mouth and tongue are free)' (VT41:6) . With noa 'tomorrow', cp. the QL forms nuo 'tomorrow', n6 (prep.) 'after (only of time) : and no (adv.) 'then, next (of time): all from NO-, NOWO? (NONO?) 'ahead, in front; after, of time; tomorrow'. Interestingly, a page of notes probably dating to the late 196os gives noa 'yesterday', said to be shortened from noa re 'former (day)'. Reversals in the sense 'before' or 'after' assigned to stems such as no- were not uncommon; see endnote 12.

24. The Shibboleth of Feanor (c. 1968) mentions a homophonous Quenya noun kanwa 'an announcement, an order', from KAN 'cry, call aloud', a base which in Quenya usually meant 'command' (XII:361-2 n.36 ) .

25 . The n in kanwarya was subsequently heavily emended, or else struck out-the change intended is unclear. If Tolkien meant to emend kanwarya to kawarya, the new form kawa 'face' is difficult to explain. It has the same shape as the etymological form kawa underlying Q. koa 'house', which according to "Monosyllabics in C.E:' (c. 1968) may have been a later extension of C.E. ka 'home, house' (VT 47:35) , and it might be supposed that kawa refers to the face as the "home" or locus of communication and expression. However, this metaphor seems forced, and it has no parallel in the etymologies of words for 'face' in the In do-European languages, or in other attested words for 'face' in Elvish. It is clear from phonological notes associated with the Quenya wedding greeting (NEA) that Tolkien was dissatisfied with the idea that Q. nw could result from original *tm, *dm; e.g., the original etymon of yanwe 'joining' was given as yadme, but Tolkien struck this out and replaced it with '-fYAN (see "Five Late Quenya


Volitive Inscriptions" in this issue, inscr. IV s.v. veryanwesto) . The rejection (or uncertain emendation) of the n in kanwarya may also have resulted from this dissatisfaction, and it is probably significant that in the subsequent versions of the Ambidexters Sentence, Tolkien uses kendele 'face' instead, with an entirely different etymology.

26. The Qenya Lexicon also includes the roots SE, SENE(2) , with derivatives meaning 'like, similar, comparable: and in The Road Goes Ever On ( 1967) an element sen 'children' occurs in Q. Erusen 'the Children of God' (R:74) , but these forms seem unrelated to each other or to sen- 'let loose, free, let go' and senwa, senya 'usual: The King's Letter contains a Sindarin form sennui, usually interpreted as *'rather, instead: in the phrase i Cherdir Perhael (i sennui Panthael estathar aen) 'Master Perhael [Samwise] who should be called Panthael [Fullwise] ' (IX:126, 129 ) . This might conceivably be related to sen- 'let loose, free, let go', in the sense that Panthael 'Fullwise' is a 'looser' or 'freer' rendition of Samwise's name.

27. For -n- as a base extension, cp. KHO-N- 'heart (physical)' and WA-N- e 'goose' (probably < WA- 'blow' or similar onomatopoeic root) in the Etymologies.

28. Cp. STIN-, cited in the Etymologies as a variant of TIN- 'sparkle' and THIN- (VT46:16) .

29. quiquie and quie 'whenever' are probably derived from qui ' if ' < kwi'suppose' ( see above s.v. ke), plus the adverbial ending -e seen also in usie 'on the contrary' and sie 'thus' < si- 'this (by me)' (see above s.v. usie)-cp. German wenn, which means both ' if' ( Wenn ich nur gewusst hiitte! 'If l had only known! ' ) and 'when' ( Wenn er nervos ist, macht er Fehler 'When he's nervous, he makes mistakes' ) . For an analysis of arse, see endnote 34 below.

30. Tolkien's glossary to the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth (c. 1959) notes that "Melkor, in older form Melk6re, probably means 'Mighty-rising: se. 'uprising of power' " (X:350) .

31 . Cf. Christopher Tolkien's commentary on the Lost Tale The Coming of the Valar: "It is remarkable how many of the names of the Valar in the earliest writings were never afterwards displaced or reshaped: Yavanna, Tulkas, L6rien, Nienna, Orome, Aldaron, Vana, Nessa, first appearing in this tale, and Manwe, Sulimo, Varda, Ulmo, Aule, Mandos, Osse, Salmar, who have appeared previously" (1 :79 ) . Like Gn, Morgoth, these Qenya names retained their external form over the years, while their meanings and underlying etymologies were in a constant state of flux.

32. If the second word in the gloss is in fact 'out: it is probably to be understood as 'out [ side ] :

33 . A note on another slip bearing similar paradigms of ana 'to' and mf 'in' states that "coalescence of preposition and pronoun (unstressed) ? occurred at about same time as development of verbal inflexion, but without intrusion of numerical element:'

34· Cp. arse 'he is out' in quiquie tenin koaryanna I arse 'whenever I arrive at his house, he is out', from the note on "ten cited s.v. tentane above. According to the Etymologies, Q. ara, ar- 'outside, beside' was "purely local in sense"; in Noldorin "ar- developed a privative sense (as English without) . . . Thus arnediad

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June 2007

without reckoning, = numberless", but for this sense Qenya used ava- instead: avan6te. The sentence containing arse, however, suggests that Tolkien later imagined Q. ar- as also having a privative sense: quiquie tenin koaryanna 'whenever I arrive at his house' I arse * ' [ it is] without him' = 'he is out:

35. The original Valarin form is not given, but cognates appear in Valarin Manawenuz 'Blessed One, One ( closest) in accord with Eru', adapted into Quenya as Manwe (XI:399 ); and in the Valarin names kparaphelUn Amanaisal 'Arda Unmarred' and Aparaphelun Dusamanuoan 'Arda Marred' (XI:4o1) .

36 . For tye as the "familiar" or " imperious" 2 sg. pronoun, in contrast to the "polite" or "deferential" 2 sg. lye, see Appendix II, "Quenya Pronominal Elements': to Car! F. Hostetter's article "Five Late Quenya Volitive Inscriptions" in this issue. It should also be noted that the i in naitye may have been a later addition, and the i in nailye is little more than a dot, the form appearing as na. lye in the manuscript.

37· Tolkien left this note unfinished-it ends with a colon, without providing any alternative verb meaning 'to trust, rely on (a person)'.

38 . The rejected phrase Eru ea means *'God exists'. It is not entirely clear whether Tolkien's subsequent statement that ea "[p] roperly cannot be used of God" refers to ea the verb or to ea the noun, or to both. The deletion of Eru ea suggests that this statement includes the verb, but if so, the qualifier "properly" would seem to allow for its occasional application to God (perhaps colloquially or dialectally) , and ea 'exists' is in fact used of God in Cirion's oath (c . 1969), which has i Eru i or ilye mahalmar eii tennoio 'the One who is above all thrones for ever' (UT:305); and again in Ataremma V and VI (from the 1950s), which have Ataremma i ea pell' Ea and Ataremma i ea han ea respectively, both phrases meaning 'Our Father, who is beyond Ea' (VT 43:12-14). The concept that the noun ea 'the whole created universe' did not include God also appears in a late note (c. 1968) inserted in the typescript of Quendi and Eldar, which states: "ilueverything, all, the whole. This is more than ea, which is all 'nature' but was not held to include [ souls?] and spirits. ilu includes God, all 'souls' & spirits as well as ea" (VT39:2o n.2o).

39 . Compare this tentative reading with the description of �na on the previous manuscript page as asserting a thing "to be the same as another':

40. Cp. 1 sg. uin 'I do not, am not' in the Etymologies s.v. negative stem UGU-. This same entry states that the Q. prefix u 'not, un-, in-' is from ugu or gu, almost identical to the stems i'tgu, gu 'not' given on the page of notes written some thirty years later.

41. nai may be an etymological form, since reduction of ai > ai is usual in Quenya (cp. the etymology na-i > nai 'be it that' given in R:68) . Elsewhere nai is the form typically encountered.

42. The essay on comparison from c. 1966 or later cited above s.v. naner might argue against the latter possibility, since this states: "Some single-consonant stems were followed only by an (originally) long defining vowel: as e.g. �ta'there, then', and the vowel could not precede (there is no connexion between �at and �ta) . Of the latter kind was �na 'to be, exisC' However, it may be that when


writing the past-tense forms of na discussed here, Tolkien had changed his mind on this point.

43 . These notes begin by referring to the statement in The Road Goes Ever On that Feanor gave the name Silima "to the crystal substance he devised and alone could make" (R:73) , thus establishing 1967 as a terminus a quo.

44. The notes on this page may have been written later than 1967; the bundle of manuscripts in which it was placed follows a divider labeled "1969 ':

45· This obviously contradicts the several examples of na with pronominal suffixes cited in this article; however, it should be remembered that when Tolkien wrote this note, the only forms of na that had been published were impersonal: na ' is' and nai 'be it that, maybe', both in Galadriel's Lament.

46. DN includes the statement that "the abstract pron[ominal] forms sa, ta were quite separate . . . from the personal/actual se/te. sa went with si and ni = this by me, of my [?concern ] ; ta went with other persons = that by you or them:' Similarly, it is noted that "the pronoun for 'the thing: impersonal, was sa': whereas "se was only used personally = 'he/she/it', actual not abstract:' A brief text on gender dating to the late 1960s describes the distinction between se and sa as animate versus inanimate: "Eldarin languages, however, distinguished sexes male and female, and animates from inanimates. The latter was probably the older distinction and already made in P.Q., since the pronouns of the 3rd person observed the distinction:' To this was added a note: "As e.g. Quenya se 'animate' he, she, it of living things including plants; sa ' inanimate' it:'

47· The page itself bears no date, but other texts placed near it have the dates 9 Nov. 1966 and Aug. 1967; and this group of papers also includes a version of the Nai elen atta siluvat sentence with phonological notes, which must date to Aug. 1969 (see Carl F. Hostetter's article "Five Late Quenya Volitive Inscriptions" in this issue, inscr. IV, NEA 2b ) .


Five Late Quenya Volitive Inscriptions by J.R.R. Tolkien

Edited by Carl F. Hostetter

Tolkien's texts copyright ©2007 The Tolkien Trust

I

Among Tolkien's later papers is a small bundle of sheets of assorted paper types containing notes on various linguistic subjects, collected in an empty writingpad. Two of these sheets are Oxford University documents bearing the printed dates 15 December 1966 and 26 January 1967. At the top of one sheet in the bundle Tolkien has written the date: "July 16, 1964". On still another sheet in the bundle, of identical size to the latter dated sheet, Tolkien wrote his signature and, beneath it, a Quenya inscription in tengwar with a Roman transcription:

�· JC. jtth� pia{� �� nai elen siluva parma-restalyanna meldonya

Although Tolkien has provided no translation of this inscription, I think (for reasons stated below) it is intended to mean: *'May a star shine upon your bookfair, my friend'.

Both above and below this signature and inscription, Tolkien wrote a rough and incomplete set of paradigms of the Quenya personal pronominal inflections and related forms, which are presented below as Appendix I . These clearly arose on the sheet due to Tolkien's consideration of the two personal possessive pronominal inflections found in the inscription, 1 sg. -nya 'my' and 2 sg. polite/deferential -lya 'your', as a paradigm of the singular possessive pronominal inflections is written in the top margin of the sheet, above Tolkien's signature: 1 sg. -nya, 2 sg. pol./def. -lya and familiar -tya, 3 sg. -rya. The paradigm of verbal pronominal inflections given beneath the inscription also bears on its dating, as it has 1 pl. excl. -mme, incl. -lme, showing that it must date to a time before Tolkien made the decision to alter Frodo's greeting to Gildor (LR:81) from omentielmo (originally inclusive, but by 1965 become exclusive) to the new inclusive form omentielvo, a change he incorporated into the revised second edition of The Lord of the Rings that appeared in Oct. 1965 (see VT43:6, RC:104-5, and CG1:631-44, esp. 633, 638, 644). Given this, the obviously later form of the handwriting on the sheet, and the sheet's similarity to the nearby sheet dated "July 16 , 1964': it seems reasonable to suppose that this inscription likewise dates to 1964. If I am correct below about the meaning and association of this inscription, it can be dated still more precisely to June 1964.

Analysis of Forms:

nai 'may; be it that' : Tolkien in 1967 analyzed nai as < na-i 'be it that: noting that it "expresses rather a wish than a hope, and would be more

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closely rendered 'may it be that' . . . than 'maybe' " (R:68; and cf. UT:317 n-43) . This analysis suggests that nai is formed from imperative na 'be it' + conjunction i 'that: A note at the top of another sheet in this bundle reads:

Q. expression of wish. nai + future: nai elye hiruva. But 'God bless you' (which includes now) : nai + pres. continuative: nai Eru lye manata.l

In previously published examples, volitive nai is indeed always paired with a verb in the future tense: nai hir-uva(-lye) 'maybe/be it that (thou) shalt find [it] ' (LR:378, R:67), and nai tir-uva-nte-s 'be it that they will guard it' (UT:305, 317 n-43) . This syntax is also employed in four of the five inscriptions presented here: I & II nai sil-uva *'be it that (it) will shine'; IV nai sil-uva-t *'be it that they (dual) will shine'; V nai lant-uva lit. 'may (it) fall; lit. *'be it that (it) will fall'. Ill instead employs a predicate adjective with implied copula: nai amanya *'may (be) blessed', *'be it that (he/she will be) blessed'.

elen ' (a) star': Cf. Xl:362, V:355 s.v. EL-. siluva 'will shine': Future impersonal sg. of stem sil- 'shine: referring back

to the preceding sg. subject elen. Cf. sil- 'shine white' (MC:223) , SIL- 'shine silver: variant of THIL- (V:385, 392) . This is a very old stem in Tolkien's conceptual development of Quenya, going back to the very beginnings in the Qenya Lexicon s.v. SILl (l>ILI- ) , whence Q. sili- 'gleam, glint' (PE12:83) .

parma-restalyanna *'upon your book-fair' : Allative sg. of parma-restalya, itself the 2nd sg. pol./def. poss. inflection (see Appendix I below) of a compound parma-resta, the initial element being parma 'book' (LR:n22, V:380 s.v. PAR-, PE12:72 s.v. PARA), so 'your book-X'. The remaining element resta might be taken to be related to RED- 'scatter, sow' (whence Q. resta 'sown field, acre', VT 46:u) , as indicating the dissemination (i.e. , publication) of the recipient's book. But the compound form of this noun argues against this interpretation-one would expect from the other nai-formula inscriptions invoking the shining of a light upon the "X of your Y" instead a genitival phrase corresponding to "on the publication of your book'; i.e. , * [publication] nna parmalyo. Another interpretation is suggested by the putative date of this inscription, c. July 1964. Scull and Hammond's f. R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide records that on 1 June 1964 Tolkien provided Martin Blackman of his publishers Alien & Unwin with material for display at the World Book Fair in Earl's Court, London, which ran from 10 to 20 June that year, and that Tolkien attended the Book Fair on 15 June (CG1:618-9) . It seems quite possible that resta here is intended to mean 'fair; and that the inscription was made on the occasion of this parma-resta *'book-fair:2 If this interpretation is correct, resta might still be related to RED- as indicating a field, a common site for fairs. But noting that English fair is derived from Medieval Latin feria 'ordinary day, weekday' < Late Latin feria 'feast day' < Latin feriae pi. 'religious festivals, holidays: it is perhaps more likely that the form is to be


analyzed as re- 'day' (see aurenna, n!nna, below) and -sta, related to Q. asta 'division' < ..Jsat 'divide, apportion' (VT 48:11), as an "apportioned day'; i.e. , a "day set apart':

meldonya 'my friend': 1 sg. poss. of meldo 'friend (masc.) : Cf. MEL- 'love (as friend) ' whence Q. meldo ' (friend) lover' (V:372, VT45:34; and cf. the Qenya Lexicon's mel- 'to love' < MELE, PE12:6o) . The sense here is exhibited by the name Eldameldor 'Elf-friends, Elf-lovers' applied to the Faithful Men of Beleriand, the Nunatani (S. Dunedain) in the c. 1959-60 essay Quendi and Eldar (Xl:386, 4·12 n.19), connoting "affection and personal loyalties': The feminine form meldenya 'my friend' occurs in an inscription Tolkien made for his erstwhile student Elaine Griffiths (1909-1996) , in her copy of the first

E edition of The Lord of the Rings, which reads: "Elainen tdrin Periandion ar meldenya anyaran'; i .e. , apparently, *'To Elaine, queen of Hobbits and my very old friend' (cf. CG1:354) .3

Note on the tengwar: Arden Smith has kindly provided the following observations on the tengwar transcription, with particular focus on scribal errors and on deviations from the Quenya mode of c. 1967 exemplified by Tolkien's tengwar version of Galadriel's Lament in The Road Goes Ever On:

1. The diphthong ai is written with the a-tehta above the preceding consonant and the i-tehta above a short carrier, rather than with the a-tehta above

/ yanta as in Road. 2. The subscript dot (pusta or putta 'stop; VT46:10 s.v. PUS-; cf. also

VT25:6-7) is used here below all consonants that have no following vowel, witl! the exception of 6re, which in this mode cannot precede a vowel. The placement of an a-tehta above the "stopped" Jambe in parma-restalyanna is a scribal error; it should have been placed above the following anna.

E 3. The v of siluva is represented by ampa rather than vala. 4· Consonant + y combinations (ly, ny) make use of the letter anna rather

than a subscript following-y tehta. s. The doubled n of parma-restalyanna is spelt with a preceding-nasal

tehta above numen rather than a consonant-doubling tehta under it.

11

In a post to the Elfling Internet mailing list on May u, 2002 Helge K. Fauskanger reported having been shown a Tolkien autograph with accompanying Quenya inscription dating from 1968. In a note to Lesson 18 of his "Quenya Course", Fauskanger provides the further detail that this inscription accompanied a letter dated 16 January 1968.4 The inscription reads:

nai elen siluva lyenna

As Fauskanger noted in his Elfling post, the inscription, though untranslated, apparently means: *'may a star shine upon you:

June 2007

Analysis of Forms:

Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 ----------------------------

nai elen siluva 'may a star shine'; lit. *'be it that a star will shine: For the individual forms and the volitive syntax, see above.

lyenna 'upon you': Allative sg. of the 2 sg. polite/deferential pronoun lye

'you: For this pronominal element, see Appendix II: "Quenya Pronominal Elements" (c. 1968) below. Also cf. hiruva-lye 'thou shalt find', elye 'even thou' (LR:378, R:67) .

Ill

This inscription, made for unknown recipients, is found in a small bundle of papers gathered behind a divider that Tolkien labeled "Q investigations of grammar" and dated "1969': Not all of the sheets in this bundle date to 1969: one is a letter to Tolkien dated 18 July 1968, and another is a menu dated 13 July 1968. But the presence of this inscription in this bundle and the forms of the pronominal inflections it employs-2 sg. pass. -lya, 2 pi. pass. -lda, 3 sg. poss. -rya, all of which are consistent with the pronominal system as it stood in 1968 (see Appendix II below)-suggest that it dates to c. 1968 or 1969. As first written, the inscription reads:

Nai amanya onnalya ter koivierya

Above amanya, Tolkien wrote an alternative (and apparently synonymous) form manaite. Beneath the inscription he wrote in parallel an alternative rendering:

" kalambar onnalda

I .e. , Nai kalambar onnalda ter koivierya. Though untranslated, the inscription as first written probably means: *'May your (sg.) child be blessed throughout his/ her life'; and the parallel rendering may mean: *'May your (pi. ) child be lightfated throughout his/her life:

Analysis of Forms:

nai 'may': For the etymology, see inscription I above. In explanation of the syntax employed here Tolkien provided a note beneath the inscription (as emended) that reads: " nai 'imper [ative] ' of wishes precedes adj ::5 This)lse of nai with a predicate adjective implies an unexpressed copula (as frequent in Quenya, cf. VT 43 :30 ), i .e. , "may X [be] Y", "be it that X [will be] Y':

amanya 'blessed': Adjectival derivative of aman 'blessed, free from evil' (XI:399) . Cf. adj. mtina 'blessed' (V:72), MAN- 'holy spirit' (V:371) , and adj. manna 'blessed' (VT43:3o). A note among papers dated 1957 reads:

miina any good or fortunate thing; a boon or "blessing'; a grace, being esp. used of some thing/person/event that helps or amends an evil or difficulty. (Cf. frequent ejaculation on receiving aid in trouble: ye mtina (ma) = "what a blessing, what a good thing!") manya'to bless' (se . either to afford grace or help or to wish it) .6


The alternative form manaite employs an adjectival ending -ite often attached to nouns and connoting 'having x: or 'having the quality of x: e.g. talaite 'footed' < tala 'foot: also in (adj . ) attalaite 'biped' = * 'having two feet' (PE12:88) , maite < *ma3iti 'handy, skilled' < PQ *ma3 'hand' (V:371), and morimaite 'blackhanded' (LR:979) ; also attaformaite 'ambidextrous' in the analysis of the Ambidexters Sentence (AS; line 1) previously in this issue. This suggests that manaite is derived from the just-cited noun mana 'blessing, grace', and further that the adjective would more literally be glossed as *'having grace: The form kalambar in the parallel rendering is of uncertain meaning and construction. In context it seems most likely to have some connection with the element in -mbar meaning 'doom, fate' seen in Turin's adopted epithet Turambar. In notes dating from the mid-to-late 1960s, Tolkien glosses this epithet as "Master of Fate" and analyzes it as tura-mbar, noting that it preserves an "old post-vocalic form of the stem -mbar". This suggests that kalambar might similarly be analyzed as kala-mbar, and thus formed from kala-, here probably a noun 'light' or an adjective 'shining' (cf. KAL- 'shine (general word); V:362), and -mbar 'fate'-the association of shining light with auspicious occasions and good fortune being evident throughout these inscriptions, and indeed throughout Tolkien's fiction. Given the syntactic note, this formation apparently serves here as an adjective: i .e . , *'light-fated' or *'shining-fated: Alternatively, the syntax of nai kalambar may be analogous to the English wish "be of good cheer': i .e. , "be of light-fate" or "be of shining-fate':

onnalya 'your child' : 2 sg. poss. of onna 'child'. Cf. Auleonnar 'children of Aule' (XII:391 n.22); Q. onna 'creature' -< ONO- 'beget' (V:379) . The form onnalda in the parallel rendering uses instead pl. -lda, presumably in order to address the wish to both parents of the child. For 2 sg. poss. -lya and 2 pl. poss. -lda, see the discussion of the possessive pronominal endings in the analysis of the Ambidexters Sentence s.v. simaryassen (line 2), previously in this issue, as well as Appendix II below.

ter 'through(out)' : Cf. ter 'through' < TER-, TERES- 'pierce' (V:392), also in ter i·aldar *'through the trees' in the c. 1915 poem "Narqelion" (line 11, cf. VT40:26) . The temporal use as here is also seen in ter yenion yeni lit. 'through years of years' = Latin in srecula sreculorum (VT 44:33, 35) .

koivierya * 'his/her life': 3 sg. poss. of koivie *'life: For 3 sg. poss. -rya 'his/ her/its' see the discussion of the possessive pronominal endings cited above under onnalya. With koivie, cf. kuivie 'life' in kuivie-lankasse 'on the brink of life' (VT 42:8) , also adj . coirea 'living' (XII:399) . Forms in koivie/cuivie are also frequently glossed with the more abstract and inchoative sense 'awakening: particularly in the name Koivie-neni/Cuivienen 'Waters of Awakening' of the lake beside which the Elves first awoke into life (1 :232, XI:423; cf. KOYO 'have life: PE12:48; KUY- 'come to life, awake', V:366) . Given this, and given that Tolkien uses non-gender-specific onna 'child' (rather than a word specifying 'son' or 'daughter') , it may be that this wish applies more specifi-


cally to an expected birth, so that ter koivierya would more properly mean *'throughout his/her birth', i .e. , with a more specifically Elvish perspective, 'throughout his/her awakening (to life) :

IV

As described in the introduction to section IV, "The Ambidexters Sentence" (AS), of Patrick Wynne's presentation of Tolkien's "Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals and Related Writings" previously in this issue, on the same torn halfsheet of Allen & Unwin waste paper, dated 12th January 1968, on which the first three versions of the AS appear, there is interspersed what is apparently Tolkien's first draft of a Quenya inscription, representing a wedding wish ultimately sent to a recipient in August 1969. Tolkien's development of the inscription is extant in two distinct Quenya versions, botll employing a variant of the phrase "Nai elen atta siluvat . . . " ('May two stars shine . . .' ) , here labeled NEA 1 and NEA 2.

The latter version of the Quenya inscription, NEA 2, occurs twice, in identical form, on two sheets, accompanied by successive versions of a tengwar transcription of the wish. Both sheets bearing NEA 2 are now located in a different boxfile ("Quenya K) from NEA 1, and are themselves widely separated from one another within that boxfile. The rougher (and possibly earlier) of these sheets, NEA 2a, is a sheet of George Alien & Unwin Ltd. Ruskin House letterhead, on the recto of which Tolkien wrote the Quenya inscription, in its second version, in rough pencil, accompanied by three successive, emended tengwar transcriptions of the Quenya phrase (NEA 2 tl-3) , and by various etymological and syntactic notes, also in pencil, on recto and verso. Tolkien dated the sheet "Aug. 1969" in the top left, and at the top right added the note: "Inscr. sent to H. St J. Hart, Queen's College, Cambridge':7 The other sheet, NEA 2b, is a slip on the recto of which both the Quenya inscription and a finished version of the tengwar inscrip tion (NEA 2 t4-itself showing further development from NEA 2 t3) are written finely in ink. 8 Each of the four tengwar inscriptions is reproduced here from the manuscripts, together with a transliteration of each in brackets.

NEA 1

Nai siluvat elen atta renna veryanweldo

NEA 2a

).. . . :

�� U}'A-�

[NEA 2 tl: nai elen [atta] siluvat av[re] nn vrynwsto]


[NEA 2 t2: nai elen [ atta) siluvat a11[ u] renna veryanwesto)

nai elen atta siluvat aurenna veryanwesto

[NEA 2 t3 : nai elen [si] atta siluvat aurenna veryanwestu]

NEA 2b

[NEA 2 t4: nai elen att siluvat aurenn veryawesto)

June 2007

7\fcd. �i.e11 4rtA .s ikt..VAfr· .t\�f"'41'l1'14 �'"'yonwe.Sl:c

Although there is no accompanying translation for these inscriptions, it is evident from the several glosses and notes Tolkien provides on these sheets that they are all intended to mean: *'May two stars shine upon the day of your wedding:

Analysis of Forms:

nai 'may; be it that': see above. elen atta 'two stars' : ele n ( sg.) 'star', atta 'two' (cf. L:427, VT 42:26-7,

VT 48:9, V:349 s.v. AT(AT)- ) . In explanation of the use here of the singular noun elen with the quantifier atta 'two: Tolkien wrote a rough note on the verso of the sheet:

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 ----------------------------------------------�--

Note numerals follow the noun, except er [1] which is indeclinable. The noun is indeclinable in that case before atta, which takes sg. inflexion. (Only in O[ ld] Q [uenya] is dual inflexion preserved.) 'Of 2 stars' would be elen atto. From nelde 3 onwards: (a) Noun is in gen. pl. and numerals inflect as sg. noun or [ (b) ] later noun is declined and numeral indeclinable. [ (a)] elenion nelde or [ (b) ] eleni nelde. 'Of 3 stars' = [(a)] elenion neldeo or [ (b) ] elenion nelde.9

That is, elen here is singular because it is precedes the quantifying numeral atta 'two: which takes a singular noun.

siluvat 'they (dual) will shine' : Future impersonal dual of stem sil- 'shine' (see above), referring back to the preceding dual subject elen atta 'two stars: For this dual inflection, see Appendix II : "Quenya Pronominal Elements" (c. 1968) , below.

aurenna 'upon the day': Allative sg. of aure 'day, special day, festival: On NEA 2a Tolkien wrote: "aure = a day (of light), a day of special meaning or festival': NEA 1 has instead renna all. sg. of re 'day: The change from re to aure, and Tolkien's note indicating the special sense of aure, no doubt reflect the more general sense of re as simply "a 'day' of the sun . . . reckoned from sunset to sunset" (LR:no7) , i.e. , a twenty-four hour period. Aure 'day (of light)' is also used in contrast with l6me 'night' in Fingon's cry, Utulie'n aure! . . . Aut a i lame! 'The day has come! The night is passing! ' (Xb66) , as well as in a footnote in Appendix D of 7he Lord of the Rings as first published (1St ed., p. 355) , Which StateS that: "The re COntained aure day(light) and {ome (night)" (see RC:727) . It is used still more specifically as 'morning, dawn' in the latest versions (OM3) of Oilima Markirya, in the locative form auresse 'in the morning: and in the derived poetic form amaurea 'dawn, early day' (MC:222-3) , apparently with prefix am- 'up' (cf. AM2- 'up', V:348) . The association of aure with sunlight was a very old one: the c. 1915 Qenya Lexicon has aure 'sunlight, sunshine, gold light, warmth' < AWA 'burn, be parched, yellow, warm' (PE12:33) .

veryanwesto 'of your wedding': Gen. sg. of veryanwesta, itself the 2nd dual possessive inflection of veryanwe 'wedding'. NEA 1 has instead veryanweldo, with gen. sg. of 2nd pl. poss. -lda 'your (pl. ) : In a rough note at the bottom of NEA 2a Tolkien analyzes veryanwesto as: "-Jber- man/wife. yanwe joining -JYAN. veryanwe 'wedding: -sta of you two':

The gloss of ;/ ber- 'man/wife' is perhaps shorthand for the verbal sense e "become man and wife': A c. 1969 note reads:

v'BER 'to mate, be mated, joined in marriage': Q. verya ( intr. ) 'to marry (of husband and wife), be joined to' (veryanen senna); verta (tr. ) 'to give in marriage (a) to (b), or to take as husband or wife (to oneself) ; veru > veru 'husband'; veri > veri 'wife:


The phrase veryanen senna here apparently means 'I was joined to him/her': veryanen I sg. weak past of verya 'be joined to', senna all. sg. of se 'he/she' (see /

Appendix II below) . As with aure, forms in ver- and ves- connoting marriage go far back in the conceptual history of Qenya, as seen in the QL's vesta

'state of marriage: vesta- 'to wed', and vestale 'a wedding' < VERE (Bedh-)

(PE12: Ioi). Also cf. BES- 'wed: whence Q. veru dual 'husband and wife: vesta

'matrimony: vesta- 'to wed', and vestale 'wedding' (V:352). --!YAN here replaces deleted yadme, which probably reflects an original

development of yanwe from *yatme < YAT- (with nw < dm < tm) ; cf. YAT'join' > Q. yanwe 'bridge, joining, isthmus' (V:4oo). This phonological development is corroborated on the second sheet after that on which NEA 2b is found, a contemporary sheet of Eldarin > Quenya phonological figures that includes: "tm thm dm > dm tmh, dm > nm tlv zm > nw tw rm':10 The base --/YAN- that replaces yadme presumably also means 'join'. The change was no doubt occasioned by Tolkien's desire to avoid relying on the development tm > nw, part of Tolkien's general dissatisfaction at this time with the development of consonants in contact with nasals, as reflected in the margins of NEA 2b and in neighboring writings.

Another phonological figure on NEA 2b shows the development of -ste,

the pronominal element that underlies 2nd dual/oss. -sta, from an earlier duplicative formation: "-ste < zde < dde': For 2n dual -ste and its duplicative origin, and for 2nd pl. - lde underlying -lda, see Appendix II below. For 2nd dual poss. -sta and 2nd pl. poss. -lda, see the discussion of the possessive pronominal endings in the analysis of the Ambidexters Sentence s.v. simary

assen (line 2), previously in this issue.

Note on the tengwar. Arden Smith observes:

I) In t1-t3 the diphthong ai has the a-tehta above the preceding consonant rather than above yanta, but t4 has the usual spelling. In t2 and t3 the a-tehta

is placed above yanta to represent ya, and this would presumably also be the case in ti if the final word had been fully vowelled. In t4 the sequence rya is spelt in the usual way, with the a-tehta above and the following-y tehta below r6men.

2) In t1-t3 the diphthong a u is spelt with the a-tehta above the preceding consonant (or in this case a short carrier) , but t4 has the usual spelling (a-tehta above ure) . Instead of ure, ti has vala, as does t2, where it was emended to vilya, which is likewise used in t3 .

3) In ti and t2 the consonant-doubling tehta is always placed above the consonants. In t3 and t4, however, it is placed above numen (where it may be interpreted as a preceding-nasal tehta) but below tinco.

4) In ti all tehtar except the final o are missing in the word veryanwesto.

The allowable omission of the a-tehta also occurs finally in a [u] ren n(a) (ti) , aurenn(a) (t4) , and att(a) (4).

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 -----·----------··-· ·--------

5) In t3 the u- tehta is erroneously used instead of the o-tehta in veryanwest[o] .

6) In t4 the letter numen was erroneously omitted from verya [n ] westo.

V

The sheet immediately following NEA 2a bears another Quenya well-wishing from 1969, which Tolkien describes at the top of the sheet as an "Inscription (on stick-in label) with signature, sent to Dr. & Mrs. Johnson, Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of B'ham. Sept. 13, 1969':ll The inscription and its accompanying translation read:

nai laure lantuva parmaganna lumissen tengwiego. 'may (a) golden light fall on your* book at the times of your* reading'

*dual (of you both)

This inscription again uses the dual possessive inflection in -sta, as it is addressed again to two recipients, and Tolkien has underscored the element at both occurrences to highlight this fact.

Analysis of Forms:

nai 'may; be it that': see above. laure ' (a) golden light': Cf. R:70: "laure [LR:377] . . . was applied to things

which we often call 'golden' though they do not much resemble metallic gold: golden light, especially sunlight': Cf. Q. laure "gold (properly the light of the Tree Laurelin)" < GLAW( -R) - (V:358; see also LA WAR-, V:368) . This is another very old word in Tolkien's conceptual development of Quenya, going back in unchanged form to the very beginnings in the Qenya Lexicon, which has laure 'gold' (PE12:5 1) . However, the gloss there is accompanied by the parenthetic comment "much [the] same as kulu" (which itself is glossed merely 'gold') , indicating that the specificity of application of laure to golden light and sunlight was not then fully developed.

lantuva 'will fall' : Future impersonal sg. of stem lan t- 'fall', referring back to the preceding sg. subject laure ' (a) golden light: Cf. lantar impers. pl. 'fall' (LR:3n R:66) ; also Q. lant- 'to fall' < DAT-, DANT- 'fall down' (V:354)12 and the QL's lant- 'drop, fall' (PE12:51 s.v. LANTAN) .

parmastanna 'on your (dual) book' : Allative sg. of parmasta 'your (dual) book', itself the 2nd dual possessive inflection of parma 'book' (see above) . For 2nd dual poss. -sta see above s.v. veryanwesto.

lumissen 'at the times': Locative pl. of (apparently) pl. stem lumi- 'times: Cf. all. sg. lumenn[a ] 'upon the hour' (LR:81) , Q. lUme 'time' (V:370 s.v. LU-) . lume is another very old word in Quenya, appearing in the Qenya Lexicon as lUme (stem lumi-) 'time' < LUHU- (PE12:56) .

tengwiesto 'of your (dual) reading': Gen. sg . of * tengwiesta 'your (dual) reading: itself the 2nd dual possessive inflection of verbal noun tengwie 'read-


ing: For 2nd dual poss. -sta, gen. -sto, see above s.v. veryanwesto. In explanation of tengwie 'reading' Tolkien adds this note:

tengwa a written letter, from which Q. weak verb tengwa- "to read written matter" (conjug. aor. -wa; pres. -wea, pa.t. -wane, perf. e-wie) . The verbal noun tengwie 'reading' has -wie < ' waye (> weye > wie)P

The noun tengwa 'letter: pl. tengwar, is of course very familiar (cf. V:391 s.v. TEK-, LR:u17 ff. ), · but the homophonous weak verb and the verbal noun tengwie 'reading' have not previously been attested. This verbal noun has the same formation as the infinitive/gerund en-yalii! 're-calling' in Cirion's oath of c. 1969 (UT:317 n.43) ,14 which as such is also a verbal noun. The abstract nature of tengwie 'reading' probably accounts for its apparent lack of number,

E despite the dual subjects (tengwiego) and occasions (ltimissen 'at the times') of tengwie 'reading:

Appendix 1: Quenya Personal Pronominal Forms (June 1964)

As noted above in the discussion of the (apparently) June 1964 inscription I , the sheet on which it is written also has a partial paradigm of Quenya personal pronominal inflections and related forms. This is a rough and obviously "experimental" presentation, and none of the entries are labeled for person, number, or, except the reflexive, for function, but their groupings and forms suggest these sufficiently. At the top of the sheet, above the inscription, is a chart of the singular personal possessive endings. Beneath the inscription is a paradigm of the personal pronominal subject inflectional endings in three numbers: singular, plural, and dual, all presented in a single vertical column with three sub-groupings in the manuscript. To the right of this is a second column in which are provided some corresponding separate (emphatic) pronouns ( ilke!inke, inte, and esto) , and to the right of this is a third column headed "refl:' in which are given the three

E reflexive endings (..fcse, kser, kset) . I have here regrouped the chart to represent the apparent relationships among the forms more clearly and compactly, and provided the person, number, and function labels (in brackets).

[Singular) [Sg. Poss.] [Plural) [Pl. Emph.] [Dual] [Du. Emph.) [1 ] -nye, -n -nya

[2 pol./def.] -lye, -1 -lya [2 imp./fam. ] - tye, -t -tya [3) - -s -rya [ impers.) refl. -kse

[excl.] -mme [ incl. ] -lme (ngwe)

-lle

-mmo -ngo!-lmo -illo

ilke ? inke - ilko inte

- r - t -kser -kset15

esto

For the distinctions in the 2nd person between polite/deferential and imperious/familiar forms, see Appendix II below. Deleted in the paradigm is a long

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 ---�----�---------�----�---·-----------=--�

form of the 3 sg., -sse (which Tolkien queried before deleting) , and the 2 pl. imp./ fam. -ntye. The query against the 2 pl. imp./fam. emphatic ilke is Tolkien's own; inke was added later and could also be read as inte. ( It is also possible to interpret ilke as instead a replacement for deleted -ntye, although it is of suitable emphatic form and is written in line with the second column. )

Deleted forms written at the top right of the sheet are: re, apparently a candidate 3 sg. emph.; and an apparent figure of the phonological development of a candidate 2 sg. pol./def. emph.: inde [ > ] inze [> ] inte. Deleted forms written along the edge of the sheet to the right of the sg. endings are: ne and nye (possibly to be read as i nye or inye) , apparently candidate 1 sg. emphatics; and - lka and -kka, apparently candidate 2 pl. imp./fam. possessives (though -kka might instead be dual, see the note in Appendix II below that "in dual inflexions duality was shown by duplication of the consonant") .

2 dual pol./def. - illo was first written a s -1/o, and the corresponding imp./ fam. form - ilko appears to have first been written as - ilto. Tolkien provides no 3 pl. or dual endings, which may reflect his general hesitation throughout the later period as to what these forms should be, or perhaps he simply overlooked them in his haste. 3 pl. emph. inte however implies 3 pl. -nte, and 3 du. emph. esto implies 3 du. -sto.

All of the pronominal forms encountered in the first edition of The Lord of the Rings agree in number, person, and function with the corresponding forms in this chart: e.g., utuvie-nye-s ' I have found it' (LR:971) , laituva-lme-t 'we ( incl.) will praise them (dual)' (LR:953, L:3o8) , ma-rya-t 'her two hands' (LR:377, R:67), hiruva-lye 'thou shalt find' (LR:378, R:67) , etc. Of particular note is the agreement of this chart with the first-edition form of Frodo's greeting to Gildor (LR:81) , which has omentie-lmo 'of our meeting', where 1 pl. incl. gen.·lmo 'of E: our ( incl. ) ' implies poss. -lma and further implies the underlying subject form -lme, as in this chart. By about mid-1965 (and thus quite soon after the present chart was written) -lme had instead become the exclusive form and a new form -lve had replaced -mme as the inclusive form (see Appendix II below) , causing Tolkien to alter Frodo's greeting to employ the new inclusive form omentielvo, a change he incorporated into the revised second edition of The Lord of the Rings that appeared in Oct. 1965 (see VT 43:6 , RC:104-5, and CG1: 631-44) . l6

1 pl. excl. -mme is attested in the c. 1959-60 essay Quendi and Eldar in avamme, vamme 'we won't' (XI:371) , and in various forms in Tolkien's 1950s Quenya translations of various Catholic prayers, as e.g. in Ataremma = 'our (excl.) Father' (VT43=13; also 20 s.v. emme, 34 s.v. firuvamme, etc.)P With 1 pl. incl. - ngwe, dual -ngo (presumably < *-ngwo) cf.: etengwe, 1 pl. incl. of et 'out: and mingwe, 1st pl. incl. of mi 'in' (VT43=36 n.1) ; independent dative ngwen *'for us' (VT21:6-7, 10 );18 and Telerin vomentienguo 'of the meeting of our ways' (XI:4o6) . 2 pl . pol./def. -lie may be attested in a late typescript draft of Galadriel's Lament, which reads: "Nai hiruvalle Valimar!" (VT 41:4) . Quendi and Eldar also cites short 2nd person forms in imperative sg. heka-t and pl. heka-1 'be gone! stand aside! ', with "reduced pronominal affixes of the 2nd person'' : i.e. sg. - t, pl. -1 (XI:364); these might represent reduced forms of sg. - tye and pl. - lie in the present chart.

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Appendix 11 : "Quenya Pronominal Elements" (c. 1968)

June 2007

Among Tolkien's later papers is a set of three shee�s of the same printed Allen and Unwin "Out of Print" notices dated 12th January 1968 on which were written versions 1-3 of the Ambidexters Sentence (AS), the first version of inscription IV (NEA 1), and the aorist conjugation of car- ('do, make') cited in the discussion of simaryassen in line 2 of the AS. On four sides of these three sheets Tolkien wrote notes regarding the origin and development of Quenya pronominal elements appearing both as separate forms and in verbal inflections, thus providing a convenient snapshot of the (ever-shifting) Quenya pronominal system as it stood at or around the time of the drafting of the later four (II-V) of the Quenya inscriptions presented here.

The notes begin on the (unprinted) verso of the first sheet of the sequence, with a chart of the probable Common Eldarin stem forms underlying those exhibited in Quenya. This chart gives three personal (1, 2, and 3) and one impersonal form in each of three numbers (Singular, Plural, and Dual), though the plural and dual forms are identical for all persons, differing only in their impersonal forms (r and t, respectively) . The 1st person distinguishes between sg. and pl./dual, and 1st pl./dual further distinguishes between exclusive (a) and inclusive (b) forms. The 2nd person distinguishes sg. and pl./dual only in the "imperious" form ki of the sg. (a) . The 3rd person has the same elements se and te across all numbers.19

Pronominal elements appearing in Quenya and verbal inflexions. 20

Probable original stem forms:21

S 1 ni

P 1 a) me b) we

D 1 a) as pl.

2 a) ki b) le, de

2) le, de

3) se I te22 te I se

[ Impers. ]

r

Notes. Only 'ego'23 has sund6ma - i, except ki.* The Quenya form kje > tye is probably due to adding -e to ki. 24 The differentiation of sg./ pl. was probably somewhat later in 2 and 3· It followed 1st person in making this differentiation by a different consonant, not (yet) by inflexion.

* iki was originally an imperative [ ?particle] . ki 'linguicized' a click (inbreathed withdrawn t) used in impatience or to draw attention of someone ( esp. subordinate) to oneself. 25

The 2 a) form was (or soon became) "imperious": i.e. addressed mainly to younger people or subordinates. 2 b) originally (as modern English) probably did not differentiate sg. and pl. In CE l! d actually interchanged not infrequently especially as an initial con-

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son ant of stems. 26 But agreement of Sindarin and Quenya in distinguishing l- sg. and d- pl. (Telerin has de for both) .27 Only Quenya distinguished sg. as le and pl./dual as de (differentiated later by inflexion) .28 The use of le as 'polite/deferential' sg. was introduced by Noldor from Quenya and became general in the Sindarin of Beleriand apart from Doriath, where it was not used. 29 In Quenya initial d- normally > l but the verbal forms clearly used -de.

The Quenya (stressed) separate forms were Sg. 1a n£, 2a tye b lye, * 3 se (neuter sa); PI. 1a me, b we > ve, 2 le 3 te [, neut. ] sa; Dual 1 [a] met b wet, 2 tyet I let, 3 tu personal and neuter.30

* In CQ tye had gone out of use except in colloquial language where it was used chiefly among kinsfolk, but also as an endearment (esp. between lovers) .31 When used by parents to children there was nothing "imperious" about it-for children used tye to parents and grandparents etc.-to use the adult lye was more stern. Cf. tyenya ( 'my tye') = dear kinsman.32 When Pippin used the form (the pronouns were borrowed from Quenya into Common Speech) to Denethor it was amusing because it was treating him as if he was Pippin's grandfather.33

Quenya inflexions show:34

[Singular) [Plural] 1 a -n , long -nye ta -lme

tb -lwe, -lve

2 a no short form, long - tye36 2 -lde

b -1, -lye

3 -s,-(-se rare)

impers. -38 3 -Zte37

-r

[Dual] ta -mme

tb - inke > - inque35

2 -ste

3 * -ste > - tte

The dual inflexions are peculiar to Quenya. They would be explicable as produced by an inserted number sign -s- parallel to -1- for plural. But there is no trace of any such dual element elsewhere in CE.39 The probable explanation is that in dual inflexions duality was shown by duplication of the consonant: 1a -mme b ? wwe, 2 d-de, 3 t-te.4D But since -wwe did not yield a satisfactory form it was replaced by nki 1a + 2a since dual was mainly familiar and maintained as such.41 tye thus had no dual or plural.42

Further linking these notes with NEA are some marginal scribblings on NEA 2b reading: "n-ke dual inke OQ > inque [ ? infl.] ilwe" and the previously mentio�ed phonological figure: "-ste < zde < dde".

/

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Following this, on the unprinted side of the next (and final) sh�et in the sequence, is another version of this text, in clear, unemended writing, but quickly abandoned (extending for only half of the page) . It also begins with a chart of the probable forms of the Common Eldarin stems underlying the pronominal elements that appear in Quenya, again in three persons ( 1 , 2, and 3) in three numbers (Singular, Plural, and Dual), but here there is no formal distinction between plural and dual in any person, nor was there originally any distinction in number in the 2nd and 3rd persons, though as Tolkien explains in the accompanying notes a distinction eventually arose in the 3rd person between personal sg. se (neut. sa) and personal pl. te (neut. ta) .

Pronominal elements seen in Quenya.

These were probably:43

CE. Sg. 1 ni . Pl. a) me b) we

CE 2 'familiar' ki : 'polite' le, de

3 se (sa) te ( ta)

Dual as Pl.

Only the 1st person had originally a stem distinction to differentiate Sg. from Pl. , Du .. 44 The differentiation of Sg. and Pl./Du. in the 3rd person was a CE development: following the use of distinct stems in 1, se was used as sg. and te as pl.45 (The neuter or 'abstract' forms sa/ta were not used in inflection.) The "familiar" 2 never developed Pl./Du. forms-since it was [not] addressed by one speaker to sev

eral hearers.46 In origin the "familiar" form was not ' imperious' but friendly [and] affectionate; but its use irl addressing younger people (and children) and hence subordinates gave it that tone. In Quenya thus it became restricted to use between persons closely connected.

Notes

1. For 2 sg. lye 'you' as a separate pronoun, see the analysis of inscription II s.v. lyenna, below. Pres. sg. miinata *'bless' exhibits one of several present tense formations in use in later Quenya, here employing an extended stem (i.e., with 6mataina; cf. Xl:371 , 417 n.s) and lengthened sund6ma, and implying an aorist stem *manta. (For other present tense formations, see queta 'is saying', VT41:n,

£. 13; and tengwea *'is reading' in inscription V s.v. tengwiesto, below.) The stem might be simply transitive (*'bless') , or perhaps causative (*'cause to be blessed, make holy' ) . For the etymology see the discussion of amanya *'blessed' in inscription m below.

2. If so, Tolkien's wish was inefficacious. The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Vol. 2 (1969) , reports (p. 685) of the 1964 World Book Fair that: "Lavishly mounted and carefully prepared, this fair nonetheless failed to justify the expense in terms of numbers of visitors, sales, or successful negotiations. It was not repeated:'

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 ------'---

3· See<http : / /tech.groups. yahoo.com/ group /lambengolmor I message/ 640 > . The books containing this inscription were auctioned by Bonhams on February 24, 2004 as lot 601 of sale 10889.

4. See <http:/ /groups.yahoo.com/group/elfling/message/14958> and <http:/ I www.uib.no/People/hnohf/less-d.rtf> . Fauskanger's first account, on Elfling, describes the item as simply "a Tolkien autograph". However, the item mentioned in his "Quenya Course" is described as "a letter Tolkien wrote in reply to a reader". Fauskanger has clarified for me that these are indeed the same item, and provided me with a scan of both the autograph card and the brief, printed response note it accompanied. In Nov. 2004 I purchased at auction a very similar card bearing Tolkien's autograph and this same inscription in his hand. Though not the same card Fauskanger describes, it is identical in its contents. Possibly, Tolkien used this particular phrase as a stock response to requests for his autograph.

5. Cf. the syntactic note Tolkien provided with version lib of the Ataremma stating: "na preced[ing] = 'let it be' na a ire 'be holy' " (VT 4}:14 s.v na) .

6. Cf. Ye! 'Lo!' (LR:971) , ma neut. pron. 'something, a thing' (VT 42:34 n.3) . 7· Rev. Henry St John Hart ( 1912-2004) was Dean of Queens' College, Cam

bridge, from 1940 to 1950 and again from 1955 to 1972, where he sponsored frequent reading parties that included Tolkien's works. He wed Gillian Barnes in Aug. 1969, to considerable surprise: "Henry's colleagues, both in College and Faculty, remained in total ignorance of this new factor in his life and were completely unprepared for the famous note circulated one August day in 1969, 'The Dean wishes to inform the Fellows of the College that he was married at 8 .oo a.m. this morning in the Round Church; the President and Mrs Armitage were witnesses; he has gone on his honeymoon' " ("Queens' College Record 2005", <http://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/Queens/Record/2005/society/henryhart.htm>l; cf. also CG1:145) .

8 . Encircling this, in all four margins, are various often very rough phonological notes in ballpoint, most of which are not obviously related to this inscription, but rather connected with other phonological (re)considerations and ruminations on adjacent sheets concerning the development of consonants in contact with nasals. In the midst of these is a note, also in ballpoint, reading: "If this is not suitable, there is time to emend it': If "this" here indeed refers to this inscription (and not instead to the vexed issue of nasal contacts), it could suggest that NEA 2b instead predates NEA 2a. But the note on NEA 2a indicating that the inscription was sent does not necessarily mean that it was sent in precisely the form achieved on that sheet, and if it was, it is hard to explain the sequence of development seen in the tengwar inscriptions in these two texts. Furthermore, as the note on NEA 2a refers to a surprise wedding (see the previous note) , it seems unlikely that Tolkien had much time to prepare it or delayed long in sending it.

The only marginal notes that both can now be made out with any confidence at all and have an apparent bearing on the inscription are in the bottom margin: "n-ke dual inke OQ > inque [ ?infl.] ilwe. -ste < zde < dde. de". For the significance of these, see the discussion of the dual ending of veryanwesto below.


9. Tolkien corrected gen. sg. neldeo from gen. pl. neldion. The original use of the gen. pl. inflection of nouns quantified by nelde 'three' or greater probably reflects the "properly" partitive use of the genitive (XI:368) , used here in conjunction with the general plural to form elenion as literally 'three of (the) stars', i.e. "three stars from among all the stars there are". In Quendi and Eldar (c. 1959-60), the Quenya genitive ending sg. -o, pl. -on is derived ultimately from an "ancient adverbial element" *HO, which gave rise also to a prefix h6- meaning 'away, from, from among', as in the verb h6kiri- 'cut off', "so as to have or use a required portion" ( ibid.) ; again with obviously partitive meaning. Compare also the similarly partitive gen. pl. construction elenion ancalima 'brightest of stars' (LR:720, L:385) , lit. 'of stars the brightest: i.e., 'the brightest star from among all the stars there are: The later syntax, without the genitive, would thus be an elliptical development of the earlier partitive construction.

Compare this syntactic note with the remarkably similar syntax of the numerals as described in the second (typescript) version of the Early Qenya Grammar of c. 1923 (PE14:83-84), in which: er 'one' is indeclinable; satto 'twd governs a singular noun; the numerals from nelde 'three' to hue 'nine' are usually employed with singular nouns, but can be employed with plurals; and all numerals but kea 'ten' can be employed with either undeclined nouns or with nouns in the genitive plural.

10. Though, characteristically, this system is immediately followed on the sheet with the note: "better : letter [sic; read 'let' ? ] changes before nasals be relative [ly] late, and after other changes� with a revised system now including: "tm, tn > tw (nt) > nt, tt". And against this Tolkien set the marginal note: "What a muddle':

u . I am grateful to John Garth for determining that these are Drs. F. Neil and Susan Johnson. Garth has contacted Dr. Susan Johnson, who kindly relates that her husband wrote to Tolkien after they had taken their three-volume Lord of the Rings to the Birmingham University bindery to be bound as a single volume in slipcase. Tolkien wrote back, enclosing a stick-in label bearing the Quenya inscription, which he translated in his letter in the same way as here, adding: "The linguistic pedant might observe that -st- marks this as dual (of you both)".

12. The Qenya verb in the Etymologies was originally given as lanta- 'to fall down' under an entry LANTA- 'fall' that was subsequently deleted (VT45:26) . Cf. section Ill , "Variation D/L in Common Eldarin': of Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals (VT48:22-26) .

13. The phonological figure at the end indicates that the ending -wie of the verbal noun tengwie arose from original -waye, which when following the main stress ( ' ) became -weye and then -wie. The compressed verbal conjugation expands to: aorist sg. tengwa 'reads', present sg. tengwea 'is reading: (weak) past sg. tengwane 'read: perfect sg. etengwie 'has read:

A present tense formation in -ea with lengthened sund6ma has previously been attested in orea, the present tense of the weak verb ora (corresponding to a noun ore) < ...JHOR 'urge, impel, move, in the c. 1968 Notes on Ore (VT41:13, 18 n.14). Four other distinctively present tense forms are cited in the analysis

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of the Ambidexters Sentence previously in this issue: pres. laia ( < * laja) vs. a or. lanye (s.v. u, line 2), pres. avan (avean) vs. aor. avan (ibid.) , and pres. tena- vs. aor. tenin, tene (s.v. tentane, line 4) ; and the appendix to that analysis cites pres. nanye, nalye/natye, na, etc. vs. aor. nain, nailye!naitye, na etc. , though as explained there this distinction is not always observed in the paradigm of nJ. Another specifically present tense form, manata, is cited in the analysis of inscription I above, s.v. nai. Cf. also pres. queta 'is saying' vs. aor. quete 'says', (VT 41:11, 13, 15 n.4) .

The perfect sg. etengwie 'has read' shows the augment, or prefixed sund6ma, typical of this formation: cf. avanier '(they) have gone away' (LR:3n, R:66) , irikie 'has twisted' (VT39:9, 12), utuvienyes 'I have found it' (LR:971) . Presumably, the sund6ma is unlengthened in pres. tengwea and perf. etengwie because it precedes a consonant cluster (ngw) and thus occupies an already long syllable.

14. This date can be inferred from the fact that the drafting of Cirion's oath occurs with, and apparently arose from, the c. 1969 essay, The Rivers and Beaconhills of Condor (see VT42:7, 23 ) .

1 5 . The forms of the reflexive given here are quite different from those given in the chart presented in VT 47:37 n.58. The inflectional endings on that chart (esp. excl. -me and incl. -we) and its placement immediately after the first draft of the Ambidexters Sentence date it to c. 1969-thus some five years later than the present chart-and align it with the pronominal system presented in Appendix II, below.

16. Notably, laituvalmet was not altered in the revised second edition, and so implicitly changed from inclusive to exclusive.

q. Earlier still, -mme is itself attested as 1 pl. incl., in the 1938 draft form of Frodds greeting, which has omentiemman (VI:324) . And by c. 1968, -mme had become 1 dual excl. (see a II below) .

18. I formerly read this as *ngwin, with ngwen as a possible alternative reading; I now think ngwen is the correct reading, in light of the other forms in ngwe since attested.

19. Cf. the "personal/actual" pronouns se/te (as opposed to abstract sa!ta) cited in the AS analysis (note 46) .

20. The phrase "and verbal inflexions" apparently reflects the concern of these notes with both the Common Eldarin pronominal stems that survived into Quenya generally (as in the separate pronouns) and with the distinctive selection and forms of those elements exhibited by Quenya verbal pronominal inflections.

21. The word "stem" was inserted before "forms': I have added the column heading for the impersonal endings editorially. With dual impersonal t compare maryat 'her hands' = ma-rya-t 'hands-her-two' (LR:377, R:67).

22. The label "a)" and the group "b) le, de" were added after P 2 le, de were written. An alternate form, possibly "te" or "ta", was heavily deleted after se in S 3 before te was written.

23. That is, the 1st sg. nominative pronoun ni, which in Latin is ego T. 24. Cf. Q. tye also used among intimates in Atarinya tye-melane 'My father, I

love thee' and A yonya inye tye-mela 'And I too, my son, love thee' in the c. 1937 "Lost Road" (V:61) .

Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 June 2007 ----------------------------

25. This paragraph was written near the end of the text, on the second sheet (just before the similarly separated note on the loss of tye in Classical Quenya, below), but it clearly refers back to the statement regarding the basic nature of ki, and so I have moved it here and provided the two indicative asterisks editorially. The comment suggests a description or comparison of the original "linguicized" sound with our sound sometimes represented in writing as "tisk/tsk'' or "tut": a sound produced by drawing the breath into the mouth with the tip of the tongue in or just behind the t position.

26. But see the statement that this interchange "occurs, but is not frequent, in the first consonant of monoconsonantal or biconsonantal bases;' in the nonetheless closely contemporary text titled "Variation D/L in Common Eldarin'' (VDL) presented in part III of HFN (VT48:22-26).

27. Tolkien first wrote "But agreement of Sindarin and Telerin'', striking out the reference to Telerin when the parenthetical note was added.

28. The words "Telerin, Sindarin had de for sg. and pi:' were struck through before the closing parenthetical remark. This and the preceding sentence may seem contradictory, but the clarification of this is provided by the following sentence, in that only Quenya distinguished sg. le I pl. de ab initio, whereas the same distinction found in Sindarin is a later borrowing from Quenya.

29. As first written, this sentence began "The use of le as 'polite/deferential' sg. only [?remains in the] Quenya as used by the Noldor". Cf. R72-73, where " le, the reverential md person sing:' is cited as an example of the influence of Quenya on "Sindarin . . . of a variety used by the High Elves (of which kind were most of the Elves in Riven dell)".

30. 2 b lye was changed from "le" in the act of writing. P 3 sa (which is unaccented in the MS) replaced a deleted parenthetical remark, apparently "(neut. ta[?r] )". Dual 3 was originally written "tet I tU". The macron in this form was hastily jotted, and may instead have been intended to be an acute accent. With 1st

dual exclusive met 'us twd, cf. imbe met '"between us-twd [Varda and Galadriel]" in Galadriel's Lament (LR:377> R:67); Tolkien's parenthetical remark in The Road Goes Ever On (first published in 1967) that met refers to Varda and Galadriel explains the use of the exclusive there, as Galadriel's Lament is addressed to Frodo. The asterisk against the two 2nd sg. forms apparently refers to a note added at the end of the text on the next sheet (this chart of the separate forms occurring at the bottom of the first sheet) . I have placed that note here, and provided the corresponding initial asterisk, editorially.

31 . "CQ" = Classical Quenya. "chiefly" replaces deleted "solely". 32. tyenya is transparently tye- with a 1 sg. possessive ending -nya 'mY: 33. Cf. Tolkien's note on the loss of a deferential 2nd person among Hobbits

in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings (LR:1133). The c. 1950 (or probably earlier; cf. XII :28) draft version of this passage contains a further note concerning the "marked distinction between the familiar forms and the courteous" in the 2nd

person in the Mannish and Elvish languages, which was "fully maintained in all Elvish tongues" (XII:42-43) . Note there also the statement that the Mannish and Elvish languages "had, or originally had, no distinction between the singular and

June 2007 Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 ----------� -----------

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the plural of the second person pronouns", which agrees with the presence here of CE le, de as the elements of both 2nd sg. polite/deferential and 2nd pl.

34. This chart of personal subject pronominal inflections agrees in all particulars with the corresponding portion of the contemporary conjugation of car- presented in the analysis of the Ambidexters Sentence s.v. sfmaryassen (line 2), previously in this issue, save that there 1 du. incl. is given as caringwe, while here the ending is - inque. The present chart is of course quite different from that of some four years prior presented in the previous appendix, particularly in the plural and dual inflections. Compare the contemporary inflectional charts of the prep. ara 'besides' in the AS s.v. ar (of line s) and of the reflexive pronouns presented in VT 47:37 n.ss, as well as the earlier chart of the prep. 6- 'with' (of uncertain date, but pro b. 1950s), in VT 43 :29.

35. Dual 1a -mme was first written " imme". With the development of inclusive inke > inque (probably due to the influence of "underlying" incl. - (w)we) cf. the statement in text IV of Tolkien's notes on "Q. enque 6, minque 11, and yunque 12" that " ( ?we do] not have other use of -we as dual except in the 1 pl. inclusive [?stem] -we (base iiwe)" (VT48 :10) . In connection with this, it is interesting to note the similar presence of elements in k- and q- (kw-) in the 2nd sg. (ke-) and 1st pl. incl. (qe-) pronouns and the dual ending -qi (cf. maqi 'hands', raqi 'arms', etc.) in the Early Qenya Grammar (PE14:52, 76, Ss) .

36 . The c. 1959-60 essay "Quendi and Eldar" cites the 2nd person imperative exclamations hekat ( sg.) and hekal (pl.) 'be gone! stand aside! ', with "reduced pronominal affixes of the 211d person": i.e. sg. - t, pl. -1 (XI:364). The former appears to be a reduced form of long - tye. The present chart however states that no such short form existed in the system as it came to stand at this point in 1968.

37. With 3rd pl. -lte cf. Q. tulielto 'they have come' (1 :114) and meldielto 'they are beloved' (V:72); but note tiruvantes 'they will guard it' in the c. 1969 "Cirion and Eorl" (UT:305, 317 n-43). Tolkien not infrequently vacillated between -lte and -nte as the 3rd pi. ending in later writings: see the discussion of the pronominal endings in the analysis of the Ambidexters Sentence s.v. sfmaryassen (line 2) , previously in this issue.

38. The long dash indicates that the 3rd impersonal sg. form is endingless, the bare stem.

39. Following this is a deleted, incomplete sentence reading "This could be derived possibly from the s developed in t-de, t-te which would later yield ste in Quenya. [?Infixion] of s to sme would yield". After this, and elsewhere on the page, Tolkien wrote various figures showing combinations and developments, including: " tme would have > nwe in Q. twe; twe; tke ske; tde ske xe':

40. The query mark before -wwe is Tolkien's own. With these reduplicated dual formations, cf. note 19 of Patrick Wynne's analysis of the Ambidexters Sentence, previously in this issue.

41. The meaning of "nki 1a + 2a'' is apparently that nki was formed by combining (sg.) 1a -n with (sg. familiar) 2a ki, i.e. literally "I and thou':

42. This note regarding tye is a rough addition. Preceding it is the beginning of an unfinished sentence "-nke is" and the figure: "tke > ske':

Page sS Vinyar Tengwar · Number 49 June 2007

43. It is interesting to note here the remarkable similarity of this inventory of pronominal elements with that given in the Early Qenya Grammar of more than 40 years earlier ( see PE14:52, Ss) , which has the identical or very similar elements 1 sg. ni- , 2 sg. ke-, 1 pl. excl. me-, and 3 pl. neut. ta- .

44. As written, this note occurs immediately after the first row ("Sg:') of the chart. It has been moved out of the chart for clarity.

45 · Cf. the reference to Common Eldarin "SE sg. TE pl. of the 3rd person" at VT4S:24.

46. I have added the word "not" editorially to provide what seems to be the required sense: that the 2nd person familiar did not develop plural and dual forms because it was only used to address a single intimate.


Resources

The following are just some of the resources available for the scholarly study of Tolkien's invented languages. For a more complete list, visit the Resources for Tolkienian Linguistics web page at the URL listed below.

Primers

An Introduction to Elvish, edited by Jim Allan. (Somerset: Bran's Head Books, 1978. ISBN 0-905220-10-2). A venerable but still indispensable primer of Tolkienian linguistics.

Basic Quenya, by Nancy Martsch. Second edition. Quenya for beginners ! Twenty-two lessons, plus Quenya-English I English-Quenya vocabulary. $10 plus postage: USA 1st class $3, book rate $1.50; foreign airmail $7, sur- ' face $4. Make checks payable to Nancy Martsch, P.O. Box 55372, Sher�an Oaks, CA 91413, USA.

Journals

Parma Eldalamberon. A journal of linguistic studies of fantasy literature, especially of the Elvish languages and names in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Editor: Christopher Gilson, 10200 Miller Avenue #426, Cupertino, CA 95014, USA; e-mail [email protected]. Parma is an occasional journal, sold on a per-issue basis. Write for current information.

Quettar. The Bulletin of the Linguistic Fellowship of The Tolkien Society. Editor: Julian Bradfield. Subscriptions to: the Editor at Univ. of Edinburgh, Dept. of Computer Science, King's Buildings, Edinburgh EH3 9JZ, UK; e-mail [email protected]. Write for current status and rates.

Tengwestie. The online journal of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship. Devoted to the scholarly study of the invented languages of J.R.R. Tolkien. Editors: Car! F. Hostetter and Patrick H. Wynne. Web publication only: http:/ I www.elvish.org/Tengwestie/

Online Resources

For more information, including links to Internet mailing lists and web sites devoted to Tolkienian linguistics, visit:

http:/ /www.elvish.org/resources.html

rvinyar Tengwar 'fhe journal of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship,

a Special Interest Group of the Mythopoeic Society. http:/ /www.elvish.org/VT

Vinyar Tengwar is a refereed journal indexed by the Modern Language Association.

Editor: Car! F. Hostetter, 2509 Ambling Circle, Crofton, MD 21114, USA. E -mail: [email protected]

Review panel: Ivan Derzhanski, John Garth, Arden Smith, & Patrick Wynne.

Cover design: by Patrick Wynne.

Subscription status page: http:/ /wwvv-.elvish.org/members.html

Back issues: http://www.elvish.org/VT/shop.html

Submissions: All material should in some manner deal with Tolkien's invented languages. All submissions must be typed, or must be exquisitely legible: the editor will not decipher lower-glyphics. The editor reserves the right to edit any mater ial (except artwork) for purposes of clarity, brevity, and relevance. Iluvatar smiles upon submissions by e-mail in RTF or plain text (ASCII) formats.

Copyright of all material submitted is retained by the author or artist, but VT reserves �he right to reprint the material at any time. Quotations from the works of JRR or Christopher Tolkien are the copyright of their publishers and/or the Tolkien Estate, and are used here with their kind permission. The word TOLKIEN is a registered trademark of The JR.R. Tolkien Estate Limited. The characters and scripts of Tolkien's invented languages and works in those languages are the copyright of the Tolkien Estate. All other material is ©2007 Vinyar Tengwar.

Bibliographical Abbreviations

H The Hobbit LR The Lord of the Rings R The Road Goes Ever On S The Silmarillion UT Unfinished Tales L The Letters of /.RR Tolkien MC The Monsters and the Critics I The Book of Lost Tales, Part One II The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two Ill The Lays of Beleriand IV The Shaping of Middle-earth V The Lost Road

VI The Return of the Shadow VII The Treason of Isengard VIII The War of the Ring IX Sauron Defeated X Morgoth's Ring XI The War of the Jewels XII The Peoples of Middle-earth RC The LR: A Reader's Companion CG The Tolkien Companion & Guide PE Parma Eldalamberon VT VinyarTengwar

Page references are to the standard hardcover/trade paperback edition unless otherwise noted.