Message: 1

Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 00:15:57 +0200

From: "Helge K. Fauskanger" helge.fauskanger@nor.uib.no mailto:helge.fauskanger@nor.uib.no

Subject: Vinyar Tengwar #42

Vinyar Tengwar #42 does contain some material of interest and value, but

this issue also demonstrates how difficult it would be to establish a

"standard" version of Tolkien's languages. Our general ideal must be that

we will adhere to Tolkien's final intentions, but some rather sketchy

revisions alluded to in the post-LotR material are probably best ignored. I

cannot fully discuss these problems here.

When announcing it, the editor singled out the discussion of Eldarin

numerals as a particularly interesting item in this issue. I had hoped we

would finally have a word for "twelve" (Etym only provides the stem RASAT),

and also learn how to count beyond twelve. However, there is no such

information here. What we do get are lists of ordinal numbers for the three

main Eldarin languages.

Quenya (I don't regularize the spelling):

1st: minya

2nd: tatya "early [in Arda time] replaced by _attea_"

3rd: nelya, "also" neldea

4th: kantea

5th: lempea, an analogical formation replacing older _lemenya_ or _lepenya_

6th: enquea

7th: otsea

8th: toldea (changed by Tolkien from _toltea_; we must assume that he also

changed the cardinal "8" from _tolto_ to *_toldo_, though both may stand as

valid variants)

9th: nertea

10th: quainea

The word for "10th" clearly presupposes another word for "ten" than

_kainen_ given in the Etymologies. The word _quainea_ is meant to be

related to the words for "full" (Q _quanta_): Ten would be the "full"

number of fingers. (This buries the bizarre idea that the Tolkien's Elves

must have had twelve fingers because they counted in twelves!)

The forms _lempea_ "5th" and _enquea_ "6th" had actually been foreseen; I

used them in my translation of the first chapter of the Bible (published on

my site several years ago). However, there I used _canya_ (not _cantea_)

for "4th".

Telerin is represented as consistently using the ending _-ya_:

1st: minya

2nd: tatya

3rd: nelya

4th: canatya

5th: lepenya

6th: enetya

7th: ototya (said to be analogical for *_otosya_)

8th: tolodya

9th: neterya

10th: paianya

The Sindarin cardinals are listed as: 1 mi^n or e^r, 2 ta^d, 3 ne^l, 4

canad, 5 leben, 6 eneg, 7 odog (the historically correct form should have

been _odo_, and it was supposedly used in Doriathrin Sindarin, but a final

G was otherwise imported from _eneg_), 8 tolodh, 9 neder, 10 pae. The only

important revisions from the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies are these: 3 is

now just _ne^l_ rather than _neled(h)_, 8 is now _tolodh_ rather than

_toloth_, and 10 is _pae_ rather than _caer_.

The Sindarin ordinals are said to go like this:

1st: _mein_, later pronounced _main_, only in the sense of "prime, chief,

pre-eminent"; otherwise _minui_

2nd: _taid_ only in the sense "supporting, second in command" etc.,

otherwise _tadui_

3rd: _neil_, later pronounced _nail_; "late" Sindarin also has _nelui_

4th: canthui (sic!)

5th: levnui

6th: enchui (sic again; Tolkien rejected the form _enegui_)

7th: othui

8th: tollui [as late as in the King's Letter, it was _tolothen_ instead!]

9th: nedui

10th: paenui

The forms _canthui_ and _enchui_ are rather unexpected, considering what we

thought we knew about Sindarin. In this late-sixties document, Tolkien

explicitly insists that in the dialect of Sindarin used by the Noldor,

primitive _nk_ and _nt_ had become _nch_ and _nth_ between vowels! Pardon

my exclamation mark, but this is actually a pretty drastic change. If we

are to implement this system on the earlier material, we shall have to

carry out some pretty ruthless and drastic "regularizing"! In the

Etymologies, Tolkien has _nt_ becoming _nn_ between vowels; for instance,

Quenya _anta-_ "to give" corresponds to _anno_ in the Welsh-sounding Elvish

language (Noldorin Sindarin). Must this now be emended to *_antho_? Or

should we rather ignore the change, and silently alter _canthui_ as a word

for "4th" to *_cannui_?

As for the ordinal "twelve", we are only given a stem _yunuk(w)_. The

editor theorizes that the actual Quenya word would be *_yunque_, but it is

not explicitly given. We may almost just as well keep using *_rasta_, I'd

say.

In all of VT42, it is Bill Welden's brief article about "Negation in

Quenya" (pp. 32-34) that provides the most useful information for writers.

The article is mainly concerned with demonstrating how far-reaching and

unpredictable Tolkien's frequent revisions really are: The word _laa_,

which had been a word for "no" in the Etymologies of the mid-thirties, had

come to mean "yes" around 1960 -- but around 1970 it had regained its

original negative meaning.

Some Quenya sentences are cited from Tolkien's manuscripts, involving a

verb "judge" that varies between _nav-_ and _ham-_:

_La navin karitalya(s) maara_, literally "I don't judge your doing (it)

good" = "I do not advise you to do so". My analysis: _la_ unstressed

variant of _laa_ "no, not"; _navin_ "I judge" (1st person aorist),

_karita-lya-s_ "doing-your-it", _maara_ "good".

_Laa karita i hamil maara alasaila (naa)_, "not to do what you judge good

(would be) unwise". My analysis: _Laa_ stressed negation "not" (when

unstressed it becomes _la_, as above), _karita_ "to do" (the verb _kar-_

"make, do" with the ending _-i_ and the extension _-ta_ associated with the

infinitive), _i_ "what" in the sense of "that which" (_i_ being used as a

relative pronoun here), _hamil_ "you judge" (2nd person aorist), _maara_

"good", _alasaila_ "unwise", _naa_ "is". This use of _i_ is interesting (I

might have expected _ya_, and perhaps that would be equally permissible).

The word _hamil_ confirms _-l_ as a shorter form of the ending _-lye_

"you"; this variation would parallel the 1st person variation between _-n_

and _-nye_ as endings for "I". The shorter ending may be the commonest in

both cases.

As for _naa_ here being translated "would be" rather than "is" (the actual

meaning of the word), Tolkien wrote: "English normally says 'would be'

because the whole expression is equivalent to 'if you think this action

right, it would be unwise not to take it' and because it is plainly a piece

of advice that will be acted on, or not, in the future. If this uncertainty

is emphasized Quenya can say _nauva_ 'will be'."

So at last we have one more form of the verb "to be": the future tense

_nauva_ (not a surprising form per se -- I would have put my money on

either this or _naava_). Writers can finally let the _yeeva_ of Fiiriel's

Song rest in peace. If we wait five more years or so, perhaps we can

actually have the past tense "was" and the infinitive "to be" as well?

Further sentences quoted in Welden's article:

_Laa karitas, navin, alasaila naa_ "not doing it, I deem, would be

[literally "is"] unwise."

_Laa karitas alasaila kee nauva_, not directly translated but plainly

meaning "not doing it will be unwise" if we disregard the particle _kee_,

which according to Welden's annotation indicates uncertainty (in Welden's

note, the word is cited as _ke_ with a short vowel instead, and no

explanation is given for the discrepancy). Taking this particle into

account, the whole sentence would mean "not doing it may be unwise" or "not

doing it will perhaps be unwise". Indeed it seems that we can think of _ke_

or _kee_ as a word for "perhaps". Welden also reports that "elsewhere in

this document it was corrected" to _kwii_ or _kwiita_. The spelling is most

unusual for Quenya; we would expect _qu_ for _kw_.

_Alasaila naa laa kare tai mo nave (or, navilwe) maara_, "it is unwise not

to do what one judges (or, we judge) good". My analysis: _alasaila_

"unwise", _naa_ "is", _laa_ "not", _kare_ "to do". The word _tai_ is here

translated "what", but I guess it is literally a plural form of _ta_ "that,

it" (mentioned in Etym, entry TA); hence: "it is unwise not to do THOSE

[things] that one judges good". The word _te_ "them" occurring in LotR

could be the unstressed form of _tai_. Either that, or the transcriber has

telescoped *_ta i_ "that which" in Tolkien's manuscript into one word (or,

if the transcription is correct, _ta i_ could actually be drawn together

into one syllable _tai_). As for _mo_, Welden cites a note by Tolkien where

this is explained as an "indefinite personal pronoun 'somebody, one'"

(apparently related to the agental/personal ending -mo, as in _ciryamo_

"ship-person" = "mariner"). A "neuter personal pronoun" _ma_ "something, a

thing" is also mentioned. The phrase _mo nave_ is translated "one judges"

(the verb being an aorist), but as an alternative Tolkien mentioned

_navilwe_, "we judge", another aorist with a hitherto unattested pronominal

ending _-lwe_ "we". The final _maara_ "good" follows.

The ending _-lwe_ is quite interesting, unless it is simply a misreading

for _-lme_. This form occurs in LotR, in the Cormallen Praise (_andave

laituvaLMEt_, "long shall WE praise them"). Since this pronoun had occurred

in LotR, Tolkien would presumably consider it a fixed part of his mythos,

and if _-lwe_ occurs in a post-LotR source, it must somehow be compatible

with _-lme_. Indeed _-lwe_ looks just like the suffix some of us have

extrapolated as the ending for dual inclusive "we", that is, "we" meaning

"the two of us". (The ending _-lme_ is a PLURAL inclusive "we", meaning

"all of us" instead.) Perhaps Tolkien would use a dual form in a sentence

like "it is unwise not to do what we judge good", if this is two people

talking together?

A dual ending _-lwe_ "we" would correspond to a pronominal possessive

ending *_-lwa_ "our". It may be that it is this ending which occurs in the

word _omentielvo_ "of our meeting", the _w_ becoming _v_ before the

genitive ending -o because _wo_ is an impossible Quenya combination (we

can't have **_omentielwo_).

A little syntax regarding the verb "to be" can be extracted from the Quenya

sentences above. The verb _ná_ often seems to _follow_ the word its

counterpart "is" would precede in English: _Laa karitas, navin, alasaila

naa_, literally "not doing it, I deem, unwise is" (rather than _...naa

alasaila_). Cf. also _vanwa naa_ "lost is [Valimar]" in Namaarie. Perhaps,

then, "the maiden is beautiful" would be _i vende vanya naa_ rather than _i

vende naa vanya_.

Yet both may be permissible. Welden cites the formula "A naa calima laa B"

for "A is brighter than B" -- literally, "A is brighter beyond B". This is

apparently a direct quote from a Tolkien manuscript; notice that the word

order is not *"A calima naa laa B" -- though that would perhaps be

permissible as well.

The word _laa_ "beyond" here occurring is unrelated to the similar-sounding

negation "not". We are told that the word _epe_ "after" can also fill this

function (this is not entirely clear -- since we are so lucky that Welden

is with us now, may he be so kind as to confirm that _A naa calima epe B_

would be correct Quenya for "A is brighter than B"?) This _epe_ is our

first independent attestation of a word for "after", though the variant

_apa_ is attested in compounds (like _Apanoonar_ "Afterborn", an Elvish

term for humans).

- HF