cemende, inflected noun: (as?) on earth. The Silmarillion Appendix has an entry "kemen earth in Kementári; a Quenya word referring to the earth as a flat floor beneath menel, the heavens". In the Etymologies, the stem kem- is defined soil, earth, yielding the Quenya words "kén (kemen)" (LR:363). This probably does not mean that kén has an alternative form kemen. When Etym. was written, the Quenya genitive ending was -(e)n, only later changed to -o, q.v. In some cases the words in -en are explicitly identified as genitive singulars; for instance, ailin pool, lake has the "g.sg." ailinen (LR:329 s.v. ay-). As for the stem kem-, Tolkien probably meant the Primitive Quendian word for soil, earth to be *keme, producing Common Eldarin *kêm (with endings *kem-). In Quenya *kêm became kén because High-Elven did not permit final -m, so that it had to be changed to the closest "permissible" sound, namely -n. Yet Quenya allowed medial m, so in this position the consonant remained unchanged; compare the stem talam producing Q talan floor, plural talami (LR:390). Hence in Etym. the word for earth is kén with a genitive singular kemen. As mentioned above, Tolkien later changed the genitive ending to -o, so we would expect kemen to become *kemo. However, the genitive kemen appeared in the narratives as part of Yavanna’s title Kementári Queen of the Earth, literally *Earth’s-Queen. Perhaps Tolkien was unwilling to change this to *Kemotári. This may be the reason why he reinterpreted kemen, making it the nominative form rather than the genitive; this would require nothing more dramatic than postulating an "extended" stem *kemen- (formed by means of ómataina, sc. reduplication of the stem-vowel [WJ:417], and a suffixed -n). Hence Kementári could stand and still be translated Queen of the Earth; the literal meaning had only changed from *Earth’s-Queen to *Earth-Queen, with minimal semantic impact. – Kemen, cemen here appears in the strange inflected form cemende. This might seem to be a locative form of some kind, though it differs from the normal, well-attested locative in -sse (that also occurs in this text; see lúmesse). It is unclear whether the ending is -de or longer -nde (if the latter, it is here simplified to -de since the word already ended in -n); see Erumande. If the case in -(n)de is not a locative, it must be some kind of "comparative" case, indicating that cemende and Erumande are being compared to one another ("on earth as in heaven). It is interesting to notice that an ending -ndon signifying as or like occurs in some "Qenya" poems from the early thirties: wilwarindon as a butterfly, taurelasselindon like leaves of forests (MC:213-215; compare wilwarin butterfly, #taure-lasseli forest-leaves). It could be that -nde in the text before us is a later variant of this early -ndon[14].
ëa, primarily a verb is or exists (UT:305/317, VT39:7), also imperative be! Notice that ëa is stronger than the simple copula ná, though both may be translated "is". The form ëa is also used as a noun (then more commonly spelt Eä), within Tolkien’s mythos a name of the universe that came into being when Ilúvatar granted independent existence to the Music of the Ainur. However, in the text before us the word is apparently used to translate heaven (unless, as we suggested above, i ëa han ëa actually means *who is above the universe). The verb ëa is the basic word here, since its application as a noun is secondary: "The Elves called the World, the Universe, Eä – It is" (footnote in Letters:284). "This world, or Universe, [the Creator] calls Eä, an Elvish word that means It is or Let it Be " (MR:330). As for the primitive form of this word, strong hints are provided by what Tolkien wrote in Quendi and Eldar (VT39:6-7): "The former presence of intervocalic ñ, later lost in Quenya, could be detected by consideration of the relations between tëa indicates and…tengwe sign, and comparison with ëa exists beside engwe thing." Tengwe sign represents primitive teñ-wê sign, token (VT39:17), the letter ñ denoting "ng" as in English "king" (LR:346, MR:350). Notice that primitive ñ + w produces Quenya ngw, while intervocalic ñ was lost: Tëa indicates (derived from the same root teñ [WJ:394] as teñ-wê > Q tengwe) is clearly meant to represent earlier *teñâ. Since Tolkien also mentions Quenya ëa exists and engwe thing in this context, we are obviously to assume that these descend from *eñâ and *eñ-wê (though he did not actually provide these primitive forms). It would seem that the primitive stem having to do with existence was *eñ- (*eñe). *Eñâ would be a primitive A-stem verb, the origin of Q ëa meaning is or exists. Yet ëa may also be interpreted as an imperative be!, and this meaning is of course relevant for the use of Eä as a name of the universe, since Eru gave existence to the Music of the Ainur by this very command: "I know the desire of your minds that what ye have seen should verily be…even as ye yourselves are, and yet other. Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be!" (Ainulindalë.) This imperative ëa may be referred to *eñ(e) â, the latter element being the primitive imperative particle, "originally independent and variable in place" (WJ:365; compare the primitive imperative phrase hek(e) â > Quenya heka! be gone!, WJ:364-365). – The fact that the word ëa appears in the Lord’s Prayer translation is an important clue regarding the dating, for this word (or at least Eä/Ëa as a name of the universe) does not seem to have entered Tolkien’s mythos before 1951; see LR:338, MR:7, 31.
14
In VT43, cemende is interpreted as cemen + -se, the latter element being a short locative ending which turns into -ze > -de following n. As I point out elsewhere, this development seems pretty ad hoc; normally ns would be expected to turn into a double ss, not nd.