5. Summary: New insights on Quenya
In summary we can say that Tolkien’s Quenya rendering of the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary provides quite a few new insights, but there are also some mysteries. The strange new "locative" or perhaps "comparative" case exemplified by the words cemende and Erumande is probably best ignored by writers until it is better understood: Tolkien’s unpublished writings, if they are eventually made available to scholarship, may throw more light on this form[32]. The same goes for the preposition (?) han of uncertain meaning[33]. Otherwise, the known Quenya vocabulary is enhanced by a whole string of new words, most of which offer no obscurities: aistana blessed, #ála imperative do not, #aranie kingdom, #apsen- forgive (with direct object of the matter that is forgiven, dative object of the person forgiven), as with, etelehta- free, release, *Eruanna grace considered as God’s gift, ilaurëa daily, everyday (adj.), imíca among, #indóme noun will [34], mal but, #móna womb, na optative particle, násie amen! so it is!, the strange form rámen, ?for us, ?on our behalf, síra today, sív[e] and tambe both meaning as or like (the former apparently comparing with something that is close, the latter with something remote), tien as the dative of te them, tulya- lead, the three related words #úcare sin, misdeed, úcar- verb sin and #úcarindo sinner, evildoer, #ulcu evil as noun[35], #úsahtie temptation. There is also nísi as an unorthodox plural of nís woman; the plural nissi found in other sources (both earlier and younger than the text before us) is probably to be preferred.
More than ten of the words above cover meanings for which we had no Quenya translation before. Some of these words may, on closer scrutiny, yield further vocabulary items: if we have correctly analysed násie as (so) is this, we may isolate a word #sie this referring to a situation (e.g. *i Elda carne sie the Elf did this); the word sina known from the phrase vanda sina this oath in Cirion’s Oath (UT:305, 312) may be adjectival only, modifying another word but not necessarily occurring by itself as in "the Elf did this"[36].
This text confirms what the word massánie bread-giver in PM:404 suggests: in the fifties, Tolkien had decided that the Quenya word for bread was to be #massa and not as in earlier sources masta. Of course, both forms could very well coexist in the language, but in the Etymologies, masta is both a noun bread and a verb bake (LR:372 s.v. mbas-). Writers can now use masta for bake and #massa for bread, avoiding the ambiguous forms.
Some words are of particular value to writers. Imíca as an unambiguous word for among is a welcome addition to our vocabulary; so far writers have had to resort to imbë between, but that is not quite the same. The new word mal for but fills no gap in our vocabulary, since we already had nan (or nán, ná), but
mal is perhaps to be preferred: For one thing it occurs in a source that is certainly younger than the sources that provide these other words for but, and as we have argued, mal may be less ambiguous than the alternatives (including the form nó that turned up in VT41:13, since according to LR:379 s.v. nowo- nó is also a noun conception, and in one sentence nó even seems to be a preposition before – see VT41:18). The verb tulya- lead is also useful; until now we have only had tulta- summon, and though both words basically mean "make come" the latter form had the limitation that it only referred to movement towards the place of the speaker. Another highly useful word is as for with in the sense together with. So far it has been somewhat unclear what the Quenya for with really is. I have used and recommended yo; in WJ:407 it occurs as a prefix in the word yomenie (read *yomentie?) meeting, gathering (of three or more coming from different directions). We seem to have an independent attestation of yo in SD:56, in one of the draft variants of Elendil’s Oath: yo hildinyar, perhaps meaning *with my heirs (the final version in LotR – volume 3, Book Six, chapter V – simply reads ar hildinyar, and my heirs). Though I think yo may indeed be one Quenya word for with, at least at certain stages of Tolkien’s ever-evolving vision, the new word as is certainly the best option for expressing this meaning now. (Moreover, yo may be ambiguous since this is conceivably also the genitive of ya which, hence *yo = of which, whose. The locative yassen wherein, in which occurring in Namárië demonstrates that the relative pronoun ya may receive case endings.)
32
According to VT43, this -de is an allomorph of the regular locative ending -ssë, but I suspect that this shorter ending was not a lasting idea in Tolkien’s ever-evolving conception. For clarity, writers should probably use the full ending -ssë, where necessary inserting a connecting vowel before it.
33
It now appears that han means "beyond", but I think I would stick to the more well-known postposition pella for this meaning.
36
According to VT43, sie may actually be an adverb "thus"; this word certainly has this meaning in a later source. However, sie = "thus" would also be a highly useful word that writers have often missed. Sie could also be used to translate "so". – As for "this", it is possibly that sin is used by itself and sina as an adjectival modifier: Elda sina carnë sin, "this Elf did this".