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Select Elvish Words 1.56: Noise, Thunder

1.56 Noise, Thunder

ᴱQ. fundu- vb. “?to thunder”
An unglossed verb form ᴱQ. fundu- or funduna- appearing drafts of the Oilima Markirya from around 1930, appearing only in inflected forms like funduváre (future) or fundunár (PE16/57, 60). Gilson, Welden and Hostetter suggest that it might have been an onomatopoeic verb meaning “pound” or “thunder”.

Neo-Quenya: Damien Bador suggested adapting ᴺQ. fundu- as a verb for “to thunder” in Neo-Quenya (though I don’t have a record of the context of his suggestion). I also think this verb is worth adapting, but would change it to ᴺQ. hundu- since generally fu became hu in Quenya of the 1950s and 60s.

Q. hlón(a) n. “noise, sound”
A word for “a noise” appearing in a list of roots for sound words from 1959-60 with variants hlóna and hlōn, derived from the root √(S)LON (PE17/138). It also appeared in a draft of the Quendi and Eldar essay from around the same time as hlōn “sound” from ✶slōn, an element in ohlon “diphthong” (VT48/29). It appeared in its plural form hloni “sound” in the Quendi and Eldar essay itself (WJ/394).

Conceptual Development: A similar form ᴱQ. lon or londe “loud noise” appeared in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s as a derivative of the early root ᴱ√LOŘO [LOÐO] (QL/56).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use this word mostly for incoherent (and especially non-vocal) noise, as opposed to Q. láma for more coherent (and especially vocal) sound, even though this isn’t entirely consistent with Tolkien’s term Q. hlonitë for “phonetic”. Perhaps the use of hlon- in this term emphasizes that a phoneme cannot by itself be coherent, especially consonantal phonemes (which were the focus of early Elvish linguistics).

ᴹQ. indyalme n. “clamour”
A word appearing in The Etymologies of the 1930s as {ñalme >>} yalme or indyalme “clamour” derived from the root {ᴹ√ÑGAL(AM) >>} ᴹ√ÑGYAL(AM) “talk loud or incoherently” (Ety/ÑGAL; EtyAC/ÑGAL). The form indyalme can be explained as the result of the usual syllabification of initial ṇ̃ to , and then the resulting ingy- becoming indy- because of how velars became dentals before y. The form yalme is more difficult to explain, however, since according to the contemporaneous Outline of Phonetic Development (OP1), initial ñgy became ñy and then ny (PE19/36). Thus the expected form would be *nyalme (†ñyalme).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I recommend using indyalme over yalme as more consistent with what Tolkien wrote on Quenya phonology. This is somewhat challenging, since in The Etymologies as published in The Lost Road, Christopher Tolkien gave only the form yalme (LR/377), and the form indyalme was not published until Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynne’s Addenda and Corrigenda to the Etymologies from 2004 (VT44/3). This makes the form indyalme more obscure that yalme, but I’d still recommend its use.

Q. rávë n. “roaring noise”
A noun for a “roaring noise” in the glossary for the 1960s version of the Q. Markirya poem (MC/223), probably derived from the root ᴹ√RAW.
Q. rávëa n. “roaring”
A word for a “roaring” in the 1960s version of Q. Markirya poem (MC/222), an adjectival form of Q. rávë “roaring noise” (MC/223).
S. lhôn n. “noise”
A word for “noise” appearing in a list of roots for sound words from 1959-60, derived from the root √(S)LON (PE17/138).

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