8.53 Plant, Herb
- Q. laima n. “plant”
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A noun for “plant” appearing in Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 derived from the root √LAY (PE17/159).
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. laute (lausi-) “living thing, (esp.) vegetable” and ᴱQ. lauke (lauki-) “vegetable, plant species”, both derived from the early root ᴱ√LAWA (QL/52). The word lauke also appeared in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa with the gloss “plant” (PME/52) and appeared again in Early Qenya Word-lists of the 1920s with the gloss “vegetable” and an accusative form of lautya (PE16/141), indicating a new stem form lauty-.
- Q. laiquë n. “herb”
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A noun for “herb” appearing in Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957, a combination of the roots √LAY and √KWĒ (PE17/159). Tolkien specified that it was used for “anything green, but especially [herbs] as used for food”.
- Q. olva n. “plant, growing things with roots in the earth”
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A word for plants appearing only in its plural form olvar “plants” (S/45; NM/270). It may be related to the roots √OLOB “branch” and √OL “grow”, hence “growing thing” as opposed to a celva = “moving thing” (WJ/341). For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I think this word refers mainly to plants as a category of beings (as in the Plant Kingdom), as opposed to an individual plant which would laima.
- N. galas n. “growth, plant”
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A word in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “growth, plant” under the root ᴹ√GALA “thrive” (Ety/GALA). It seems to be an abstract elaboration of the verb N. gala- “to grow”, so perhaps refers both to “growth” as a process, as well as a “plant” as a thing that grows.
Conceptual Development: The Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s had G. caltha “a plant, herb” based on the early root ᴱ√cala- “*grow” (GL/25), apparently a precursor to √GAL(A) “grow” of the 1930s and later.
- N. salab n. “herb”
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A noun in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “herb” derived from ᴹ✶SALÁK-(WĒ) (Ety/SALÁK). Its Noldorin plural was seleb, but if adapted into Sindarin its plural would be *selaib.
8.54 Root
- ᴹQ. sulka n. “root (especially as edible)”
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A noun in The Etymologies from around 1937 glossed “root (especially as edible)” and derived from ᴹ√SULUK (Ety/SÚLUK).
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. tarka “root” and ᴱQ. tarkele “great system of roots”, both derived from early ᴱ√TṚKṚ (QL/94). Their Gnomish cognate G. tarc was glossed “root (especially edible roots)” (GL/69). ᴹQ. turut (turuk-) “tree-stem” from the Declension of Nouns (DN) written in the early 1930s (PE21/35) might be a transitional form in between ᴱ√TṚKṚ and ᴹ√SULUK.
- ᴹQ. turut (turuk-) n. “tree-stem”
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A word glossed “tree-stem” from the Declension of Nouns (DN) of the early 1930s (PE21/35). In biology, the “stem” of a tree is the system that moves water from the roots to the leaves of trees. This word might be a variation on earlier and later “root” roots: ᴱ√TṚKṚ and ᴹ√SULUK.
- N. solch n. “root (especially as edible)”
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A noun in The Etymologies from around 1937 glossed “root (especially as edible)” and derived from ᴹ√SULUK (Ety/SÚLUK).
Conceptual Development: The Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s had G. tarc “root (especially edible roots)” and related G. tricthon {“slender fibrous root” >>} “(fibrous fine) root”, both derived from ᴱ√tṛk (GL/69, 71).
- S. thond n. “root, [N.] base; ⚠️root-word”
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A noun in The Lord of the Rings Appendix E glossed “root”, given as an examples of how “nd remained at the end of fully accented monosyllables” (LotR/1115). It was an element in the river-name S. Morthond “Black Root” (LotR/770), so named “because its source was in the dark caverns of the Dead Men” (RC/766). As such this word refers to things that are the root or base of something, not just plant roots.
Conceptual Development: The Etymologies of the 1930s had N. sunn and sonnas as cognates to ᴹQ. sundo “base, root, root-word” under ᴹ√SUD “base, ground” (Ety/SUD; EtyAC/SUD). These Noldorin forms were revised to N. thund/thonn and N. thonnas while the root was revised to ᴹ√STUD (EtyAC/SUD). The Etymologies also had N. dum “root, foundation” derived from {ᴹ√(N)DUM >>} ᴹ√(N)DUB “lay base, foundation, root; found”, but this entry was deleted (EtyAC/NDUB).
Possible Etymology: This words seems to be a counterexample to the general rule that short u was preserved before nasals: compare it to S. mund “bull” and N. lhunt “boat” where the u remained unchanged. The Quenya cognate of this word is typically Q. sundo, so a-affection cannot be used to explain the shift of u to o. However in one place Tolkien gave the Quenya form as sunda in Tarmasundar “Roots of the Pillar” (UT/166), so perhaps the Sindarin form was derived from a variant primitive form *stundā.
Neo-Sindarin: For purpose of Neo-Sindarin, I would assume thond refers only to an ordinary base or root, and more abstract [N.] thonnas refers to things like root-words or a “*foundation”.