Select Elvish Words: 12.44 Far

12.44 Far

Q. haia adv. “in the distance, [ᴹQ.] far (off), far away”

The adverb ᴹQ. hāya “far off, far away” appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√KHAYA “far, distant, remote” (Ety/KHAYA; EtyAC/KHAYA). It reappeared as haiya “far” in a phrase from the Lament of Atalante of the 1940s: haiya vahaiya sín Atalante “far far away now (is) the Downfallen” (SD/247). It appeared again as haia in the first draft of Löa Yucainen from in 1958: Ai loar melle yassen ekkennen haia palantírielya yárie andavanwer “Alas beloved years in which looking afar I saw in the distance the ages long-departed” (CPT/1296). It is likely that háya, haiya, and haia are just variant spellings of the same word; compare Máya, Maiya vs. Maia.

ᴹQ. haira adj. “remote, far”

An adjective for “remote, far” in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√KHAYA “far, distant, remote” (Ety/KHAYA; EtyAC/KHAYA). It had intensive variants ᴹQ. avahaira and ᴹQ. ekkaira (Ety/KHAYA), probably “*far beyond” and “*out-far” respectively.

Q. palan adj. and adv. “far (and wide), afar, distant; [ᴹQ.] to a great extent, over a wide space, to a distance”

A Quenya word for “far and wide” appearing regularly in Tolkien’s writings, most notably in palantír “far gazer”. It was derived from the root √PAL “wide, broad, extended” (PE17/65; VT47/8; Ety/PAL). In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien contrasted with word with ᴹQ. hāya “far off, far away”, saying that palan more properly means “wide, over a wide space, to a distance” (EtyAC/KHAYA). Thus palan is “far” in extent (far and wide) as opposed to haia which is “far” in distance only.

Q. palantír n. “far-gazer, far-seer, (lit.) that which looks far away”

A word for the seeing stones of Númenor, a combination of palan “far” and some form of the root TIR “see” (Let/427), hence: “far-seer” or “far-gazer” (LotR Index; PE17/25, 86). This word is unusual in that it has a long vowel in its final syllable, something that does not normally occur in Quenya words. The ancient form of this word was palantīrā̆ (Let/427), and the reduction of short vowels in long compounds was not unusual in Quenya, for example: Valinor as a shorter form of Valinórë. However, after such reductions long vowels in final syllables tended to shorten, so the expected form would be palantir, not palantír. In one place Tolkien described this word as a “a Numenorean formation” (PE17/86), perhaps as a way of explaining the unusual retention of a long vowel in its final syllable.

Because of this long vowel, the proper pronunciation of this word is in dispute. The usual rules for Quenya stress would put the stress on the second syllable: paLANtír. The speech coaches for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies instructed the actors to pronounce this word like English “lantern” to help them remember this stress pattern. However in private notes Tolkien wrote pálan-tìr (PE17/86), indicating primary stress on the first syllable and secondary stress on the last: PAlanTÍR. Notes from the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60 seem to indicate the stress shift to the middle syllable occurs only for older compounds:

These compounds being old [my emphasis] were accented as unitary words and the main stress
came on the syllable preceding -quen: kirya:quen [kirYAquen], kirya:queni [the implication being the stress remains as a pair of words in later compounds] (WJ/407 note #3).

Hat-tip to Raccoon and Vyacheslav Stepanov for this discovery and pointing it out to me. Assuming this reasoning is correct, the long vowel in the final syllable of palantír may simply be to emphasize the unusual stress pattern; compare also María which also has an abnormal long vowel enforcing a stress pattern that would be atypical for Quenya.

Conceptual Development: This word appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s where it was probably a later addition. In its earliest appearances, both in The Etymologies and the drafts of The Lord of the Rings, it was Palantir with a short i (Ety/PAL, TIR; WR/76).

S. hae adv. “far, (very) far away”

An adverb(?) for “far” or “very far away” based on the root ᴹ√KHAYA (PE17/25; EtyAC/KHAYA). In The Etymologies of the 1930s it had the variant forms hae, hoe, haen (EtyAC/KHAYA).

Conceptual Development: The Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s had G. hai “there (by him)” (GL/47), a possible precursor. In this document the basic adverb for “far” was G. eg² or êg “faraway, wide, distant, far off” based on the early root ᴱ√eika (GL/32; QL/29). This word reappeared in Gnomish Lexicon Slips modifying that document with the gloss “far” (PE13/113). Early Noldorin word-lists of the 1920s had ᴱN. eg- {“†wide, far” >>} “far” (PE13/142).

S. haer adj. “remote, *distant”

An adjective for “remote” as an element in haered “remoteness”, based on S. hae “very far away” (PE17/25).

Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I would also use this word to mean “distance”.

S. haered n. “remoteness, (remote) distance”

A word appearing in its mutated form chaered in the song A Elbereth Gilthoniel, in the phrase na-chaered palan-díriel “to lands remote I have looked afar” (LotR/238; RGEO/63). The actual meaning of this word is “remoteness” based on the adjective haer “remote” (PE17/25). In the literal translation of the A Elbereth Gilthoniel song, Tolkien gave it the gloss “remote distance” (RGEO/64).

Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I would also use this word to mean “distance” in general.

S. haeron adj. “*distant”

A word appearing in the untranslated name Dor Haeron from drafts of the Lord of the Rings appendices (PM/273). David Salo suggested it probably means something like “*distant” (GS/374), possibly an augmentative from of haer “remote”.

S. palan adv. “afar, abroad, far and wide”

A word for “afar” in the song A Elbereth Gilthoniel from the phrase na-chaered palan-díriel “to lands remote I have looked afar”, and also the phrase o menel palan-diriel “from heaven gazing far” (LotR/238; RGEO/63-64). In The Road Goes Ever On (RGEO) from 1967, Tolkien indicated the actual meaning was “abroad, far and wide” (RGEO/64). S. palan is equivalent to Q. palan of similar meaning, and was probably borrowed directly from Quenya (PE17/25). The main evidence for borrowing is that the ancient final n was not lost as was usually the case in Sindarin; compare S. êl vs. Q. elen “star”.