12.46 West
- Q. andú- pref “going down, setting (of sun), west”
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A prefix having to do with going down, setting (of sun) and the west (PE17/18) based on √NDU “descend”. See, for example, Andúril “Flame of the West” (LotR/277; PE17/34) or Andustar “Westlands” (UT/165).
- Q. andúna adj. “western”
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A longer variant of núna “western” (PE17/18), an adjectival form of andúnë “west”.
- Q. nú- pref. “going down, setting (of sun), west”
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A prefix having to do with going down, setting (of sun) and the west (PE17/18) based on √NDU “descend”. See, for example, Hyarnustar “Southwestlands” (UT/165).
- Q. númen n. “west, direction or region of the sunset, occident, (lit.) going down”
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The word númen or núme was the Quenya word for “west” for much of Tolkien’s life, and was also the name of tengwa #17 (LotR/1123). It is a combination of √N(D)Ū “go down” and √MEN “way” (PE17/64; Ety/NDŪ, MEN), so originally meaning “going down” or “way of the setting sun” (Let/361) in the same way that rómen “east” is the direction of the rising sun. Q. númen is thus similar in origin to English “occident”. As a standalone word it is usually númen, but in compounds or with inflections it is frequently reduced to núme-. For the Elves, númen is considered the primary direction, since it points towards Aman where the Two Trees were (LotR/1123; VT49/8).
Conceptual Development: ᴱQ. nūme “west” dates all the way back to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s where it appeared under the early root ᴱ√NUHU “bow, bend down. stoop, sink” (QL/68). The form númen did not appear as an independent word until The Etymologies of the 1930s (Ety/MEN), and númen was already the name of tengwa #17 in the earliest version of notes on The Feanorian Alphabet (PE22/23).
- ᴹQ. númenya adj. “western”
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An adjectival form of ᴹQ. númen “west” from The Etymologies of the 1930s (Ety/RŌ).
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. numenda “western” based on ᴱQ. nūme “west” (QL/68), an adjective that also appeared in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa (PME/68).
- Q. núna adj. “western”
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An adjective for “western” appearing in Núnatani “Western Men” (PE17/18) based on √NDU “descend”.
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. nūmea “in the West” based on ᴱQ. nūme “west” (QL/68).
- S. annui adj. “west[ern]”
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An adjective for “west[ern]” appearing in the King’s Letter in the phrase Hîr i Mbair Annui “Lord of the Westlands” (SD/129). It is probably based on the same root √NDU that produced annûn “sunset; west”, but with the adjectival suffix -ui.
- S. dûn n. “west”
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The Sindarin word for “west” based on primitive ᴹ✶ndūne derived from the root √NDU “go down” (LotR/1116; PE17/18; Ety/NDŪ; EtyAC/NDŪ). More exactly it is “the way of the sunset” (SA/andúnë). The related word annûn “sunset”, also used to mean “the West”, was derived from ✶ṇdūnē with syllabic initial ṇ.