Select Elvish Words 10.57: to Enter

10.57 to Enter

Q. mitta- v. “to insert; [ᴹQ.] to come in, [ᴱQ.] enter (intr.)”

A verb glossed “insert” in notes from the 1950s derived from the root √MI “in” (VT43/30). ᴹQ. mitta- was also glossed “insert” in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from 1948 (PE22/110), but in some sentences in the same document it was translated “come in”: ᴹQ. á he mittar “let them come in” and mitt’ā́ “come in!” (PE22/106). In its early appearance in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, ᴱQ. mitta- was glossed “enter (intr.)” and derived from the early root ᴱ√MĪ² (QL/61).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would assume mitta- can be used intransitively for “enter [= insert oneself]” and transitively for “insert”, with the thing inserted as the direct object and the thing entered in the allative. Hence mittanen latil i fendenna “I inserted a key into the door” but mittanen i fendenna “I entered [inserted myself] into the door”. The use of the allative in these examples is speculative.

Q. mittar(ë) n. “*entering, entrance”

The word mittarion appeared in tengwar form on what seems to be a page of art for an (unpublished) book cover created by Tolkien, within the untranslated phrase parma mittarion (TMME/192). The general consensus is that this phrase probably means something like “*book of enterings”, where the word mittarion is genitive plural form of a noun mittare or mittar “entering” based on the verb mitta- “to insert, enter”. I think “entrance” is another plausible translation.

ᴱQ. perma n. “passage, aperture, ⚠️pass”

The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. perma “passage; pass, aperture” under the early root ᴱ√PERE with related verb ᴱQ. pere- “go through, pass, pierce” [among other meanings] (QL/73). The contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa also mentioned perma “passage” (PME/73).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would update this to ᴺQ. terma “passage, aperture” as a combination ter “through” and ma “thing”, where the preposition ter through is based on the later root ᴹ√TER “pierce”. I would use terma only for an intentionally-created hole or conduit to allow passage of something, so a more accurate translation would be “crafted passage or aperture”. Another word of similar meaning is Q. lango used of passages that are a “narrower parts of a structure serving to join larger parts” (PE17/92), but lango is used of natural as well as crafted passages, and is most often used to refer to the “neck” as a part of the body or as a geographical feature.

Q. ter prep. “through”

The word ter was the common Quenya word for “through” for most (but not all) of Tolkien’s life. The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. pen “through” under the early root ᴱ√PENE, a variant of ᴱ√PERE “go through, pierce; endure, undergo” (QL/73), so probably meaning “through” both spatially and temporally. In ᴱQ. Oilima Markirya drafts from around 1930, Tolkien instead had ᴱQ. ter “through” in the phrase ᴱQ. karnevaite úri kilde hīsen ter nie nienaite (PE16/62, 72), translated “when the sky was red; the Sun gazed through a haze of tears” (PE16/68); this new preposition may have been based on the early root ᴱ√TEŘE [TEÐE] “pierce” (QL/91; PME/91).

Indeed, in The Etymologies from about 1937 Tolkien had ᴹQ. tere or ter “through” under the root ᴹ√TER “pierce” (Ety/TER). This ter “through” continued to appear in Tolkien’s later writings from the 1950s and 60s, in phrases like et sillumello ter yénion yéni tenn’ ambarmetta “*from this hour, through years of years until the ending of the world” (VT44/33) and nai amanya onnalya ter coivierya “*may your child be blessed through his/her life” (VT49/41).

Most of the later uses for ter “through” seem to be temporal in nature, such as in the phrase vanda sina termaruva Elenna·nóreo alcar enyalien “This oath shall stand in memory of the glory of the Land of the Star” (UT/305), where the verb termar- “stand” is more literally ter + mar- = “through-abide” (UT/317 note #43). However, it I think it is reasonable to assume ter “through” retained its spatial sense as well, given its 1930s connection to the root ᴹ√TER “pierce”, indicating a physical penetration.

S. minna- v. “to enter, go in”

A Sindarin verb for “go in, enter” based on the root √MI “in” (PE17/41), most notably appearing in its imperative form minno in the phrase on the gate to Moria: pedo mellon a minno “speak, friend, and enter” (LotR/305).

Conceptual Development: The imperative (or possibly Noldorin-style infinitive) form N. minno “enter” appeared in a hastily-added note to The Etymologies of the 1930s for the root ᴹ√MĪ/IMI “in?” (MĪ/IMI). This note may have been added later, as Tolkien was working on The Lord of the Rings in the 1940s. The phrase N. pedo mellon a minno already had its final form in the first drawing of the Moria Gate from Lord of the Rings drafts of the 1940s (TI/182).

N. neledh- v. “*to go in, enter”

The form neledhi appeared in the phrase N. lheben teil brann i annon ar neledh neledhi gar godrebh “five foot high the door and three may walk abreast”, appearing on a preliminary sketch of Thrór’s Map from 1936 (TAI/92, 150 and note #6). The interpretation of this phrase is difficult; Tolkien also wrote an Old English of the phrase which ended “þrie maeg samod þurghgangend” = “three may together through-go”, which is inconsistent with its Modern English translation.

Didier Willis (PED-TAI) and David Salo (GS/217) suggested this form is the Noldorin-style infinitive neledhi of a verb neledh- “to enter”, so that neledhi gar = “*may enter”, distinct from both English and Old English translations. They further suggested this verb is a combination of N. ne- “in” and N. ledh- “go”, seen respectively as elements in N. nestag- “stick in” (Ety/STAK) and N. egledhia- “go into exile” (Ety/LED) in The Etymologies of the 1930s, the latter based on N. led- “to fare”. The entry for the full phrase has a discussion of alternate theories.

N. nestag- v. “to insert, stick in”

A verb in The Etymologies of the 1930s appearing in its Noldorin-style infinitive form nestegi “insert, stick in”, derived from ON. nestak- under the root ᴹ√STAK “split, insert” (Ety/STAK). As such, its unmutated stem would be *nestag-. Its initial prefix ne- is derived from ᴹ✶ndē̆- “in, inside” under the (deleted) root ᴹ√NĒ̆ (EtyAC/NĒ̆).

N. tre- pref. “through”

A prefixal form of N. trî “through” in The Etymologies of the 1930s, appearing as tre- when unstressed (the norm) and tri- when stress, though there are no examples of the latter (Ety/TER). Presumably this refers to ancient rather than modern stress.

N. trî prep. “through”

A preposition meaning “through” in The Etymologies of the 1930s derived from ON. trī under the root ᴹ√TER(ES) “pierce” (Ety/TER), so presumably derived from *trē with ancient ē > ī as usual in Noldorin and Sindarin. In The Etymologies as published in The Lost Road Christopher Tolkien gave the Noldorin and Old Noldorin forms as trî and trí following the usual orthographic conventions of those languages (LR/392), but Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynne indicated they were both trī in their Addenda and Corrigenda to the Etymologies (VT46/18).