12.395 Down, Below, Beneath
- Q. nu prep. “under, beneath”
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The usual Quenya word for “under, beneath”, derived from the root √NŪ (LotR/377; MC/222; PE17/64, 66).
Conceptual Development: This word first appeared in drafts of the ᴱQ. Oilima Markirya poem from around 1930. In the initial drafts, it had the form no (PE16/62, 72, 76), but in the version presented in the “A Secret Vice” essay it was nu “under” (MC/214).
ᴹQ. no “under” was restored in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√NŪ̆ (Ety/NU), followed by a parenthetical word nau perhaps indicating its primitive form (EtyAC/NU). However, au > o is pretty implausible as a Quenya phonetic development, and elsewhere Tolkien stuck to nu in his writings from the 1930s forward (LR/56; SD/246).
- ᴹQ. nún adv. “down below, underneath, [ᴱQ.] beneath”
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An adverb in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “down below, underneath” under the root ᴹ√NŪ̆ (Ety/NU).
Conceptual Development: A glossary to one of the earlier versions of the ᴱQ. Oilima Markirya poem had ᴱQ. nuun “beneath”, probably of similar derivation (PE16/77). It appeared as a preposition in the phrase ᴱQ. ondoin moorin ninkuvaaron; nuuni silmeraana tindon, apparently “*the dark rocks will shine white, beneath the gleaming-moon shining”.
- Q. nunna adv. “down[wards]”
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An adverb appearing in the first version of the Löa Yucainen poem in the phrase Yénion yukainen nunn’ ar anduine lútie “Years ten and ten have down the Long River floated” (CPT/1296). It appears to be an allative from of √NU “down”, so perhaps more literally “*downwards”.
- Q. undu adv. “down, under, [ᴹQ.] beneath”
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An adverb in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “down, under, beneath” under the root ᴹ√UNU, parallel to amba “up(wards)” (Ety/UNU). It was also used as a prefix meaning “down, under” in unduláve “swallowed = down-licked” from the Namárië “poem” (LotR/377; PE17/72). As a prefix, it had a shorter form un(u)- as in untup- “cover down” (PE17/73) and [ᴹQ.] unutikse “under dot [in writing]” (Ety/TIK).
Conceptual Development: A rejected page of verbal roots from the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) of 1948 had ᴹQ. undu “down from on high” (prefixal form unu-) and ᴹQ. undo “down, low down”, both based on ᴹ√NDŪ (PE22/127).
- N. dad adv. “down”
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A word for “down” in The Etymologies under the root ᴹ√DAT “fall down”; Tolkien marked dad as EN [Exhilic Noldorin] (Ety/DAT). The original ink entry had a prefix dad- “down” that Tolkien simply marked as N[oldorin] (EtyAC/DAT).
Conceptual Development: Early Noldorin Word-lists had ᴱN. dad as an element in words like ᴱN. dadvenn “downhill” (PE13/139) and ᴱN. dadnuin “sinking down” (PE13/161).
- N. dadben prep. “adj. and adv.”
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A word for “downhill, inclined, prone” in The Etymologies of the 1930s as a combination of N. dad “down” and N. penn “declivity, *slope”, with the forms dadben and dadbenn where the double nn was probably archaic (Ety/DAT, PEN).
Conceptual Development: The Etymologies also had (rejected) dadðenn, dadhenn based on an earlier meaning “hillside, slope” of the root ᴹ√DEN (Ety/DEN; EtyAC/DAT), and earlier still a form dadvenn based on a rejected root ᴹ√BEND (EtyAC/DAT). Early Noldorin word-lists of the 1920s also had ᴱN. dadvenn “downhill” with an archaic form {datvhend >>} datbhend (PE13/139, 160-161). In one entry it had the figurative meaning “easy-going, easy, not arduous” (PE13/161), comparable to the English idiom “its all downhill from here”.
Neo-Sindarin: I’d adopt the later form dadben as an adjective and adverb for “downhill, inclined [downwards]”, but I would not use it for “prone” in its modern English sense “lying flat”, since I believe Tolkien intended this gloss to be for its archaic English sense of sloping downwards. I would, however, assume the Early Noldorin sense “easy-going, easy, not arduous” remains valid as a figure of speech.
- S. di prep. “beneath (not touching), under; ⚠️[N.] in”
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A preposition appearing in the A Elbereth Gilthoniel prayer in the phrase le nallon sí di’nguruthos (LotR/729). This phrase is loosely translated as “here overwhelmed in dread of Death I cry” (RGEO/64; PE17/21). However, Tolkien gave a more exact translation “to thee I cry here beneath-death-horror” (RGEO/64), and said that di actually means “beneath, not touching, under” as a derivative of primitive ✶ndī (PE17/95).
Conceptual Development: The Etymologies of the 1930s had N. di “in” under the root ᴹ√NDI/DI of the same meaning as ᴹ√MI [“in”] (EtyAC/NDI). This entry had a brief phrase {ni >>} di ngorgoros, probably an early draft of A Elbereth Gilthoniel. Thus the “loose” translation “in dread of death” may have been Tolkien’s original intended meaning; compare N. Gorgoroth “Deadly Fear” (Ety/ÑGOROTH).
It seems that sometime in the 1960s Tolkien changed his mind on the meaning of di. He initially toyed with connecting it to Q. lé “with”, but changed his mind to the derivation from ✶ndī “beneath” as given above (PE17/95). This is meaning he gave to di in the song-cycle The Road Goes Ever On published in 1967 (RGEO/64).
Earlier still, the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s had di as the definite variant of the preposition G. da (GL/29). Tolkien specified the preposition was used with the “allative only”, but its gloss was hard to read, either “with” or maybe “into”. This preposition appeared in the full Gnomish title of the Lexicon itself: i·Lam na·Ngoldathon “Goldogrin” di Sacthoðrin, untranslated but perhaps meaning “*the Language of the Gnomes ‘Goldogrin’ [translated] into English”, or “*with English [translations]”.
- S. nu prep. “under”
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The Sindarin word for “under”, appearing as an element in names like Dor-nu-Fauglith “Land under Choking Ash” (WJ/239) and Taur-nu-Fuin “Forest under Nightshade” (S/155), clearly based on the root √N(D)Ū “sink, go down” (17/64).
Conceptual Development: The Etymologies of the 1930s had N. no “under” derived from the root ᴹ√NŪ̆ (Ety/NU), with either short u becoming o, or unstressed au becoming o, the latter being indicated by a parentical nau [perhaps the primitive form?] appearing after its Quenya equivalent ᴹQ. no “under” (EtyAC/NU). As noted above, in Tolkien’s later writings the form was nu, probably derived from *nū with the vowel shortening when unstressed.