14.355 Past, Ago
- Q. andanéya adv. “long ago, once upon a time”
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A word for “long ago, once upon a time” given as anda né or andanéya in notes from 1968, a combination of anda “long” with né “ago” or néya “once, at one time” (VT49/31). It is possible that andanéya is “once upon a time” and anda né is “long ago”. The phrase ᴹQ. anda né “long ago” also appeared in notes on the the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) and Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC), both from 1948 (PE22/96; PE23/109).
- Q. andavanwa adj. “long-passed; long-departed”
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An adjective for “long-passed” or “long-departed” appearing only in its plural form andavanwë in the Löa Yucainen poem from 1958 (PE23/109), clearly a combination of anda “long” and vanwa “past, departed”. In the first draft of the poem it has the unusual plural form andavanwer.
- Q. autas n. “a former occur[rence]”
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A word for “a former occur[rence]” as part of a 1969 paradigm where its root √awa meant “before, ago of time” rather than its usual meaning “away” (PE22/168).
- Q. né adv. “ago, behind (earlier time); yes (it was so)”
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A word in notes from 1968 for “ago” or “behind (earlier in time)” also functioning as the past tense of ná- “to be”, based on the ancient past-tense marker ✶-nē (VT49/31). Tolkien further said it “is used actually as a curious past form of ‘yes’ in answers to questions of fact = ‘it was so, it was as you say/ask’ (VT49/31)”. For example ma i Elda túle Anarya? “did the Elf come Sunday?”, answered with né “yes, it was so”. The word ᴹQ. né “ago” also appeared in the the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) and Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC), both written in 1948 (PE22/96; PE23/109).
Conceptual Development: Tolkien used a lot of different was for “ago”. The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had adverbial ᴱQ. luin and adjectival ᴱQ. luina “ago” (QL/56). The English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s had ᴱQ. ie “ago” with several variants (PE15/68). The Etymologies of the 1930s had ᴹQ. yá “formerly, ago” (Ety/YA). The word yá reappeared with the gloss “at that (distant) time” in DRC in 1948, but in that document né seems to be the more normal word for “ago” (PE23/109). The word né “ago” also appeared in QVS from 1948 (PE22/96) and again in notes from 1968 (VT49/31) as mentioned above. The word auta “ago” appeared in notes from 1969 as part of paradigm where its root √awa meant “before, ago of time” rather than its more usual meaning “away” (PE22/168).
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I prefer né for “ago” as the best attested and most enduring of the various options.
- ᴹQ. vanwie n. “the past, past time”
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A word in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “the past, past time”, a noun form of ᴹQ. vanwa “gone, departed, vanished, lost, past” (Ety/WAN).
- ᴹQ. yáre n. “former days”
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A word in The Etymologies of the 1930s for “former days” based on the root ᴹ√YA “there, over there; of time, ago” (Ety/YA). In the locative, yáresse meant “once upon a time”.
- ᴱN. en adv. and conj. “then, [G.] that past, ⚠️that by you, that already mentioned (by you)”
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The Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s had a demonstrative pronoun G. en glossed “that by you, that already mentioned (by you), that past” (GL/32). In an untranslated sentence appearing in the Early Noldorin Grammar (EGQ) of the 1920s, it seems ᴱN. en might be used as a conjunction “then”: manthil sóg odog en maint os eneg bhair might mean something like “having eaten he drinks a lot, then he ate around six houses” according to Gilson, Welden, Hostetter and Wynne (PE13/128 and note #78).
Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I would retain ᴺS. en as an adverb or conjuction meaning “then, [G.] that past”, in keeping with its demonstrative use in ennas “there” from around 1950 (SD/129). In Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 Tolkien said “In Q[uenya] … but not in all Eldarin languages it [en] is (in time) restricted to the future and always refers forward in time” (PE23/97). This means that in other Eldarin languages like Sindarin, it is possible that en could be used temporally to refer to the past. I would only use en for “then” and not as a demonstrative “that”, for which I would use ᴺS. sa instead.
- N. io adv. “ago”
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A word for “ago” in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√YA meaning “of time, ago” (Ety/YA). It was followed by ia in parenthesis marked with a “?” by Tolkien.