ai(a)-

prefix. any-

For a long time, there was no clear way of expressing “any” in (Neo) Quenya. The closest equivalent was ai- in aiquen “if anybody, whoever” from the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60 (WJ/372). Based on the “anybody” gloss of this word, similar forms like ailumë “any time” and ainomë “any place” became reasonably well-excepted Neo-Quenya terms. However, these words are somewhat problematic, since ai means “supposing, suppose, maybe” in Quenya (PE22/97, 120, 138), and is thus an expression uncertainly rather than simple indeterminacy.

The document Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC), written by Tolkien in 1948, was first published in Parma Eldalamberon #23 in 2024 (PE23/96-112). This document include a form for “any” by Tolkien himself, first given as ᴹQ. imma, revised to amma then finally umma (PE23/99 note #24-25). Despite these revisions on one page, the rest of the document used imma- throughout in forms like ᴹQ. immane “anybody” and ᴹQ. immanome “any place”.

These 1948 forms are still problematic, however. Imma resembles later im- “same”, amma- resembles am- “up”, and umma resembles uma- “some”, also appearing in DRC. I feel that adopting any of these 1948 forms is likely to cause confusion, especially the final form umma-, which in speech would often be hard to distinguish from uma-.

As such, my current Neo-Quenya recommendation is to stick with the established Neo-Quenya prefix ai(a)- for Neo-Quenya forms expressing indeterminacy (“any”). If you are uncomfortable with this, revising DRC forms from imma- to umma- is a reasonable alternative that fits Tolkien’s last known preference for “any” words.