nëa (2) an optative form of the verb na- "to be"? (nëa = LotR-style Quenya nai?): ya rato nëa "which soon may (it) be" = "which I hope will be soon" (Arct)
Quenya
aranielya na tuluva
thy kingdom come
Element in
- Q. Átaremma
Elements
Word Gloss aranië “kingdom” ná- “to be, to be, [ᴱQ.] exist” tul- “to come, to come, [ᴱQ.] move (intr.); to bring, carry, fetch; to produce, bear fruit” Variations
- {na turinastalya tūle >>} nā túle turinastalya ✧ VT43/08
- na tule túrinastalya ✧ VT43/09
- {na tule >>} á tula túrinastalya ✧ VT43/10
- túrindielya á tuluva ✧ VT43/11
- turindielya á tuluva ✧ VT43/11
nëa
to be
tul-
come
tul- vb. "come" (WJ:368), 1st pers. aorist tulin "I come" (TUL), 3rd pers. sg. tulis "(s)he comes" (VT49:19), perfect utúlië "has come" (utúlien "I am come", EO), utúlie'n aurë "Day has come" (the function of the 'n is unclear; it may be a variant of the article "the", hence literally "the Day has come"). Past tense túlë "came" in LR:47 and SD:246, though an alternative form *tullë has also been theorized. Túlë in VT43:14 seems to be an abnormal aorist stem, later abandoned; tula in the same source would be an imperative. Prefixed future tense entuluva "shall come again" in the Silmarillion, future tuluva also in the phrase aranielya na tuluva* "may thy kingdom come" (VT44:32/34), literally apparently "thy kingdom, be-it-that (it) will come". In early "Qenya" we have the perfects tulielto "they have come" (LT1:114, 270, VT49:57) and tulier "have come", pl., in the phrase I·Eldar tulier "the Eldar have come"(LT1:114, 270). Read probably utúlieltë, Eldar utúlier** in LotR-style Quenya.
tul-
verb. come
ea-
verb. be, exist
na
to be
na (1) form of the verb "to be", evidently the imperative (or subjunctive): Tolkien stated that na airë would mean "be holy" (VT43:14), and san na (q.v.) must mean "thus be" = "let it be so"; see ná #1 Cf. also the sentence alcar mi tarmenel na Erun "glory in high heaven be to God" (VT44:32/34). Inserted in front of a verb, na expresses a wish: aranielya na tuluva "may thy kingdom come" (ibid).
The third line of Átaremma, Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The first word aranielya “thy kingdom” is the 2nd person singular polite form of aranië “kingdom”. It is followed by the word na, serving a subjunctive or imperative function, and tuluva, the future tense of tul- “to come”. This future tense probably reflects the fact that God’s kingdom is not yet manifest on Earth, and its literal meaning may be “✱be it that thy kingdom will come”.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> aranie-lya na tul-uva = “✱kingdom-thy be come-(future)”
Conceptual Development: In earlier versions of this phrase, Tolkien vacillated over whether to use á or na for the subjunctive/imperative element. He also considered other words for “kingdom”: túrinasta and túrindië. Finally, he used aorist forms or “double imperative” forms of tul-, such as tule or á tula, adopting the future tense only in version V.
Tolkien experimented with different word orders for this phrase in different versions of the prayer. In versions I-IIb, he used particle-verb-subject, while in the version III-VI he used subject-particle-verb. The reasons for the different orders is unclear.
| |I|IIa|IIb|III|IV|V|VI| |{na >>}|nā|na|á|túrindielya|aranielya| |{túrinastalya >>}|túle|tule|tula|á|na| |{tūle >>}|túrinastalya|tuluva|