atalantëa adj. "ruinous, downfallen"; see atalantë
Quenya
atalantëa
adjective. ruinous, downfallen
atalantëa
ruinous, downfallen
atalantë
downfall, overthrow, especially as name [atalantë] of the [downfallen] land of númenor
atalantë noun "downfall, overthrow, especially as name [Atalantë] of the [downfallen] land of Númenor" (DAT/DANT, TALÁT, Akallabêth, SD:247, 310; also LR:47, VT45:26). Variant atalantië "Downfall", said to be a normal noun-formation in Quenya (Letters:347, footnote). From the common noun atalantë "collapse, downfall" is derived the adj. atalantëa "ruinous, downfallen", pl. atalantië in Markirya (changed to sg. atalantëa this change does not make immediate sense, since the adjective undoubtedly modifies a plural noun, but Tolkien does not always let adjectives agree in number).
atalantëa mindonnar
upon fallen towers
The thirty-first line of the Markirya poem (MC/222). The first word is the adjective atalantëa “downfallen” followed by the allative (“upon”) plural form of the noun mindon “tower”.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> atalantëa mindon-na-r = “✱downfallen tower-upon-(plural)”
Conceptual Development: In the first draft, Tolkien used atalantëa, but in the second draft he switched to the plural form of the adjective atalantië to agree with the plural noun. He then deleted this to revert to the uninflected form of the adjective atalantëa (MC/222). This is likely because adjectives are not inflected when modifying nouns with plural noun cases; see the section on Adjectives and Noun Case Endings in the entry on adjectives. In the first and second drafts Tolkien first used the longer allative plural form of the noun mindoninnar but revised this to a more abbreviated form mindonnar in the second draft (MC/222).
An adjective translated “fallen” in the phrase atalantëa mindonnar “upon fallen towers” in the Markirya poem of the 1960s (MC/222). In notes associated with the poem Tolkien gave it the glosses “ruinous, downfallen” as an adjectival form of atalantë “collapse, downfall” (MC/223). In the poem itself, Tolkien revised it to its plural form atalantië before reverting it back to atalantëa.
Conceptual Development: In the Oilima Markirya version of the poem from around 1930, Tolkien used ᴱQ. lanta for “fallen” instead; see that entry for discussion.