Adûnaic
bârim an-adûn yurahtam dâira sâibêth-mâ êruvô
Lords of [the] West, they rent [the] Earth with assent from Eru
Cognates
- ᴹQ. Herunúmen arda sakkante lenéme Ilúvatáren “the Lord of the West [Manwe] broke the world by leave of Ilúvatar” ✧ SD/246
Element in
Variations
- bārim an-adūn yurahtam dāira sāibēth-mā ēruvō ✧ SD/247; VT24/12
- ēruvō ✧ SD/249
- Bârim an-adûn ✧ SDI2/Bârim an-adûn
The 4th phrase of the Lament of Akallabêth (SD/247). One major conceptual change from earlier versions was that the subject of the sentence was plural Bârim an-Adûn (“Lords of the West”) instead of the earlier singular Bârun an-Adûn (“Lord of the West”). It seems that Tolkien decided that the drowning of Númenor was attributed to all of the Valar rather than just Manwë. A similar change from singular to plural was made in the corresponding Quenya sentence: herunūmen >> númeheruvi.
The subject Bârim of this sentence is the subjective plural of bâr “lord”. It is modified by the adjectival phrase an-Adûn “of the West”, with the genitive prefix an- “of” added to the noun adûn. The verb has the 3rd-plural suffix yu- “they”. In the grammatical rules of Lowdham’s Report this makes the subject emphatic, with a meaning more like “It was the Lords of the West who broke the Earth...” (SD/429).
The verb form rahtam is the aorist tense of rahat- “to break” with the verb plural suffix -m. The object of the sentence, dâira “Earth”, is in the normal-case.
The base sentence is modified by the prepositional phrase sâibêth-mâ Êruvô “with assent from Eru”. The combination sâibêth-mâ is the word sâibêth “assent” and the prepositional suffix -mâ “with”. The final word Êruvô is the name Êru and the prepositional suffix -ô “of”, with the usual glide-consonant [w] (which was sometimes written “v” as mentioned on SD/434) between the u and the following suffix.