cáfru

noun. ?flea

An unglossed word appearing as S. cāfru in a note from around 1962 derived from primitive (or Old Sindarin) ✶camprû illustrating the loss of nasals before clusters.

Conceptual Development: In a post from a now-defunct forum from 2009, I saw a suggestion that this word was a later iteration of ᴱN. caifr “flea” likewise derived from primitive ᴱ✶kampru, and mentioned in both the Early Qenya Phonology and Early Noldorin Word-lists of the 1920s (PE13/140; PE14/66). It seems in the 1920s the vanishing m resulted in the diphthong ai, but in the 1920s the long vowel ā.

Neo-Sindarin: I would use the 1962 word as the basis for “flea” in Neo-Sindarin, but it is unusual in that (a) it has a long vowel before a cluster and (b) retains the ancient final vowel u. As such, I would assume the ā shortened and the u vanished, and adapt this word as ᴺS. cafor, with the final r becoming syllabic as usual.

Cognates

• ᴺQ. campo “flea”

Derivations

• ✶kamprū “*flea” ✧ PE17/131
  • ᴹ√KAP “leap, leap, [ᴱ√] spring”

Phonetic Developments

Development	Stages	Sources
✶camprû > camfrū > cāfru	[kamprū] > [kampru] > [kampʰru] > [kamɸru] > [kamfru] > [kafru]	✧ PE17/131

Variations

• cāfru ✧ PE17/131