Quenya 

carca

tooth

carca noun "tooth" (KARAK) or "fang" (SA:carak-). In a deleted version of the entry in question, the glosses were "tooth, spike, peak" (VT45:19). When referring to a normal tooth, not necessarily sharp, the word nelet is probably to be preferred. Cf. also pl. carcar _("karkar") _in Markirya, there translated "rocks", evidently referring to sharp rocks. Already the early "Qenya Lexicon" has carca ("k")"fang, tooth, tusk" (LT2:344). Collective carcanë, q.v.

carca

noun. fang; [sharp] rock, fang, [ᴹQ.] tooth, [ᴱQ.] tusk; [Q.] rock

A word for “fang” (CA/carak), “tooth” (Ety/KARAK), or “tusk” (QL/48), derived from the root √KARAK of similar meaning (Ety/KARAK). In the Markirya poem from the 1960s, this word was used for “rocks” in the phrase ninqui carcar yarra “the white rocks snarling” (MC/222), but very likely this use was metaphorical for sharp rocks; in the version of the poem from around 1930, the phrase used the more ordinary word for “rocks”: ᴱQ. ondoli (MC/213). Likely the word carca is used mainly for the sharp teeth (fangs) of carnivorous animals, as opposed to ᴹQ. nelet (nelc-) as the more ordinary word for “tooth”.

Conceptual Development: The word ᴱQ. karka dates all the way back to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s where it was glossed “fang, tooth, tusk” and derived from the early root ᴱ√KṚKṚ (QL/48). It also appeared in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa with the gloss “fang” (PME/48). ᴹQ. karka “tooth” appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√KARAK “sharp fang, spike, tooth” (Ety/KARAK); an earlier version of this entry gave the root (and karka?) the glosses “tooth, spike, peak” (EtyAC/KARAK).

The noun carca is only directly attested in later writings in the 1960s Markirya poem, as noted above, but other √KARAK derivatives appeared regularly in the 1950s and 60s, such as S. carch “fang” and S. carach “jaws”.

Cognates

  • S. carch “fang, fang, [N.] tooth” ✧ SA/carak

Derivations

  • KARAK “*sharp fang, spike, tooth, [ᴹ√] sharp fang, spike, tooth” ✧ SA/carak

Element in

Phonetic Developments

DevelopmentStagesSources
carak- > carca[karka]✧ SA/carak
Quenya [MC/222; SA/carak] Group: Eldamo. Published by

nelcë

tooth

nelcë ("k")noun "tooth", also nelet (VT46:3)

nelet

tooth

nelet, also nelcë ("k")noun "tooth", pl. nelci ("k") suggesting a stem-form nelc- (NÉL-EK)