cemen

kemen

cemen (cén) (spelt "kemen" in some sources, "cemen" in others)noun "earth" (VT44:34), Cemenyë ("k") "and Earth" (VT47:11). Cemen refers to the earth as a flat floor beneath menel, the heavens (SA:kemen); "soil, earth"_ (KEM,__LT1:257). At one stage, Tolkien intended cemen to be the genitive of cén; later cemen became the nominative, and the status of cén is uncertain. See Kementári. Locative cemessë, cemenzë (really spelt with c rather than k in one version, but also kemenze) in the Quenya Lord's Prayer; later changed to kemendë, cemendë (VT43:17)_

cemen

noun. the earth; earth, the earth; earth, [ᴹQ.] soil

Tolkien often used this Quenya word for “the Earth”, but in notes on Words, Phrases and Passages from the Lord of the Rings (WPP) from the late 1950s or early 1960s, he clarified that “kemen ‘the Earth’ [was] an apparent flat floor under menel [the Heavens]” (PE17/24). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, ᴹQ. kemen was glossed “soil, earth” (Ety/KEM), and ᴱQ. kemen had these same glosses in Early Qenya words lists from the 1910s and 20s (PE16/139; PME/46; QL/46). Thus it seems this term can be used of both “earth” in the ordinary sense of “soil” as well as “the earth”, but in the latter usage it referred more specifically to the habitable surface of the world rather than the entire planet, serving as its “floor” as opposed to the “roof” which was menel. More common terms for the entire world were Ambar and Arda.

Conceptual Development: As indicated above, Tolkien introduced this term in the 1910s, already as a derivative for the root ᴱ√KEME, and it retained this form and meaning thereafter.

cén

soil, earth

cén (cem-) ("k")noun "soil, earth"; see cemen (KEM)

kemen

earth

kemen noun "earth"; see cemen.

ar mi cemen rainë i hínin

and on earth peace, good will toward men

The second line of Alcar mi Tarmenel na Erun, Tolkien’s translation of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo prayer. The first word is ar “and”, followed by mi cemen “on earth”, more literally “✱in earth”. The fourth word is rainë “peace, good will” followed by i hínin “toward men”, more literally “✱to the children”, with hínin being the dative plural of hína “child”.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> ar mi cemen rainë i hín(a)-i-n = “✱and in earth [be] peace the child-(plural)-to”

Conceptual Development: In version I, Tolkien used the assimilated locative of kemende “on earth” instead of mi cemen as in versions II-III. He also wrote an incomplete form r... for “peace” in version I before revising it to sívë. In version II, he first wrote sérë for “peace” before changing it to rainë, the form that was also used in version III.

For “towards men”, Tolkien wrote fírimonnar in version I, the allative plural of Fírimo “mortals”, literally “✱towards mortals”. This form also appeared in version II, but it was rejected, replaced first by híniryannar, the 3rd-sg-possessive (-rya “his”) allative (-nna “towards”) plural of hína = “✱towards his children”. This in turn was replaced by i hinin with a short i (probably a slip) in version II, which was corrected to the form i hínin in version III.

|  I  |II|III| |ar| |kemende|mi kemen|mi cemen| |{r... >>} síve|{sére >>} raine|raine| |fírimonnar|{fírimonnar >> híniryannar >>} i hinin|i hínin|

The development for the word for “peace” was the basis for Arden Smith’s suggestion that version I might follow version II-III (VT44/33). The form sérë was the earliest of these words for “peace”, appearing in The Etymologies from the 1930s as ᴹQ. sére “peace”. Taken together with the incomplete form r... in version I, a plausible development would be:

> {sére >>} raine (II-III) >> {r... >>} síve (I)

However, the development of the phrase “towards men” makes more sense if the order of development were the same as the order in the page:

> fírimonnar (I) >> {fírimonnar >> híniryannar >>} i hinin (II) >> i hínin (III)

For this reason, I assume (as did Arden Smith) that the order in the page matches the order of development.

Kementári

earth-queen

Kementári noun "Earth-queen", title of Yavanna (SA:tar). The Kemen- of this name was at one stage intended as the genitive of kén, kem- "earth", so that Kementári meant "Earth's Queen", but Tolkien later changed the Quenya genitive ending from -(e)n to -o. Apparently so as to maintain the name Kementári, he turned kemen into the nominative form; see cemen.

cemi

earth, soil, land

cemi noun "earth, soil, land"; Cémi ("k")"Mother Earth" (LT1:257; the "Qenya" word cemi would correspond to cemen in LotR-style Quenya)

mar

earth

mar (1) noun "earth" (world), also "home, dwelling, mansion". Stem mard- (VT46:13, PE17:64), also seen in the ablative Mardello "from earth" (FS); the word is used with a more limited sense in oromardi "high halls" (sg. oromar, PM17:64), referring to the dwellings of Manwë and Varda on Mt. Taniquetil (Nam, RGEO:66). The initial element of Mardorunando (q.v.) may be the genitive mardo (distinguish mardo "dweller"). May be more or less identical to már "home, house, dwelling" (of persons or peoples; in names like Val(i)mar, Vinyamar, Mar-nu-Falmar, Mardil) (SA:bar, VT45:33, VT47:6). Már is however unlikely to have the stem-form mard-; a "Qenya" genitive maren appears in the phrase hon-maren, q.v., suggesting that its stem is mar-. A possible convention could therefore be to use már (mar-) for "home, house" (also when = household, family as in Mardil, q.v.), whereas mar (mard-) is used for for "earth, world". Early "Qenya" has mar (mas-) "dwelling of men, the Earth, -land" (LT1:251); notice that in LotR-style Quenya, a word in -r cannot have a stem-form in -s-.