coimas

noun. life-bread, lembas

A Quenya term for “lembas” (Elven waybread) but of different etymological origins appearing in notes from the 1950s, a combination of √KOY “live” and a reduced form of massa or masta “bread” (PM/395, 403-4). As such, its stem form is likely to be either coimass- or coimast-; I prefer the first of these. Tolkien also had Q. lerembas in notes from the 1960s as a more direct cognate of S. lembas (PE17/51).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya I’d stick to coimas, as the etymology of lerembas is rather muddled.

coimas

life-bread

coimas noun "life-bread" = Sindarin lembas(SA:cuivië, PM:395); coimas Eldaron "the coimas of the Eldar" (PM:395)

mana i coimas eldaron?

What is the ‘coimas’ of the Eldar?

mana i·coimas in·eldaron?

What is the ‘coimas’ of the Eldar?

in

the coimas [lembas] of the eldar

in article, apparently a variant of the definite article i, observed in the phrase i-coimas in-Eldaron "the coimas [lembas] of the Eldar" in PM:403. It looks like the Sindarin plural article, but in Quenya i normally covers both sg. and pl. "the", and the word Eldar does not need any article at all. The alternative reading i-coimas Eldaron (PM:395) is probably to be preferred.

lerembas

lembas

lerembas noun "lembas" (waybread of the Elves) (PE17:52); in a later source, the Quenya word for lembas is however given as coimas, q.v.

mana

what is

mana interogative, a word translated "what is" in the sentence mana i-coimas Eldaron[?] "what is the coimas (lembas) of the Eldar?" (PM:395, a variant reading in PM:403) Either this is *ma "what" + ná "is", or mana may itself be a unitary word "what", and there is not really any word meaning "is" in the sentence. Since ma is assigned other meanings elsewhere, the latter interpretation may be the more likely.