Elpino

christ

Elpino noun "Christ", Tolkien's attempt to render this title into Quenya; the intended etymology of the Quenya word is uncertain (VT44:15-16; Tolkien apparently dropped this form and replaced it with a phonological adaptation of "Christ": Hristo or Hrísto.)

elpino

masculine name. *Christ

a hrísto órava ómessë

Christ, have mercy on us

The second line of Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Litany of Loreto prayer (VT44/12). The first word is the vocative a “O” followed by a Quenyarization of the name of Christ: Hrísto. The phrase órava ómessë “have mercy on us” is essentially the same as in the first line; see that entry for discussion.

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

> a Hrísto órava (o)me-sse = “✱o Christ have-mercy us-on”

Conceptual Development: Tolkien first wrote Elpino as the translation of Christ (VT44/15-6). He revised this to an incomplete form Hiris before settling on Hrísto (VT44/16). As in the first line, Tolkien first used the dative ómen for “on us” before revising it to the locative ómesse (VT44/12, notes on line 2).

hristo

masculine name. *Christ

A Quenyarization of Christ appearing in Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Litany of Loreto (VT44/12). As suggested by Wynne, Smith and Hostetter, it is a phonetic adaptation from Greek Χριστός (VT44/16). It appeared with both long í and short i, but normally in Quenya a syllable ending in two consonants would have a short vowel.

Conceptual Development: This name first appeared as (rejected) Elpino. Wynne, Smith and Hostetter suggested that Elpino was probably an attempt at translating the name instead of transliteration, probably using the sense Χριστός = “Anointed” (with elp- = “anoint”), and they speculated on several possible etymologies (VT44/15-6). After rejecting Elpino, Tolkien tentatively wrote an incomplete form Hiris before settling on Hrī̆sto.

Hristo

christ

Hristo noun "Christ", Tolkien's phonological adaptation of this word to Quenya (VT44:18; also Hrísto with a long vowel, VT44:15-16)