Noldorin
gwanw
noun. death (act of dying, not death as a state or abstract)
gwanw
noun. death (act of dying)
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources ᴹ✶wanwē > gwanw [wanwē] > [wanwe] > [gwanwe] > [gwanw] > [gwanu] ✧ Ety/WAN
gwanath
noun. death (act of dying, not death as a state or abstract)
gwanath
noun. death (act of dying)
Derivations
- ᴹ√WAN “depart, go away, disappear, vanish” ✧ Ety/WAN
Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources ᴹ√WAN > gwanath [wanatta] > [wanattʰa] > [wanaθθa] > [gwanaθθa] > [gwanaθθ] > [gwanaθ] ✧ Ety/WAN
guruth
noun. death
guruth
noun. death
Derivations
Element in
- N. Gurtholf “Wand of Death” ✧ Ety/ÑGUR
- N. gurth i Morthu “*death (of) ?Sauron” ✧ RS/186
- N. guruthos “fear of death”
Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources On. ngurtu > guruth [ŋgurtu] > [ŋgurtʰu] > [ŋgurθu] > [gurθu] > [gurθu] > [gurθu] > [guruθ] ✧ Ety/ÑGUR Variations
- Gurth ✧ RS/186
gûr
noun. death
There were a couple of words for “death” under the root ᴹ√WAN “depart” in The Etymologies of the 1930s: N. gwanath and gwanw, the latter from primitive ᴹ√wanwē (Ety/WAN). Tolkien specified that these words referred to the “act of dying”, as opposed to guru which was “Death as a state or abstract”. These death-words from ᴹ√WAN may originally have been euphemistic, or perhaps they refer to the departure of Elvish spirits to Valinor.
Neo-Sindarin: Most Neo-Sindarin writers adapted N. gwanw as ᴺS. gwanu to better fit Sindarin spelling conventions, as suggested in HSD (HSD). I would use the words gwanath and gwanu only for the death of individuals, and mainly for deaths that are natural or peaceful. For violent deaths I would use gurth instead, and for the state of death or Death as an abstraction I would use guru as noted above.