kemen noun "earth"; see cemen.
Quenya
cemen
kemen
kemen
earth
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 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.
Cognates
- S. ceven “Earth, earth; Earth”
Derivations
Element in
- Q. ar mi cemen rainë i hínin “and on earth peace, good will toward men” ✧ VT44/34; VT44/34; VT44/34
- Q. cemendë tambe Erumandë “on Earth as [it is] in Heaven” ✧ VT43/17; VT43/17
- Q. Cemendur “*Servant of the Earth”
- ᴺQ. cemendur “farmer”
- ᴺQ. cemenquasië “earthquake”
- ᴺQ. cempalië “earthquake”
- Q. imbi Menel Cemenyë menë Ráno tië “between Heaven and Earth goes the path of the Moon” ✧ VT47/11
- Q. Kementári “Queen of the Earth” ✧ SA/kemen
Variations
- kemen ✧ MR/387; MR/471; PE17/024; SA/kemen; VT44/34
- Kemen ✧ SDI2/Kemen; VT47/11
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.
cén
soil, earth
cén (cem-) ("k")noun "soil, earth"; see cemen (KEM)
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-.
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)_