man pron. "who" (Nam, RGEO:67, FS, LR:59, Markirya, MC:213, 214); cf. PM:357 note 18, where a reference is made to the Eldarin interrogative element ma, man). However, man is translated "what" in LR:59: man-ië? "what is it?" (LR:59; the stative-verb suffix -ië_ is hardly valid in LotR-style Quenya) _Either Tolkien later adjusted the meaning of the word, or man covers both "who" and "what". Cf. also mana, manen.
Quenya
man
pronoun. who, who; [ᴹQ.] what
man
who
mana
pronoun. what, what, which; [ᴹQ.] who
A Quenya word for “what”, used as both a pronoun and an adjective “which”. Examples include mana i coimas Eldaron? “What is the ‘coimas’ of the Eldar?” (PM/395) and mana arano? “Which king’s” (PE23/135). ᴹQ. mana was an adjectival interrogative “what, which” in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 (PE23/105), but could also be used substantially for “what” (PE23/104).
In the sense “which” (indicating a choice) it was used together with the genitive, such as mana tana márion “which of those house”. But it could also be used as a direct adjective: mana nér “what man”. Inflicted forms are generally based on the base interrogative element ma, as in masse “where” using the locative suffix -ssë.
sí man i yulmar n(g)wen enquantuva
*who now will refill the cups for us (dual)
lér
man
**lér noun "man" (NI1; hypothetical Q form of PQ dēr; the form actually used in Quenya was nér)
nér
man
nér (1) (ner-, as in pl. neri) noun "man" (adult male elf, mortal, or of other speaking race) (MR:213, VT49:17, DER, NDER, NI1, VT45:9; see also WJ:393)
vëo
man
†vëo noun "man" (WEG; etymologically connected to vëa "manly, vigorous"; the more neutral word for "man" is nér. According to VT46:21, Tolkien indicated that vëo is an archaic or poetic word.) Tolkien at a later point defined the word as "living creature" (PE17:189). Cf. variant wëo, q.v.
nér
noun. man
aratan
masculine name. *Noble Man
atan
noun. Man, (lit.) the Second (People)
This is the most common Quenya word for “Man” as a species, most frequently appearing in its plural form Atani (LotR/1034). In notes on Words, Phrases and Passages from the Lord of the Rings (WPP) from the late 1950s or early 1960s, Tolkien wrote:
> The name Atan, pl. atani was already given in Quenya in Valinor to the “Second Kindred” whom the Eldar learned were to appear (or had appeared) in Endor. It meant “the Second”. The Sindar had no name for Men, until they arrived in Beleriand and were first found by Finrod. They borrowed the Q atan and gave it Sindarin form adan. For a long time this word therefore referred only to the three “houses” or kindreds of the “Elf-friends” or Elendili; and always tended to refer primarily to them. But when the Eldar became aware of other kinds of Men (more or less parallel to their own division into Eldar and Avari) they distinguished the Elendili as Núnatani, Dúnedain (pl. of Dún·adan) “western men” ... Other men were called Hrónatani, Rhúnedain [Easterlings] (PE17/18).
Thus while Atan applied to all humans, there was a bias towards considering the Elf-friends as the “true Men”, and Atan was sometimes used only to refer to them. Tolkien typically translated this word as “Man”, but the Elvish word has no particular association with the male gender, and actually means “the Second” (S/103; WJ/403; PE17/18) being related to the word atta “two”, referring to the fact that Men were the second-born race of the children of Eru.
Conceptual Development: ᴹQ. Atan seems to have been coined in the 1940s, for example appearing in the phrase ᴹQ. atani koitar endoresse “men live in Middle-earth” in the Quenya Verbal System document from this period (PE22/125).
The last description of this word’s origin appeared in notes from the late 1960s, where Tolkien said it was instead borrowed from the language of Men: “The name is said to have been derived from atan ‘man, human being as distinct from creatures’, a word used by that kindred which the Eldar first encountered in Beleriand” (PM/324 note #38).
However, as pointed out by Christopher Tolkien: “The statement here that Atani was derived from a word in the Bëorian language, atan ‘man’, contradicts what was said in the chapter Of the Coming of Men into the West that was added to the Quenta Silmarillion”, referring to the footnote on WJ/219 in Silmarillion drafts from the 1950s. This footnote was the same scenario as described above where Atan meant “the Second”, which is also how the origin of the word was described in the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60 (WJ/386). It is this scenario that Christopher Tolkien used in the published version of the Silmarillion (S/103, 143; SI/Atani).
atanalcar
masculine name. *Man Glory
atanamir
masculine name. *Man Jewel
elatan
masculine name. *Star Man
hallatan
masculine name. *Tall Man
nér
noun. man, male person (of any kindred: elf, human or dwarf), man, male person; [ᴹQ.] adult male; [ᴱQ.] husband; warrior
The Quenya word for a “man”, or more specifically a person of male gender of any kindred (WJ/393; PE23/87). This word is derived from the root √N(D)ER, and the é is long in Quenya as a remnant of the lengthened vowel in the primitive subjective form ndēr, but the stem form is ner- because the vowel was not long in ancient inflective forms (PE19/102). Thus the singular is nér but the plural is neri (MR/213), and likewise for other inflected forms. Nér can be used regardless of species and so is equally applicable to male Elves, Men, or Dwarves, but is unlikely to be used of male animals, for which the word [ᴹQ.] hanu is more applicable.
Conceptual Development: This word was very well established in Tolkien’s mind, appearing as ᴱQ. ner “man, husband” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s under the early root ᴱ√NERE (QL/65), though in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa it was glossed “warrior, etc.” (PME/65). The long/short vowel variation had emerged by the time the Early Qenya Grammar was written in the 1920s, where Tolkien gave singular nēr but plural nĕri (PE14/43, 72).
The Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s has this same long/short vowel split (PE21/20) as does The Etymologies from later in the 1930s which had ᴹQ. nér with plural neri as derivatives of the root ᴹ√(N)DER (Ety/DER). This remained the case in later writings as well, except that the unstrengthened form of the root changed from ᴹ√DER to √NER (WJ/393), though this only barely matters, since the actual derivatives were all from strengthened √NDER in pretty much all cases from the 1930s forward.
Elatan
star-man
Elatan, masc. name *"Star-man", cf. atan (UT:210)
Ercambo
one-hand man
Ercambo ("k") masc. name "one-hand Man" (VT47:7), the equivalent of Sindarin Erchamon, Erchamion as a title of Beren
Hallatan
tall man
Hallatan masc. name, apparently "tall man": halla + atan (UT:210)
Tarcil
high-man
Tarcil ("k") (#Tarcild-, as in pl. Tarcildi) masc. name, "high-Man", also used as a term for Númenórean (Appendix A, TUR, KHIL, VT46:17, PE17:101; the latter source provides the gloss "Great Man of Numenor"; tarcil(di) = "high-men = Elf-friends of Númenor"). Cf. the variant tarhildi, q.v.
aráto
champion, eminent man
aráto noun "champion, eminent man" (SA:ar(a) )
callo
noble man, hero
callo ("k")noun "noble man, hero" (KAL)
firë
mortal man
firë noun "mortal man" (PHIR), pl. firi given (the latter is not clearly glossed and may also be the archaic form from which firë is derived, since word-final short i became e in Quenya but since we would rather expect the spelling phiri if it were an archaic form, it is best taken as the pl. of firë.)
hanu
male (of men or elves), male animal, man
hanu noun "a male (of Men or Elves), male animal, man" (3AN, VT45:16)
istyar
scholar, learned man
istyar noun "scholar, learned man" (IS). According to VT45:18, Tolkien at one point also meant istyar to be the name of Tengwa #13 with overposed dots to indicate a palatal sound; the letter would thus have the value sty. However, according to the classical Tengwar spelling of Quenya as outlined in LotR Appendix E, such a letter would rather have the value *nty (since #13 is there assigned the value nt in Quenya).
nercë
little man
nercë ("k")noun "little man", a diminutive of nér (VT47:33). VT48:18 seems to hint that -cë is to be derived from older -ki; if so, nercë should have the stem-form nerci-. Compare wenci.
nercë
noun. little man
nerdo
large, strong man
nerdo noun "large, strong man" (compare nér) (VT47:33)
nernehta
man-spearhead
nernehta noun "man-spearhead", a battle-formation (UT:282)
nerwen
feminine name. Man-maiden
quendu
elvish man
quendu noun *"Elvish man", pl. quendur given (MR:229; changed by Tolkien from quendo pl. quendor). Compare fem. quendi.
quén
one, (some)body, person, individual, man or woman
quén (quen-, as in pl. queni; as final element in compounds -quen) noun "one, (some)body, person, individual, man or woman", pl. queni = "persons", "(some) people", "they" with the most general meaning (as in "they [= people in general] say that..."). The element is combined with noun and adjective stems in old compounds to denote habitual occupations or functions, or to describe those having some notable (permanent) quality; examples include roquen, ciryaquen, arquen, q.v. Also in aiquen "whoever", ilquen "everybody" (WJ:361 cf. 360, 372).
vëaner
(adult) man
vëaner noun "(adult) man" (WEG)
nernehta
noun. man-spearhead
aráto
noun. champion, eminent man, noble, lord, king
farino
noun. hunted man, outlaw
atannahtar
noun. man-slayer
penno
noun. poor man
A neologism for a “poor man” coined by Tamas Ferencz appearing in VQP (VQP) derived from √PEN “lack”.
salyon(do)
noun. hero, dauntless man
men
who
men (3) pron. "who", evidently a misreading or miswriting for man (MC:221, in Markirya)
vielóra
noun. eunuch
ye
who
ye (1) singular personal relative pronoun "who", maybe also object "whom" (plural form i). Compare the impersonal form ya. Also attested in the genitive and the ablative cases: yëo and yello, both translated "from whom" (though the former would also mean *"whose, of whom"). (VT47:21)
ye
pronoun. who
yá
when
yá (2) conj. "when" in the sentence yá hrívë tenë, ringa ná "when winter comes, it is cold" (VT49:23). Compare írë #2.
yá
conjunction. when
A relative conjunction “when” appearing in various phrases in Tolkien’s writings of the 1950s and 60s, a vowel-lengthened form of the relative pronoun ya.
Conceptual Development: Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 had ᴹQ. í glossed “(relative) at the time mentioned, at the same time”, a vowel-lengthened form of the relative pronoun ᴹQ. i (PE23/109). This was also given the gloss “when, whenever” in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from this same period (PE22/121). Earlier still, ᴹQ. íre was used as the relative conjunction “when” in Fíriel’s Song of the 1930s. In the Early Qenya Grammar it seems ᴱQ. yan “when” served this function (PE14/59).
í(qua), illume, iquallume
conjunction. when, whenever
írë
when
írë (2) conj. "when" (subordinate conjunction, not question-word: írë Anarinya queluva, "when my sun faileth") (FS). Compare yá #2.
malumë
adverb. when
túro
noun. guy, dude, bloke, fellow
A neologism for “guy, dude, bloke, fellow” coined by Fëastorno posted on 2025-03-10 in the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), inspired by Tolkien’s frequent use in the 1940s of the name Túro in various example sentences. As a noun for “guy” it is only intended for modern use, outside the legendarium.
The most common Quenya word for “who”, most notably appearing in the Namárië poem in the phrase sí man i yulma nin enquantuva? “who now shall refill the cup for me?” (LotR/377). It is based on the interrogative element ma (PE17/68). Man might be a general interrogative element “who, what, which”; at one point Tolkien said man was a reduction of mana before vowels (PE23/135). However, in the Markirya, man was used for “who” before consonants, such as man tiruva fána cirya “Who shall heed a white ship?” (MC/222).
In writings from the 1930s and 40s, man was used for “what” (LR/59, 72) or as a general interrogative marker (PE23/99). However, it was used for “who” in the versions of the Oilima Markirya from around 1930 (MC/213-214).
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would mostly use man in the sense “who”, before both consonants and vowels. For “what” I would use mana, and as a general interrogative marker I’d use ma. In cases where you want an unambiguous word for “who = what person”, I would use mamo.