mor

root. *black, dark

morn-ʒoth

masculine name. morn-ʒoth

mǭri

noun. blackness, dark, night

morok

root. *bear

A root in The Etymologies of the 1930s serving as the basis for “bear” words: ᴹQ. morko, N. brôg, and Ilk. broga (Ety/MORÓK), replacing rejected ᴹ√MOROG (EtyAC/LIS). The primitive form ✶morokō “bear” reappeared in the Common Eldarin: Noun Structure from the early 1950s, but Tolkien wrote an “X” above it (PE21/82 and note #55). In Tolkien’s later writings it may have been replaced by ✶grā “bear” which appeared in notes from the late 1960s, but in those notes Tolkien changed the gloss of ✶grā to “dog” (VT47/12, 35). This leaves ᴹ√MOROK as the best available root for “bear”.

mori

adjective. black

morókō

noun. bear

morikwende

noun. Dark-elf

ar

root. day

A root in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “day” with various derivatives like ᴹQ. are, N. aur “day” and ᴹQ. arin “morning” (Ety/AR¹). In Tolkien’s later writings, the Quenya word for “day” became aurë (RC/727; S/190), and in 1957 Quenya Notes he devised a new etymology for these day-words from the root √UR “heat” as in ✶auri “heat, period of sun” (PE17/148). That opens the question whether the various 1930s Quenya “morning” words from ᴹ√AR remain valid, but many Neo-Quenya writers (including me) retain them since there aren’t really any good alternatives. They might be salvageable as derivatives of the later root √AS “warmth” (so that “day” = “hot” and “morning” = “warm”).

doʒ

root. night

A root in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “night” that (along with ᴹ√DOM) was the basis for the ᴹQ. lóme/N. dû “night” (Ety/DOƷ). It replaced some rejected variants ᴹ√LOƷ and ᴹ√DAW (EtyAC/LOƷ). Many of the derivatives of ᴹ√DOƷ were later assigned to other roots: N. dûr “dark” became S. dûr “dark” < √NDU “under, down” in notes from the late 1950s or early 1960s (PE17/152) and ᴹQ. lóna “dark” became Q. lúna (PE17/22). There are no signs of ᴹQ. ló “night” and N. daw “night-time, gloom” in Tolkien’s later writing. Future derivations of Q. lómë/S. dû only mention the root √DOM (PE17/152; PE22/153) and thus ᴹ√DOƷ may have been abandoned.

In a message to the Elfling mailing list from July 2012 (Elfling/362.96), David Salo suggested there might be a later root ✱√DU serving as the basis for Q. lúna “dark” and Q. lúmë “darkness”, though the latter might instead be from √LUM. Such a root ✱√DU is not attested in Tolkien writings, but if it existed, it could be a later iteration of ᴹ√DOƷ. Another possible example of the root ✱√DU is primitive ✶durnŭ “dark of hue”.

kwenedē

noun. Elf

ala-

prefix. very

dōmilindē

noun. nightingale

gālæ

noun. light

kalat

noun. light

ari

noun. day

day

root. shadow

dēr

noun. man

kwen(ed)

root. Elf

k’lā

noun. light

mbarat

root. fate

nis

root. woman

nī

noun. woman

nī̆s

noun. woman

span

root. white

wahsē

noun. stain