Middle Primitive Elvish
nyad
root. gnaw
nyadrō
noun. rat
Beware, older languages below! The languages below were invented during Tolkien's earlier period and should be used with caution. Remember to never, ever mix words from different languages!
Beware, older languages below! The languages below were invented during Tolkien's earlier period and should be used with caution. Remember to never, ever mix words from different languages!
nyad
root. gnaw
nyadrō
noun. rat
A root in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “gnaw”, with derivatives like ᴹQ. nyarro/N. nâr “rat” (Ety/NYAD; EtyAC/NYAD).
Conceptual Development: The verb [ᴹQ.] ñwara- “gnaw, erode, wear away” may reflect a shift in this root, perhaps to ✱√ÑGWAD; it appeared in the Outline of Phonetic Development (OP1) from the 1940s without a specified primitive form and its gloss was a red-ink revision to that document (PE19/36 and note #41). By the Outline of Phonology (OP2) of the 1950s, the gloss of the verb Q. ñware became “frets, wears away” and its primitive form was explicitly ✶ñgwar- (PE19/76).
Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin, I prefer to retain ᴹ√NYAD “gnaw”. However, see the entry on how [[at|y was lost after dentals in [1930s] Telerin and Noldorin]] for a discussion of Tolkien’s abandonment of initial labialized dentals in Primitive Elvish.