ono

but

ono conj. "but" (VT43:23, VT44:5/9)

ono

conjunction. but

ono alyë eterúna me illumë ilya raxellor

but deliver us always from all dangers

The third line of Ortírielyanna, Tolkien’s translation of the Sub Tuum Praesidium prayer. The first word is the conjunction ono “but”. The second word alyë is 2nd-person-polite form of the imperative particle á. The third word eterúna is the aorist/infinitive form of the verb eterúna- “to deliver”. The fourth word is the pronoun me “us”.

The fourth word is the adverb illumë “always”, while the fifth word is the adjective ilya “all”. The last word raxellor “from dangers” is the ablative (-llo “from”) plural form of raxë “danger”. The final -r marks it as plural (“dangers”), so it is odd that the preceding adjective is not also plural, but it seems to be the rule that adjectives are not declined into the plural when they modify a noun that is itself in a noun case; see the discussion on Quenya adjectives.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> ono a-lye eterúna me illume ilya raxe-llo-r = “✱but do-thou deliver us always all danger-from-(plural)”

Conceptual Development: The verb was first written eterunna >> eteruńna, which Wynne, Smith and Hostetter concluded was a slip for eterúna, the form of the verb as it appeared in the Átaremma prayer (VT44/9). The pronoun “us” changed from dative men >> uninflected me (VT44/5). Tolkien consider two other forms for “always”: vora >> vore before settling on illumë. The word for “from dangers” was first written raxalellor >> raxellor, apparently changing the underlying noun raxalë >> raxë (VT44/9).

mal ámë etelehta ulcullo: násië

but deliver us from evil: Amen

The tenth line of Átaremma, Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The conjunction mal “but” is followed by a combination of imperative particle á and the pronoun me “us”. This is followed by the aorist form of the verb etelehta “deliver” and ulcullo “from evil”, the ablative form of the noun ulco (perhaps a noun form of ulca). The final word násië, corresponding to English “Amen”, seems to be a Quenya word meaning “✱be it thus”.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> mal á-më ete-lehta ulcu-llo: násië = “✱but (imperative)-us out-free evil-from: amen”

Conceptual Development: The tenth line underwent more changes than any other line in the prayer. In version III of the prayer, this phrase was first written as a near match to the phrase in version IIb, but was radically altered to a form that persisted to version IV. The analysis below designates these two variations of version III as IIIa and IIIb.

In earlier versions of the prayer, the word for “but” was mostly ono (IIa-IV), though in version I it was {anat >>} one, and it was elided to on’ in version IIIa.

The earlier imperative element was either na (I-IIa) or a (IIIb-IV), and it appeared either before the verb (I-IIa, IIIb-IV) or in the middle of the verb (IIb-IIIa) as et·a·rúna.

The object pronoun me consistently appeared immediately after the verb in the versions I-IV of the prayer rather than before the verb as in version V-VI.

The early versions (I-IV) used a different verb et(e)rúna for “deliver”, still in the aorist tense but in (IIIb-IV) with an embedded imperative et·a·rúna, as noted above.

Tolkien earlier considered several words for “evil”: olca (I deleted), ulca (I), ulco (IIa) and úro (IIa-IV), the last of these possibly a noun form of úra “nasty”. These appeared either with the allative suffix -llo (I) or the preposition va “(away) from” (IIa-IV). In versions IIIb-IV only, the prepositional phrase va úro appeared before the verb rather than after.

Quenya words corresponding to “Amen” appeared only in a few versions: san na (IIa), násan (IIb) and násië (VI), each meaning something like “✱be it thus” or “✱be it so”.

| |  I  |IIa|IIb|IIIa|IIIb|IV|V|VI| |{anat >>}|one|ono|on’|ono|mal| |na etrúna me|et·a·rúna me|va úro|ám’ etelehta|áme etelehta| |{olcallo >>}|ulcallo|va ulco|{var-úra >>} va úro|aly’ eterúna me|ulcullo| | |san na|násan| |násie|

onta-

verb. beget, create

onta- (pa.t. ónë or ontanë) vb. "beget, create" (ONO, PE17:170)

ónë

beget, create

ónë one pa.t. of onta- vb. "beget, create" (the pa.t. may also be ontanë) (ONO)

anat

but

anat conj. "but" (VT43:23; possibly an ephemeral form)

apa

but

apa (3) conj. "but": melinyes apa la hé "I love him but not him" (another) (VT49:15)

apa

conjunction. but

mal

but

mal conj. "but" (VT43:23)

mal

conjunction. but

nan

but

nan conj. "but" (FS); the Etymologies also gives ná, nán (NDAN), but these words may be confused with forms of the verb "to be", so nan should perhaps be preferred, unless for "but" one uses the wholly distinct word mal. In Tolkien's later Quenya, it may be that he introduced new words for "but" to free up nan for another meaning (perhaps the adverb "back", compare the prefix nan-).

nosta-

verb. beget

nosta- vb., variously glossed "beget" (SD:73) or passive "be begotten" (PE17:170); in earlier "Qenya" the gloss was "give birth" (LT1:272)

ná

but, on the contrary, on the other hand

ná (2), also nán, conj. "but, on the contrary, on the other hand" (NDAN; the form nan, q.v., is probably to be preferred to avoid confusion with ná "is", *nán "I am").

nó

but

nó (2) conj. "but" (VT41:13)

nó

conjunction. but

onë

but

onë conj. "but" (VT43:23)

onë

conjunction. but

sarda

hard

sarda adj. "hard" (VT39:17); pl. sardë "hards" may be used in the same sense as sarda tengwi, q.v. (As an independent form we would rather expect a nominal pl. sardar.)

torna

hard

#torna adj. "hard", as in tornanga (q.v.), seemingly -storna after prefixes ending in a vowel, as in the comparative forms aristorna, anastorna (PE17:56; the forms are untranslated and may not necessarily be the same adjective "hard".)

torna

adjective. hard

urda

hard, difficult, arduous

urda adj. "hard, difficult, arduous" (PE17:154)