Early Quenya
silqe
noun. tress of hair; (glossy) hair
Derivations
Element in
- Eq. andesilqe “long-haired, long-tressed” ✧ QL/031
- Eq. eldasilqe “maidenhair fern, (lit.) elf tress” ✧ QL/035
- Eq. silqeléni “silver birch, (lit.) long tresses” ✧ QL/053; QL/083
- Eq. silqelossea “with hair like white flowers” ✧ PE16/100
Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources ᴱ√SILI > silqe [silkʷē] > [silkʷe] ✧ QL/083 ᴱ√SḶKḶ² > silqe [sḷkʷē] > [sḷkʷe] > [silkʷe] ✧ QL/086
A word for “glossy hair” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s derived from the early root ᴱ√SḶKḶ (QL/86), also mentioned with the same gloss in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa (PME/86). The word also appeared under the root ᴱ√SILI with the gloss “tress of hair”, but there it was marked with a “?” indicating uncertainty on Tolkien’s on which root was the basis of the word (QL/83).
It appeared in a list of body parts from the 1920s as a general word for “hair” (PE14/117). It also appeared in a vocabulary list for drafts of the ᴱQ. Earendel poem towards the end of the 1920s, with the gloss “tress” (PE16/100). It appeared as an element in the word ᴱQ. silqelosseën “with blossom-white hair” in the final version of the poem (MC/216). There is no sign of this word after that point.