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!

Early Quenya

silqe

noun. tress of hair; (glossy) hair

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.

Derivations

  • ᴱ√SILI “*gleam” ✧ QL/083
  • ᴱ√SḶKḶ “rich, lush” ✧ QL/086

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

DevelopmentStagesSources
ᴱ√SILI > silqe[silkʷē] > [silkʷe]✧ QL/083
ᴱ√SḶKḶ² > silqe[sḷkʷē] > [sḷkʷe] > [silkʷe]✧ QL/086
Early Quenya [PE14/117; PE16/100; PME/086; QL/031; QL/035; QL/053; QL/083; QL/086] Group: Eldamo. Published by