Middle Primitive Elvish
thel(es)
root. sister
Derivatives
Element in
- Q. meletheldë “love-sister”
- ᴹQ. oselle “[sworn] sister, associate [f.]” ✧ Ety/WŌ
Variations
- THEL ✧ Ety/THEL; Ety/TOR; Ety/WŌ
- THELES ✧ Ety/THEL
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!
Tolkien gave this root in The Etymologies of the 1930s as ᴹ√THEL and extended form ᴹ√THELES with the gloss “sister” and derivatives like ᴹQ. seler and N. thêl of the same meaning, both derived from the extended root as made clear by the Noldorin plural thelei < ON. thelehi (Ety/THEL). Hints of the roots continued use appear in the 1959 term Q. meletheldi “love-sisters” for close female friends (NM/20). In notes from the late 1960s, Tolkien gave Q. nésa and S. nethel as the words for “sister”, both from the root √NETH. Nevertheless, I think it is worth retaining ᴹ√THEL(ES) to represent more abstract notions of “sisterhood” for the purposes of Neo-Eldarin, for “metaphorical sister”s as opposed to Q. nésa/S. nethel for sisters by blood.