ugru

noun. shadow

A noun translated “shadow” (SD/247), also described as “a word with the evil sense of ‘night’ or ‘dark’” (SD/306). It appears in the preprositional phrase ugru-dalad “under shadow” (SD/247) and in the draft-dative form ugrus “‽horror‽shadow” (SD/311).

êruhînim dubdam ugru-dalad

[the Children of Eru] fell under shadow

The 2nd phrase of the Lament of Akallabêth (SD/247). Tolkien did not interpret the name Êruhînim in any version of the text, but elsewhere it is glossed “Children of God (Eru)” (SD/248). Tolkien’s gloss was “‽ fell ‽shadow under/beneath”, with the translation of the last word differing slightly in the typescript (SD/247) and manuscript (VT24/12). In ordinary English the phrase might be “the Children of Eru fell under shadow”.

The subject Êruhînim of the sentence is the subjective plural form of #Êruhin. The verb dubdam seems to be in the aorist form of #dubud- “to fall”, glossed in past tense because it is in a narrative occurring in the past. The verb has the plural marker -m in agreement with the number of the subject. The word dalad “under, beneath” is suffixed to the noun it modifies, as is usual of Adûnaic prepositions.

The previous (second draft) version of this sentence (SD/312) differs only in its use of the verb form dubbudam (past tense) instead of the final version’s form dubdam (aorist). The first draft version used all the same words but differed in its grammar.

nâlu

noun. shadow

A noun attested only in the compound agannâlô “death-shadow [is]” (SD/247, VT24/12). The first element of the compound, agan “death”, as identified elsewhere (SD/426), so the remaining element must mean “shadow”. The compound is the subject of the sentence agannâlô burôda nênud “death-shadow [is] heavy on us” and is therefore in the subjective case. According the grammatical rules of Lowdham’s Report, the only possibly normal form producing this subjective is nâlu: compare nîlu “moon” to its subjective form nîlô (SD/431).

Conceptual Development: In early writings, the compound was (non-subjective) agannūlo, so that the apparent draft form of this noun was nūlo. A similar form nūlu appears on SD/306, described only as “a word with the evil sense of ‘night’ or ‘dark’”. It could be a separate word or another variation of this word, with the development nūlo >> nūlu >> nālu. Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynne suggested (AAD/21) that the earlier forms may be related to ᴹQ. nulla “dark, dusky, obscure”.