Valinor place-name "the land (or people) of the Valar", *"Vali-land" (Vali = Valar), land of the Gods in the West (BAL, NDOR); cf. Valandor. Full form Valinórë (BAL; Vali-nórëunder NDOR).Said to be "the true Eldarin name of Aman", the latter name being explained as a borrowing from Valarin in some versions of the linguistic scenario (VT49:26). In the early "Qenya Lexicon", Valinor, Valinórë is glossed "Asgard", the name of the city of the gods in Norse mythology (LT1:272). It seems that in such more restricted use, Valinor is not the entire Blessed Realm but rather the specific region beyond the Pelóri where (most of) the Valar dwelt, with Val(i)mar as the chief city. Thus it is said of Eärendil that he "went into Valinor and to the halls of Valimar" only after he had already left his ship and ventured as far as Tirion (Silmarillion, chapter 24). Possessive Valinóreva in Nurtalë Valinóreva, the "Hiding of Valinor", the possessive case here assuming the function of object genitive (Silm); genitive Valinórëo in Yénië Valinórëo "Annals of Valinor" (MR:200; the last word was changed from Valinóren, Tolkien revising the genitive ending from -n to -o)
Quenya
valinórë
place name. Land of the Valar
Cognates
Derivations
- ✶Bali(a)nōrē “Valian folk” ✧ PE17/026; WJ/413
Element in
- Q. Nurtalë Valinóreva “the Hiding of Valinor” ✧ S/102
- Q. Yénië Valinóreo “Annals of Valinor” ✧ MR/200
Elements
Word Gloss Vala “(Angelic) Power, ‘God’, Authority, (Angelic) Power, Authority, God” nórë “land, country; †people, race, tribe, land, country, [ᴹQ.] region where certain people live, [ᴱQ.] nation; [Q.] †people, race, tribe, [ᴹQ.] folk, [ᴱQ.] family” Phonetic Developments
Development Stages Sources ✶Bali(a)nōrē > Valinórë [balinōrē] > [βalinōrē] > [βalinōre] > [valinōre] ✧ PE17/026 ✶Valinōrē > Valinóre [balinōrē] > [βalinōrē] > [βalinōre] > [valinōre] ✧ WJ/413 Variations
- Valinor ✧ Let/198; LotRI/Valinor; MRI/Valinor; PE17/020; PE17/020; PE17/020; PE17/026; PE17/074; PE17/106; PMI/Valinor; RC/217; SA/val; SI/Valinor; UTI/Valinor; WJ/413; WJI/Valinor
- Valinóre ✧ PE17/074; PE17/106; WJ/413
Valinor
the land (or people) of the valar
Valandor
the land of the valar
Valandor place-name "the land of the Valar", confused with and replaced by Valinórë "the people of the Valar", short form Valinor (SA:dôr, Silm)
valandor
place name. Land of the Valar
Cognates
- S. Balannor “Land of the Valar” ✧ PE17/026
Elements
Word Gloss Vala “(Angelic) Power, ‘God’, Authority, (Angelic) Power, Authority, God” -ndor “land, country”
Land of the Valar within Aman (S/37), a compound of Vali, an archaic plural of Vala, and nórë “land” (SA/val, dôr). It usually appeared in the shorter form Valinor. In older Quenya, this name would have meant “Valian folk”, but it was blended with archaic Valandor to get its current meaning (PE17/20, SA/dôr).
Conceptual Development: The name ᴱQ. Valinor appears in the earliest Lost Tales with essentially the same form and meaning (LT1/70), and its long form Valinōre appeared in the Qenya Lexicon (QL/66). The name ᴹQ. Valinor appeared in Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s (SM/12, 80; LR/110, 205), and in The Etymologies it already had the same derivation as given above (Ety/BAL, NDOR).
In the earlier stages, the name Aman had not yet been invented, so Valinor referred to the entire land of the West, not just the land of the Valar within it.
See ✶Bali(a)nōrē for a discussion of its complex etymology.