vanwa adj. "gone, lost, no longer to be had, vanished, departed, dead, past, past and over, gone on the road, over" (WJ:366, Nam, RGEO:67, WAN, LT1:264; older wanwa, PE17:143). The word was "not applied to _dead persons _except those who would not return, either because of a special doom (as [in the case of] Men) or because of a special will of their own (as Felagund or Míriel) or a special ban of Mandos (as Feanor)" (PE17:143). Also see avanwa.
Quenya
vanwa
adjective. gone, lost, departed, vanished, past, over, no longer to be had, passed away, dead, gone, lost, departed, vanished, past, over, no longer to be had, passed away, dead, [ᴹQ.] gone for good; [ᴱQ.] on the road
vanwa
gone, lost, no longer to be had, vanished, departed, dead, past, past and over, gone on the road, over
vanwa
gone for good, departed (dead, lost)
wanwa
lost, gone
wanwa (1) _adj. older form of vanwa "lost, gone" etc. (see vanwa) (PE17:143)_
wanwa
great gale
wanwa (2) noun "great gale" _(LT1:266). This word would clash with vanwa "gone, lost" after the change of initial w > v, and since the latter is also said to come from older wanwa (PE17:143)_, this "Qenya" term for "great gale" is probably conceptually obsolete.
avanwa
refused, forbidden, banned
avanwa adj. "refused, forbidden, banned" (PE17:143), blended in meaning with vanwa, q.v.
vanwalussë
noun. past tense
auta-
verb. to go (away), depart, leave; to pass away, disappear, be lost, to go (away), depart, leave; [variant: vanya-] to pass away, disappear, be lost
A rather irregular verb whose base meaning is “go (away), depart, leave” and by extension with the senses “pass away, disappear, be lost”, derived from the invertible root √WĀ/AWA “away” (PE17/63; WJ/366). Its most notable use is in the Namárië poem where it appeared in its plural perfect form avánier “have passed” (LotR/377). The related adjective vanwa “lost, departed, vanished” appeared in the same poem. Tolkien’s desire to retain the forms avánie and vanwa likely influenced his investigation of this verb; its conceptual development is quite complex (see below).
The irregularity of this verb is due to some of its tenses being based on √AW, and others on √WĀ. Starting in the late 1950s he usually represent the base verb stem as auta- (PE17/63; PE22/164; WJ/366), such as in auta i lómë “the night is passing” from The Silmarillion (S/190). The stem form auta- was based on √AW + tă, similar to other verbs whose roots ended in y/w which usually required a formative suffix like ✶-tă (PE22/156). Such “half-strong” verbs normally had past forms with nasal-infixion before the formative suffix, in this case with primitive ✶áwa-n-tē becoming modern öante because ancient awa become öa in Quenya’s phonetic history (WJ/366-367). Tolkien posited similar perfect forms öantie or öávie (WJ/366; PE17/148; PE22/164).
In the Quendi and Eldar essay from 1959-60, Tolkien said that:
> In the more purely physical sense “went away (to another place)” the regular forms (for a -ta verb of this class) öante, öantie were used (WJ/366).
However, in this document (and others) he described another past form váne from primitive ✶wāne, derived from √WĀ rather than √AW (PE17/63; WJ/366). From this ancient past form the perfect avánie was derived, with Tolkien saying “the forms of past and perfect became progressively more closely associated in Quenya” (WJ/366). This variant of the past and perfect was associated with the adjective (originally a perfective adjective) vanwa “gone, lost, no longer to be had, vanished, departed, dead, past and over”, and from it got the meaning: “✱passed away, went away (to never return)”. It was in this sense the perfect form avánier was used in the Namárië poem.
Conceptual Development: This verb has numerous precursors in Tolkien’s earlier writings, since the original root ᴱ√AVA “go away, depart, leave” dates back to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s (QL/33). This root had a verb form ᴱQ. avin “he departs” with past form ambe (QL/33). The early root also had an inversion ᴱ√VAHA, from which an alternate past form vâ “went” was derived (QL/99). Thus the notion that the past and present forms of this verb were from inversions of the root was quite an old idea in Tolkien’s mind.
The English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s had a verb form ᴱQ. vana- “pass, depart, vanish, go away” (PE15/76). This became ᴹQ. vanya- “go, depart, disappear” in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√WAN “depart, go away, disappear, vanish” (Ety/WAN). This verb reappeared in the “Merin Sentence” from the mid-to-late 1950s: merin sa haryalyë alassë nó vanyalyë Ambarello “I hope that you have happiness before you pass from the world” (MS). It is thus likely the base verb was vanya- when Tolkien first composed the Namárië poem, and in the 1st edition of The Lord of the Rings the perfect form was vánier without the leading a (RC/341).
The verb form ᴹQ. auta- with the sense “to go away” first appeared in the Outline of Phonetic Development (OP1) from the 1940s, where it was a variant of ᴹQ. apsa- < ᴹ✶abtā- of the same meaning, a back-formation from the past form avante < ✱aba-n-tē, all based on the root ᴹ√ABA/BA “away, go away” (PE19/45). However, sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s, Tolkien revised the meaning of ᴹ√AB to “refuse, deny, say no” (Ety/AB). In the Outline of Phonology (OP2) from the early 1950s, Tolkien had a similar verbal paradigm with Q. apta < ✶ab-ta vs. Q. auta as back-formation from past avante, but in that document the past was glossed “refused, denied, said nay” (PE19/90).
The derivations of auta- “go away, depart” from the root √WĀ/AWA began to appear in documents from the late 1950s and early 1960s such as Notes on Galadriel’s Song (NGS: PE17/63), Definitive Linguistic Notes (DLN: PE17/148), and Quendi and Eldar (Q&E: WJ/365-366). He seem to stick with this paradigm going forward, but continue to experiment with various forms for different verb tenses. For example, in couple places Tolkien gave anwe as another (archaic) past along with oante (WJ/366; PE17/148). In another place he consider a variant verb ava- “depart, go away, disappear, be lost” with present avea, future auva, past vāne, and perfect avānie (PE17/63).
Neo-Quenya: It is pretty clear Tolkien intended the aorist form of this verb to be auta. In NGS Tolkien gave a future form autuva (PE17/63) and in Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 a present form autya (PE22/164). LVS had a number of -ya or -ia present tenses for various ta-formative verbs, but also said something like “make Q. ea as present tense invaded other forms” in a difficult-to-read note. I take that to mean that the -ya/-ia presents regularized to -ea across many verb classes, so I would use the present tense form ✱autea “is departing” instead and assume that †autya is archaic; see the discussion of the Quenya present tense for more details.
This verb had two past paradigms: öante “went away (to another place)” vs. váne “✱pass away, went away (to never return)”, along with associated perfects öantie vs. avánie, with the last meaning “have passed away” (RGEO/58). In the aorist, present and future tenses this distinction is frequently less relevant, because the “to never return” qualifier is necessarily unknown. Where it is relevant, however, I would use a variant stem form vanya- “to pass away, disappear, be lost”, a back-formation derived from the alternate perfect avánie, inspired by the verb form in The Etymologies and the Merin Sentence (see above).
-ië
suffix. is
-ië (3) "is", -ier "are", stative verb suffix occurring in Fíriel's Song: númessier "they are in the west", meldielto "they are...beloved", talantië "he is fallen", márië "it is good" (< *númessë "in the west", melda "beloved", *talanta "fallen"); future tense -iéva in hostainiéva "will be gathered" (< *hostaina "gathered"). Compare ye "is", yéva "will be", verbs that also occur in Fíriel's Song. This suffix is probably not valid in LotR-style Quenya: -ië is an infinitival or gerundial ending in CO, for ye "is" Namárië has ná, and the phrase "lost is" is vanwa ná, not *vanwië.
-nwa
passive suffix
-nwa is said to be "a passive suffix" irregularly occurring in the word vanwa "lost" (PE17:63), the word seems to be irregular since the underlying root means "go away" and so vanwa is in a sense a past active participle, *"having gone". Compare PE17:68.
auta-
go away, leave
auta- (1) vb. "go away, leave" (leave the point of the speaker's thought); old "strong" past tense anwë, usually replaced by vánë, perfect avánië but when the meaning is purely physical "went away (to another place)" rather than "disappear", the past tense oantë, perfect oantië was used. Past participle vanwa "gone, lost, no longer to be had, vanished, departed, dead, past and over" (WJ:366)
auta-
verb. go away
avante
verb. refused
refused, denied, said nay
lenweta-
go away, migrate, leave ones abode
lenweta- vb. "go away, migrate, leave ones abode", pa.t. lenwentë (PE17:51)
ná
is
ná (1) vb. "is" (am). (Nam, RGEO:67). This is the copula used to join adjectives, nouns or pronouns "in statements (or wishes) asserting (or desiring) a thing to have certain quality, or to be the same as another" (VT49:28). Also in impersonal constructions: ringa ná "it is cold" (VT49:23). The copula may however be omitted "where the meaning is clear" without it (VT49:9). Ná is also used as an interjection "yes" or "it is so" (VT49:28). Short na in airë [] na, "[] is holy" (VT43:14; some subject can evidently be inserted in the place of [].) Short na also functions as imperative: alcar mi tarmenel na Erun "glory in high heaven be to God" (VT44:32/34), also na airë "be holy" (VT43:14); also cf. nai "be it that" (see nai #1). The imperative participle á may be prefixed (á na, PE17:58). However, VT49:28 cites ná as the imperative form. Pl. nar or nár "are" (PE15:36, VT49:27, 9, 30); dual nát (VT49:30). With pronominal endings: nányë/nanyë "I am", nalyë or natyë "you (sg.) are" (polite and familiar, respectively), nás "it is", násë "(s)he is", nalmë "we are" (VT49:27, 30). Some forms listed in VT49:27 are perhaps to be taken as representing the aorist: nain, naityë, nailyë (1st person sg, and 2nd person familiar/polite, respectively); does a following na represent the aorist with no pronominal ending? However, the forms nanyë, nalyë, ná, nassë, nalme, nar (changed from nár) are elsewhere said to be "aorist", without the extra vowel i (e.g. nalyë rather than nailyë); also notice that *"(s)he is" is here nassë rather than násë (VT49:30).Pa.t. nánë or né "was", pl. náner/nér and dual nét "were" (VT49:6, 9, 10, 27, 28, 30, 36). According to VT49:31, né "was" cannot receive pronominal endings (though nésë "he was" is attested elsewhere, VT49:28-29), and such endings are rather added to the form ane-, e.g. anen "I was", anel "you were", anes "(s)he/it was" (VT49:28-29). Future tense nauva "will be" (VT42:34, VT49:19, 27; another version however gives the future tense as uva, VT49:30). Nauva with a pronominal ending occurs in tanomë nauvan "I will be there" (VT49:19), this example indicating that forms of the verb ná may also be used to indicate position. Perfect anaië "has been" (VT49:27, first written as anáyë). Infinitive (or gerund) návë "being", PE17:68. See also nai #1.
ye
is
ye (2) copula "is" (FS, VT46:22); both earlier and later sources rather point to ná (q.v.) as the copula "is", so ye may have been an experiment Tolkien later abandoned. Future tense yéva, q.v.
úyë
is
úyë vb., a form occurring in Fíriel's Song (cf. VT46:22), apparently ye "is" with the negative prefix ú-, hence "is not" (úyë sérë indo-ninya símen, translated "my hearth resteth not here", literally evidently *"[there] is not rest [for] my heart here")
combemen
noun. museum
An adjective whose basic sense is “gone, lost”, with numerous other similar translations such as “no longer to be had, vanished, departed, dead, past, over, gone for good”. The word vanwa is a good example of what I call an “anchor word”: a word that Tolkien established early in his development of Elvish and retained unchanged despite numerous changes in related elements of the languages. This word first appeared as part of the name ᴱQ. Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva “Cottage of the Lost Play” from the 1910s (LT1/14). Its most notable use in later writings was in the poem Namárië, where it appeared in the phrase sí vanwa ná, Rómello vanwa, Valimar! “now lost, lost to those from the east is Valimar!” (LotR/377).
Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, the adjective ᴱQ. vanwa “gone, on the road, past, over, lost” appeared under the early root ᴱ√VAHA (QL/99), itself based on the root ᴱ√AVA “go away, depart, leave” (QL/33). It reappeared in the English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s with the gloss “over, gone” (PE15/76). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, ᴹQ. vanwa “gone, departed, vanished, lost, past” was derived from the root ᴹ√WAN “depart, go away, disappear, vanish” (Ety/WAN).
In the Quenya Verbal System of the 1948, ᴹQ. vanwa “gone, over” was given as an example of the perfective participle -nwa in combination with the root ᴹ√BĀ/BANA “go, proceed” (PE22/106). Very likely this was the derivation when Tolkien wrote the Namárië poem for the 1st edition of The Fellowship of the Ring published in 1954. However, in 1959 Tolkien abandoned the root √BA(N) “go” (PE17/143). At that point Tolkien coined a new etymology for vanwa based on the invertible root √WĀ/AWA, most fully described in the Quendi and Eldar essay from 1959-60 (WJ/366). In that document Tolkien described its derivation and meaning as follows:
> This last [vanwa] was an old formation (which is also found in Sindarin), and was the most frequently used part of the verb [auta- “go away, leave”]. It developed the meanings “gone, lost, no longer to be had, vanished, departed, dead, past and over”.
Despite all these changes in its derivation and the associated roots, the adjective vanwa itself retained the same basic form and meaning throughout Tolkien’s life.