Primitive elvish
wā/awa
root. away (from); go (away), depart, pass away, move (from speaker); before (of time), ago, away (from); go (away), depart, pass away, move (from speaker); before (of time), ago; [ᴹ√] forth, out
Derivatives
- ✶au- “away” ✧ WJ/361
- ✶awa- “away” ✧ PE17/143; WJ/365
- ✶awā “away” ✧ WJ/361; WJ/365
- ✶ăwă “from” ✧ PE17/148
- ✶awta-
- Q. auta- “to go (away), depart, leave; to disappear, be lost, pass away” ✧ PE17/063; WJ/366; WJ/366
- ✶wanwa “gone, taken away, lost, departed” ✧ PE17/143
- Q. vanwa “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” ✧ PE17/143; PE22/137
- Q. au- “away (from)” ✧ PE17/024; VT49/24
- Q. au “away, off, not here (of position)” ✧ PE17/143; PE17/148
- Q. auta “ago” ✧ PE22/168
- Q. auta- “to go (away), depart, leave; to disappear, be lost, pass away” ✧ PE17/063; PE17/063; PE17/148; WJ/365
- Q. autas “a former occur[rence]” ✧ PE22/168
- Q. ava “*outer, [ᴹQ.] outside, beyond; outer, exterior”
- Q. öa “away (of movement)” ✧ PE17/024
- Q. öar “away from” ✧ WJ/364
- Q. va “(away) from, (away) from, [ᴹQ.] away, [ᴱQ.] gone forth; with” ✧ VT49/24
- ᴹQ. va “away”
- S. gwae- “to go, depart” ✧ PE17/148
- ᴺS. gwanwas “the past, past days, olden times”
- S. gwanwen “departed, departed, *gone, lost [to time], past”
- S. o “from, of” ✧ PE17/024; WJ/366
- T. auta- “to go, depart, pass away” ✧ WJ/365
Element in
- ᴺQ. avatup- “to uncover, expose”
Variations
- awa ✧ PE17/024; PE22/168 (
awa); PE22/168; VT49/24; WJ/366- AWA ✧ PE17/063; PE17/063; PE17/148; PE22/167; WJ/361; WJ/364; WJ/365; WJ/368
- AWA/WĀ ✧ PE17/143; PE17/148; PE17/148
- WĀ ✧ PE17/189
- awa/wā ✧ VT42/32
- wā- ✧ WJ/361
- wā ✧ WJ/366
This invertible root and ones like it were the basis for “away” words for much of Tolkien’s life. The earliest iteration was ᴱ√AVA “go away, depart, leave” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with derivatives like ᴱQ. au “away from” and ᴱQ. avanwa “going, passing, nearly gone” (QL/33). This early root remanifested as ᴹ√AB “go away, depart, leave” in The Etymologies of the 1930s, but the gloss of that root was revised to “refuse, deny” (Ety/AB). As a replacement, Tolkien introduced ᴹ√AWA “away, forth; out” with derivatives like ᴹQ. ava “outside”; Tolkien also considered deriving a privative prefix ᴹQ. ava- from this root (Ety/AWA).
The root √AWA was mentioned many times in Tolkien’s later writings, along with its inverted variant √WĀ, usually with the sense “away (from)” or a verbal sense “go (away), depart, pass away”. Its most detailed description appeared in the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60, where Tolkien said:
> The element ✱AWA ... referred to movement away, viewed from the point of view of the thing, person, or place left. As a prefix it had probably already developed in CE the form ✱au-. The form ✱awa was originally an independent adverbial form, but appears to have been also used as a prefix (as an intensive form of ✱awa-, ✱au-). The form ✱wā- was probably originally used as a verbal stem, and possibly also in composition with verbal stems (WJ/361).
In this same document Tolkien said of Sindarin that:
> The only normal derivative [of √AWA] is the preposition o, the usual word for “from, of”. None of the forms of the element ✱awa are found as a prefix in S, probably because they became like or the same as the products of ✱wō, ✱wo (WJ/366).
Indeed, most of the attested derivatives of this root are in Quenya, but there are a couple in Sindarin, such as the aforementioned S. o from AWA, as well S. gwanwen “departed” (WJ/378) and the verb S. gwae- “go”, probably only in the limited sense “depart” (PE17/148), both from WĀ.
In late notes from 1969 Tolkien gave the root √AWA the sense “before or ago (of time)” (PE22/167 note #117; PE22/168), but I suspect this was a transient idea.