Adûnaic

zimraphel

feminine name. *Jewel Daughter

The daughter of Ar-Inziladûn (Tar-Palantir), who would have been the 25th ruler of Númenor had the throne not been usurped by her cousin Ar-Pharazôn (UT/224). Her Quenya name Tar-Míriel seems to mean “✱Jewel’s Daughter”. If her Adûnaic name has the same meaning, then the first element zimra probably means jewel and the second element -phel might mean “-daughter”, though it could simply be a general feminine suffix.

Conceptual Development: In her earliest appearance in the Tolkien’s stories, this character was called ᴹQ. (Tar-)Ilien (LR/27, SD/335, SD/351). Tolkien gave her the name Ad. Ar-Zimrahil after he invented the Adûnaic language (SD/373). The suffix -hil in this version of the name might be a feminine form of the patronymic -hin. In later material appearing in the published version of The Silmarillion, her Adûnaic name was changed to Zimraphel. This final version of the name is inconsistent with the phonetic rules laid out by Tolkien in Lowdham’s Report, which said that the vowels ] and ] could only be long in Adûnaic (SD/423).

Adûnaic [PMI/Ar-Zimraphel; SD/373; SDI2/Ar-Zimrahil; SDI2/Ar-Zimraphel; SDI2/Tar-Míriel; SI/Ar-Zimraphel; UTI/Ar-Zimraphel] Group: Eldamo. Published by

zimrathôn

masculine name. ?Many-jewels

The son of Ar-Adûnakhôr and the 21st ruler of Númenor, whose Quenya name was Tar-Hostamir “✱Many-jewels” (UT/222). The first element zimra “jewel” of his Adûnaic name seems to have the same meaning as the last element -mir of his Quenya name. The first element ᴹQ. hosta of his Quenya name means a “large number”, and this might be the meaning of the last element -thôn of his Adûnaic name, as suggested by Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynn (AAD/23).

Andreas Moehn instead suggested (EotAL/ZIM’R) that the final element -ôn may be the same as the final element of Pharazôn and that the entire name is an agental-formation of an unattested verb ✱zimrathâ- “gather jewels”. This makes the literal meaning “✱Jewel-gatherer”, which fits if you assume (as Mr. Moehn suggested) that the initial element of Quenya name is actually the verb Q. hosta- “to gather” so that Hostamir = “✱Gather-jewels”.

Adûnaic [LotRI/Ar-Zimrathôn; UTI/Ar-Zimrathôn] Group: Eldamo. Published by

zimra Reconstructed

noun. jewel

An element appearing in the names Zimraphel (UT/224) and Zimrathôn (UT/222) and also the Hadorian name Zimrahin (WJ/234). The corresponding Quenya names Q. Míriel and Q. Hostamir both seem to contain mírë “jewel”, so this is the likely meaning of the Adûnaic word as well, as suggested by most authors (AAD/25, AL/Adûnaic, EotAL/ZIM’R).