Quenya
ar ámen apsenë úcaremmar
and forgive us our trespasses
Element in
- Q. Átaremma
Elements
Word Gloss ar “and, and; [ᴱQ., ᴹQ.] but” á “imperative particle” me “us (exclusive)” apsen- “to remit, release, forgive” úcarë “*sin, debt, trespass” Variations
- ar avatyara mello lucassemmar ✧ VT43/08
- ar avatyara mello i luciemmar ✧ VT43/09
- ar {avatyara >>} ávatyara mello i luciemmar ✧ VT43/10
- ar ávatyara mello menye {luhtar >>} rohtar ✧ VT43/11
- ar ávatyara mello {luhtammar >>} rohtammar ✧ VT43/11
- ar ámen apsene úcaremmar ✧ VT43/12; VT43/12
The seventh line of Átaremma, Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The first word is ar “and”, followed by a combination of the imperative particle á and the (dative) second person plural pronoun men “[for] us”. Next follows apsene, the aorist form of the verb apsen- “forgive”. The final word úcaremmar “our trespasses” is the first person plural exclusive possessive form of úcarë, with the usual plural suffix -r indicating the possessed noun was also plural (“trespasses” as opposed to “trespass”).
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> ar á-me-n apsenë úcare-mma-r = “✱and (imperative)-us-for forgive trespass-our-(plural)”
Conceptual Development: Earlier versions of the prayer used a different verb avatyar- for “forgive”, in what was probably a suffixed imperative form avatyara (I-IIa) or ávatyara (IIb-IV). In version I-IV, this was followed by the ablative form mello “[from] us” of the pronoun me.
Earlier versions of the prayer used a variety of words for “trespass”: lucassë (I), lucië (IIa-IIb), luhta (III-IV deleted) and rohta (III-IV). Most instances used the same possessive suffix -mma “our” as the final verion of the prayer, but version III used an independent pronoun menya, in its plural form menye to agree with the plural noun “trespasses”.
| I |IIa|IIb|III|IV|V|VI| |ar| |avatyara|ávatyara|ámen| |mello|apsene| |lucassemmar|i luciemmar|menye {luhtar >>} rohtar|{luhtammar >>} rohtammar|úcaremmar|