Authors: J. R. R. Tolkien

Sauron Defeated (76 page)

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Plural N. nari zini rabi

S. narim zinim rabim

Nouns corresponding to II(b) have all become weak except ana 'human being', which makes plural ani beside weak anai.

Singular N. ana Dual anat Plural N. ani

S. anan S. anim

O. anu-

Weak (a).

Here belong nouns ending in a consonant. These are seldom

'basic' (except as described above in compounds).

Examples: bar 'lord'; mith 'little girl'; nuph 'fool' [but niph p.

426].

Singular N. bar mith nuph

S. barun mithin nuphan (or m.f. nuphun, -in) O. baru- (mithu-) nuphu- (f. nuphi-)

mithi-

Dual barat mithat nuphat

Plural N. bari mithi nuphi

S. barim mithim nuphim

Weak (b).

Here belong (i) masculines and feminines ending in u and t and common nouns in a. Also (ii) a new class, masculines in o, feminines in e. These are not quite clear in origin. They appear to derive (a) from basic stems in aw, ay; (b) from -aw, -ay used as m. f. suffixes as variants of u, i; (c) from common nouns in a

+ m. u, f. i, instead of varying vowel. So raba > rabau > rabo.

These are specially used in f., since rabi would appear the same as the common plural.

Examples: nardu 'soldier'; zori 'nurse'; mano 'spirit'; izre

'sweetheart, beloved'; ana 'human'. To this class (especially in plural) belong many names of peoples as Adunai.

Singular N. nardu zori mano izre

S. nardun zorin manon izren

O. nardu- zori- (arch. mano- izre (izrayu)

zoriyu)

Dual narduwat zoriyat manot izret (izrayat) (manawat)

Plural N. narduwi zori manoi (izre) izreni S. narduwim zorim manoim (izrem) izrenim Other rough pages are interesting as showing that a major change in my father's conception of the structure entered as the work progressed: for the Adunaic noun at first distinguished five cases, Normal, Subjective, Gentitive, Dative, and Instrumental. To give a single example, in masculine nouns the genitival inflexion was o (plural om); the dative -s, -se (plural -sim); and the instrumental -ma (plural -main), this being in origin an agglutinated post-position meaning 'with', and expressing an instrumental or comitative relation. At this stage the masculine bar 'lord' showed the following inflexional system (if I interpret it correctly):

Singular N. bar Dual barut Plural bari S. barun barut barim G. baro barot bariyom D. barus barusit barisim I. baruma barumat barumain Of notes on other aspects of Adunaic grammar there is scarcely a trace: a few very rough jottings on the verb system are too illegible to make much of. It can be made out however that there were three classes of verbs: I Biconsonantal, as kan 'hold'; II Triconsonantal, as kalab 'fall down'; III Derivatives, as azgara- 'wage war', ugruda-

'overshadow'. There were four tenses: (1) aorist ('corresponding to English "present", but used more often than that as historic present or past in narrative'); (2) continuative (present); (3) continuative (past); (4) the past tense ('often used as pluperfect when aorist is used = past, or as future perfect when aorist = future'). The future, subjunctive, and optative were represented by auxiliaries; and the passive was rendered by the impersonal verb forms 'with subject in accusative'.

I have remarked before on the altogether unmanageable difficulty that much of my father's philological writing presents: I wrote in The Lost Road and Other Writings (V.342):

It will be seen then that the philological component in the evolution of Middle-earth can scarcely be analysed, and most certainly cannot be presented, as can the literary texts. In any case, my father was perhaps more interested in the processes of change than he was in displaying the structure and use of the languages at any given time - though this is no doubt due to some extent to his so often starting again at the beginning with the primordial sounds of the Quendian languages, embarking on a grand design that could not be sustained (it seems indeed that the very attempt to write a definitive account produced immediate dissatisfaction and the desire for new constructions: so the most beautiful manuscripts were soon treated with disdain).

'Lowdham's Report' is thus remarkable in that it was allowed to stand, with virtually no subsequent alteration; and the reason for this is that my father abandoned the further development of Adunaic and never returned to it. This is emphatically not to suggest, of course, that at the moment of its abandonment he had not projected - and probably quite fully projected - the structure of Adunaic grammar as a whole; only that (to the best of my knowledge) he wrote down no more of it. Why this should have been must remain unknown; but it may well be that his work was interrupted by the pressure of other concerns at the point where 'Lowdham's Report' ends, and that when he had leisure to return to it he forced himself to turn again to The Lord of the Rings.

In the years that followed he turned into different paths; but had he returned to the development of Adunaic, 'Lowdham's Report' as we have it would doubtless have been reduced to a wreck, as new conceptions caused shifts and upheavals in the structure. More than likely, he would have begun again, refining the historical phonology -

and perhaps never yet reaching the Verb. For 'completion', the achievement of a fixed Grammar and Lexicon, was not, in my belief, the over-riding aim. Delight lay in the creation itself, the creation of new linguistic form evolving within the compass of an imagined time.

'Incompletion' and unceasing change, often frustrating to those who study these languages, was inherent in this art. But in the case of Adunaic, as things turned out, a stability was achieved, though incomplete: a substantial account of one of the great languages of Arda, thanks to the strange powers of Wilfrid Jeremy and Arundel Lowdham.

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