So we got exactly one new word of Adûnaic in Nature of Middle-earth: Adûnayân, that's what Adûnaic called itself, and I am forced to discard my previous hypothesis that its name was Adûnaiyê, analogous to Nimriyê 'Elvish' in the Notion Club Papers.
Its structure is difficult to interpret. My first association was the other name, Yozâyan 'Land of Gift', but that is based on an attested noun zâyan, pl. zâin 'land', which cannot be present here (note the different place of the long vowel, though with Tolkien it is not always significant). The NCP have also provided us with an agental suffix -ân that produced nouns like magân 'maker'. But that would suggest an interpretation of Adûnayân as 'Westerner' or in fact 'Westron', and I am not sure whether this reading holds.
But then, we have cases like abâr 'strength, endurance' > abrazân ' steadfast, faithful; Voronwe'. Can we draw an analogy? The basic element of Adûnayân is no doubt Adûna ' a Númenórean', shall we simply add a glide consonant y + -ân', following the structore of -ada in azûlada > -yada in avalôiyada to avoid a vowel cluster?
But then, we also have got from the NCP the possessive prefix an-, included, among other examples, in an-Adûn 'of the West'. Maybe Tolkien decided in the third phase of Adûnaic, that in Words of Westernesse I had labelled a-Adûnaic for reference purposes, to make it a lenghtened suffix: *adûnân. In that case, Adûnayân would simply mean '[Language] of the Númenórean(s)': Adûna + y + poss. suff.
Anyway, it's time for an update to Words of Westernesse.
Dear Mr. Möhn,
AntwortenLöschenI recently bought your Codex Regius' excellent book Words of Westernesse.
I first want to highly compliment your work on adûnaic, and even more your reconstructed system of the primitive Atani roots, which underlines the patterns of human languages in an unexpected way. I did not suspect that Tolkien might have been that thorough in the genealogical building of the whole of the human languages.
However, I would much like to learn a bit more about Westron grammar, of which you mention some of the aspects and rules, but only quoting them in comparison to other human languages. I suspect that your book did not mention all the grammatical information you knew about Westron grammar, since it did not need to in order to make your points.
I would certainly not ask from you such a work as writing a new chapter presenting the Common Speech in detail, but as your texts heavily suggest, many unheard grammar rules about Westron are revealed in Lisa Star's Tyalië Tyelelliéva 17. I tried to find a copy of it or at least an article about Westron that would quote it and unveil all of its 'previously-unpublished' content.
You seem to possess a copy of Tyalië Tyelelliéva 17, whose content you quote and use in your book. May I ask you the favor to send me pictures of the pages related to Westron ?
Since my comment will be public, I will not mention my real name here and stay anonymous, but here is a 'trash'/secondary email-adress of mine, which you can use if you generously accept my request.
jerome.deuxieme2@gmail.com
I would then gladly give you my thanks (and name) in a more propre way if you contact me.
Sincerely yours,