Tolkein Geekdom II - The meaning of -wë

[Northern_Piper]

A lot of the male Valar and Eldar in the Silmarillion have names with the suffix -wë.

See, for example, Manwë, Olwë, Elwë, Finwë, and Ingwë. But, the appendix doesn’t say what that suffix means. Does anyone have any idea?

[Katisha]

I believe it’s just a suffix to turn adjectival roots into proper names. I could be wrong, though.

[Northern_Piper]

Except the roots in some of these cases are nouns, not adjectives:

“man” - good, blessed, unmarred

“fin” - hair

“el” - star.

Can’t find “ol” or “ing”, so don’t know if that’s the case with them.

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

*Originally posted by Northern Piper *
**A lot of the male Valar and Eldar in the Silmarillion have names with the suffix -wë.

See, for example, Manwë, Olwë, Elwë, Finwë, and Ingwë. But, the appendix doesn’t say what that suffix means. Does anyone have any idea? **

According to the [url=“http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/”]Ardalambion[\url] it means person, or being.

[Northern_Piper]

Qadgop, I bow to your vastly superior geekdom! Thanks!

Lessee now. According to that source, there are clear meanings to some of the names:

Manwë “Blessed Being” (Letters:283), adopted from Valarin Mânawenûz; names ending in
-wë were already frequent in Quenya (WJ:399). Cf. Mánwen, Mánwë the oldest Quenya forms of
Manwë, closer to the Valarin form (WJ:399). Lower-case manwë in LR:56

Ingwë masc. name, “chief”. (PM:340). Pl. Ingwer “Chieftains”, what the Vanyar called themselves. Ingwë Ingweron “chief of the chieftains”, proper title of Ingwë as high king (PM:340) (Related words: inga “top, highest point” (PM:340); ingaran “high-king” (PM:340))

Elwë masc. name, *“Star-person” (PM:340, WJ:369)

However, for two of them, there’s a bit of difficulty:

Finwë masc. name, apparently displaying the frequent ending -wë suffixed to a stem normally having to do with hair, but the name is obscure (see Tolkien’s discussion in PM:340-341) (Related word: finë “a hair” (PM:340))

So - “Hairy being”? hmmm. and what about the great clan of “Fin-” elves: Fingolfin, Finarfin, Finrod, and so on? The “Hairy Noldor”? hmmm. Some obscurity here.

And Olwë, they just gave up on:

Olwë masc. name (PM:340), difficult interpret (PM:341)

(and curiously, I see on preview that when I bold ë it turns into ë? hmmm again.)

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

Ardalambion is a great site, Northern Piper. Here’s a functioning link to it.

Ardalambion

[RenMan]

Just one question - how do you pronounce the vowel in the ë?

For example, is Aulë pronounced as:

OW’ lee

or

OW’ leh

or

OW’ lay

or even just

OW’ luh

?