[ t h e m e r i n
s e n t e n c e ]
On the 1th of April 1999 Michael Dawson sent a letter concerning a new edition
of The Letters of JRR Tolkien to the Tolkien list. The message can be
read here:
ftp://ftp.ii.uib.no/pub/bjornts/tolkien/archives/log9904.gz (search for 'meriu')
In his letter he mentioned a wholly new Quenya sentence Tolkien sent to
some Dorothy, who had been mailing with Mr Dawson's mother. Dorothy wanted to know
how to say 'I wish you a merry Christmas' in the Elfin [sic] language. Tolkien replied
that it was difficult to translate, since the Elves did not celebrate Christmas and
therefore had no word for it. However, he wrote that there was an Elvish greeting
which could be a substitute for 'I wish you a merry Christmas'. The sentence he
gave read according to Michael Dawson:
meriu sa haryalye alasse nó vanyalye Ambarello, lit. "I hope that
you have happiness before you pass from the world" (the latter part nó
vanyalye Ambarello is said to be added when greeting a mortal)
Though the Elfin language is mentioned, it is not said which of them it is, but
there is no doubt that the sentence is in Quenya. The very first word of the greeting,
meriu is an apparent error for merin, as the ending for the first person
sg. is -n. Tolkien's 'n' usually tended to be undistinguishable from 'u'
in his handwritting. There are some evidences of this in Etym, see Helge Fauskanger's
article Probable Errors in the
Etymologies. Given this it is not certain whether the greeting does not
contain other errors caused by inaccurate transription of Tolkien's tough
handwritting. This concerns, however, probably only the words sa and
nó as they are not attested elsewhere. The rest is attested as such
and/or is pressumable (e.g. the word vanya "go, depart, disappear" is attested
along with the ending -lye "you" but not vanyalye itself).
There is no need to provide an analysis of the sentence, for this was
already done by Helge Fauskanger on the TolkLang list. The discussion on the
date of the sentence is included, too. Moreover, it was published with
an analysis in TyTy14:32-5. For Helge's analysis see here:
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/misc/local/TolkLang/Vol35/35.02
One thing should be noted, though. As was pointed out, it is not certain
if the word nó is genuine or not. Etym lists a preposition no
"under" derived from the stem NU. Could nó be a misreading of this
word? It may be possible that nó "before" means literally "under [the
time]". Notwithstanding, Tolkien used nu for the sence "under" in other,
later, sources, so this theory is not very probable. In his analysis, Helge also brings up
the possibility that the word may be a misreading, he speculates that it may be read
ná instead, which would refer to the stem NA "to, towards" forcing it
to mean "before". This might be possible, too. Note that ná is actually
given in Etym but it means "but" there (see NDAN; ná means "is" in
Namárie).
In the 41st issue of the journal Vinyar Tengwar, the editors published
another wholly new Quenya sentence which contains the word nó, but
the word is translated as "but" (ore nin karitas nó namin alasaila
"I would like / feel moved to do so but judge it unwise"). This word hence contradicts
with the aforementioned nó in the greeting. What should be preferred
is hard to say as well as it is hard to say whether nó "but" obsoletes
nan from the Fíriel's Song. Despide it all, the sentence
merin sa haryalye alasse nó vanyalye Ambarello is another piece of
the Quenya puzzle.
[ *Addendum i., 1st dec. '01* There were uttered some doubts about the
geniuneness of the Merin sentence. To quote from Helge Fauskanger's
20th Lesson of his Course:
There are several questionable points here. For one thing,
not everyone is convinced that the "Merin" sentence, as it is often called, is
genuine at all. I am told that various efforts to get in touch with this Michael
Dawson have so far proved futile, and it is somewhat disturbing to notice that
his posting was made on April 1. On the other hand, Carl F. Hostetter (who has seen
nearly all of Tolkien's linguistic manuscripts) briefly commented on this
sentence in VT41:18 and apparently recognized it as genuine, though he has
later specified that it does not occur in any manuscript he knows of. The
word sa is not inherently implausible; it could mean basically "it"
(related to the ending -s), so that merin sa haryalyė alassė originally
or basically signifies "I wish it [, namely that] you have happiness".
But of course, even if the word sa is genuine Tolkien, it is impossible
to say what stage of Q(u)enya it belongs to. Assuming that the Merin sentence
is actually written by Tolkien, I would say that it is probably quite early,
since its vocabulary corresponds so well to that of the Etymologies (of
the mid-thirties - notice the use of the verb harya- "have, possess",
otherwise only attested in Etym). So given the ever-changing nature of
Tolkien's conception, sa as a particle forming nominal clauses may well
have been abandoned by the time Tolkien published LotR. Yet writers can
hardly do without this important word, and presently sa is our sole alternative.
On the Elfling mailing list in the message
6616, Carl Hostetter, one of the Editorial Team of Tolkien's unpublished
linguistic writings, says that he considers the Merin sentence most likely
genuine, though he has not seen any sign of it in any of Tolkien's paper, nor
has Christopher Tolkien, who got a copy of Michael Dawson's letter.
It seems we will have to wait until more
Tolkien's papers are published and see whether they will contain sa
and nó in the meanings "that" and "before", respectively. ]
<get out get outta here enough already>