Quenya/2-letter words

Neo-Quenya has a number of words that end in a long vowel, but they all have only two letters:


 * cú "crescent, arc"


 * fé "last hour"


 * hó "owl"


 * lú "moment"


 * má "hand"


 * nyé "bleat"


 * pé "lip"


 * pí "fly, insect"


 * quá "duck"


 * ré "day (of 24 hours)"


 * sé "eyeball"


 * sú "rushing (of the wind)"


 * tyé "tea"

and the proper names Vé and  Rú.

The following words also have this form, but in Neo-Quenya they sound old-fashioned, so they are replaced most of the time with the word next to them:
 * cá "jaw" &rarr; anca


 * fá "air, atmosphere" &rarr; wilwa / vilwa


 * ló "night" &rarr; lómë


 * ní "woman" &rarr; nís


 * rá "arm" &rarr; ranco


 * sá "fire" &rarr; uru


 * wá "wind" &rarr; vaiwa


 * yó "son" &rarr; yondo

The words rá "lion",  tó "wool" and  nó "idea" don't belong to this category because they have a stem-form with 3 letters (see ../Exceptional stems/).

They have some special features:
 * When the case ending contains a double consonant, the vowel is shortened:
 * ressë "on a day" (locative)


 * i mannar "to the hands" (allative)


 * In the u-duals the –u joins with the final vowel to make a diphthong:
 * peu "a pair of lips"


 * In the plural the -i- also joins with the final vowel:
 * cuinen "with arcs" (instrumental)


 * maiva "of hands" (possessive)


 * In the words ending with –é, the diphthong ei is not a possible combination in Quenya. Instead, it is left as it is, having no distinction from singular/plural forms:
 * rén "to a day/ to the days" (dative)


 * To further define the singular/plural difference if need be, numbers can be expressed to distinguish quantity of a noun:


 * rén atta "to the two days"


 * The genitive singular is not known for most nouns. The words on -é don't give any problems because éo is acceptable:
 * ré "day" &rarr; réo


 * pé "lip" &rarr; péo


 * Those already with an -ó have a genitive that is identical to the nominative.

The complete declination for má "hand" can be found in next table:

The complete declination for ré "day" can be found in next table:

The complete declination for pí "fly, insect" can be found in next table:

The complete declination for hó "owl" can be found in next table:

The complete declination for lú "moment" can be found in next table:

It should be noted that irregular forms for noun declension appear to be frequent in two letter words, and careful consideration is to be taken to ensure no word clashes within the letter itself (such as diphthongs or long vowels before a consonant group, vowel combinations that don't exist, such as ei) and with other attested words provided by Tolkien.

As to demonstrate in the table below, the word pé has an another plural form  péti, as attested by Tolkien, instead of pei which cannot be formed in Quenya.

Irregular noun pé "lip" table:

The behaviour of the final long vowel before possessive endings is discussed on the page about ../Possessive pronouns/.

>> Neo-Quenya >> ../Nouns/ >> ../2-letter words/