Alcar mi Tarmenel na Erun [Next Phrase >]

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The first line of Alcar mi Tarmenel na Erun, Tolkien’s translation of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo prayer. The first word is alcar “glory”, followed by mi Tarmenel “in the highest”, more literally “*in High-heaven”. The fourth na word is the imperative of the verb ná- “to be”. The last word Erun “to God” is the dative form of Eru “God”.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

alcar mi Tar-menel na Eru-n = “*glory in High-heaven be God-to”

Conceptual Development: In version I, Tolkien first wrote tarmenissen, apparently the locative plural of tarmen “?high place”, perhaps meaning “?in high places”. He revised this into an assimilated locative tarmenelde of Tarmenel.

In version II he first wrote the allative form Erunna “*towards God” before changing to the dative form Erun “to God”, also used in version II.

In version III he only wrote the word alcar. For this reason, the phrase in this entry is derived from version II.

I	II	III
alcar
{tarmenissen >>} tarmenelde	mi tarmenel	...
na Erun	{Erunna >>} na Erun