Q. matta n. “food” (Category: Food)
A noun for “food” from the Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) of the early 1950s, derived from primitive ✶matnā, originally an ancient adjective meaning “eaten” (PE22/136).
Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s the word for “food” was ᴱQ. matl under the early root ᴱ√MATA (QL/59). This became ᴱQ. {masta} >> matso in Early Qenya Word-lists of the 1920s (PE16/141). In EVS2 the word was originally manna “food”, but this was struck through and replaced by matta (PE22/136 note #36), which likely reflects Tolkien’s shift in the phonetic developments of primitive tn, so that tn became tt rather than nn as it did in Tolkien’s earlier writings (PE19/85 and note #79).
Neo-Quenya: I find the phonetic developments associated with the above sound change to be problematic for various reasons. Therefore, I prefer to assume the primitive form of this word was an ancient noun: *mattā.
References ✧ PE22/136
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ✶matnā > matta | [matnā] > [mattā] > [matta] | ✧ PE22/136 |
ᴱQ. matso n. “food” (Category: Food)
References ✧ PE16/141
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Elements
| mata- | “to eat” | ✧ PE16/141 (mat-) |