Q. coivië n. “life” (Category: to Live; Living; Life)
The usual word for “life” in Tolkien’s later writings based on the root √KOY (NM/84, 119; VT49/42), in one place appearing with the variant koive (PE17/68). In another place Tolkien instead used kuivie for “life” in the phrase kuivie-lankasse “on the brink of life”, reflecting Tolkien’s ongoing vacillation between √KOY and √KUY as the root for life.
Conceptual Development: ᴱQ. koivie was “awakening” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s (QL/48) as reflected in the name ᴱQ. Koivie-néni “Waters of Awakening” from this period (QL/48), but the word was glossed “liveliness” in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon (GL/29). The noun for “life, being alive” was ᴹQ. kuile in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√KUY “come to life, awake” (Ety/KUY), but was usually coivie in Tolkien’s writings from the 1950s and 60s, as noted above.
Neo-Quenya: I prefer √KOY as the root for “life” for purposes of Neo-Eldarin, so I’d use coivie as the noun “life, liveliness”, and use cuivië for “awakening” as seen in the later form of the name Q. Cuiviénen “Water of Awakening” (S/48).
References ✧ NM/84, 119; PE17/68; VT42/8; VT49/42
Glosses
Variations
Related
Inflections
| koivierya | 3rd-sg-poss | “*his/her life” | ✧ VT49/42 |
Elements
| -vë | “abstract noun, adverb” | ✧ PE17/68 |
Element In
Derivations
ᴹQ. kuile n. “life, being alive” (Category: to Live; Living; Life)
Reference ✧ Ety/KUY ✧ “life, being alive”
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ᴹ√KUY > kuile | [kuile] | ✧ Ety/KUY |
ᴱQ. koivie n. “awakening; liveliness” (Category: to Live; Living; Life)
References ✧ GL/29; LT1A/Koivië-néni; QL/48
Glosses
Related
Elements
| koiva | “awake; lively, living” | ✧ LT1A/Koivië-néni; QL/48 |
| -ie | “abstract noun” | ✧ QL/48 (#-ie) |
Element In
Cognates
Derivations