N. #ledh- v. “*to go, fare, travel” (Category: to Go)
A verb whose existence is suggested by ON. lende “fared” in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√LED “go, fare, travel”, also appearing as an element in N. egledhi “go into exile” (Ety/LED). The verb ledh- thus likely has a meaning similar to its root.
The verb ledh- may also appear as an element in the verb N. neledh- within a sentence from Thrór’s Map from 1936: N. lheben teil brann i annon ar neledh neledhi gar godrebh “five foot high the door and three may walk abreast” (TAI/150). Didier Willis and David Salo suggested that neledh- may actually mean “enter”, as a combination of ne- “in” and ledh- “go” (PED-TAI, GS/216-7).
Conceptual Development: In notes from the 1950s and 60s, Tolkien said of the root √LED that:
... the stem was not much used in Sindarin, except in compounds with et “out”, as edlen(n), “exiled” < et-lendā. In neither Quenya nor Sindarin was the stem used just for “go, move, travel” (PE17/51).
Neo-Sindarin: The above note makes the use of an independent verb ledh- in Neo-Sindarin rather dubious. For purposes of Neo-Sindarin I would assume S. †ledh- “go, fare, travel” was archaic, surviving mainly as an element in other verbs like [ᴺS.] edledhia- “go into exile” and [N.] neledh- “enter”. For “go” I would use S. men- and for “travel” I would use S. glenna-.
Reference ✧ TAI/150
Element In
Derivations