S. bess n. “wife” (Category: Wife)
A word for “wife” appearing in the King’s Letter written towards the end of the 1940s (SD/129).
Conceptual Development: This word dates all the way back to G. bess “wife” from the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s, where it was a derivative of the early root ᴱ√Beđ (GL/22). In Early Noldorin Word-lists, Tolkien changed ᴱN. {bess >>} gweth “wife” based on the modified root ᴱ√wed- (PE13/139, 146); it also had a negated form ᴱN. urweth “without wife” (PE13/156). In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien restored N. bess, now a derivative of the root ᴹ√BES “wed” (Ety/BES). However in that document the sense “†wife” was archaic, and it has come to mean “woman” in modern speech, replacing archaic N. †dî “woman” (Ety/BES, NDIS, NĪ¹). In the scenario of The Etymologies, the normal word for “wife” was herves (Ety/BES, KHER). However, in the late-1940s King’s Letter, it seems the sense “wife” was restored to bess.
At some point in the mid-to-late 1960s, Tolkien changed the root for marriage words from ᴹ√BES to √BER (VT49/45), apparently motivated by a need to deal with some etymological problems with the name S. Elbereth. Indeed, in The Road Goes Ever On from 1967, Tolkien said S. bereth meant “spouse”, also “used of one who is queen as spouse of a king” (RGEO/66). This calls into question the continued validity of bess from ᴹ√BES.
Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I prefer to retain the root ᴹ√BES for marriage words; see that entry for further details. I’d therefore keep bess, but I recommend using it only in the sense “wife”. For “woman” I’d use dî, much as I recommend using S. dîr for “man” over N. benn, which had similar conceptual developments.
References ✧ AotM/62; SD/129
Glosses
Element In
N. bess n. “woman; †wife” (Category: Woman)
References ✧ Ety/BES, NDIS, NĪ¹; EtyAC/NDIS, NIS
Glosses
Related
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ON. besse > bess | [besse] > [bess] | ✧ Ety/BES |
ᴱN. gweth n. “wife” (Category: Wife)
References ✧ PE13/139, 146, 156
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Inflections
| gwethir | plural | ✧ PE13/146 | |
| gwidhir | plural | ✧ PE13/146 | |
| #weth | soft-mutation; gw-mutation | “wife” | ✧ PE13/156 |
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
G. bess n. “wife” (Category: Wife)
References ✧ GG/9, 15; GL/22
Glosses
Variations
Inflections
| bessin | plural | “wives” | ✧ GG/15 |
| i·vess | soft-mutation; b-mutation | “the wife” | ✧ GG/9 |
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ᴱ√Beđ > bess | [βeðs] > [beðs] > [bess] | ✧ GL/22 |