S. #ael n. “lake, pool” (Category: Lake, Pond)
A noun for “lake, pool”, appearing as an element in Aeluin “*Blue Lake” and Aelin-uial “Meres of Twilight” (S/114, 122). The latter name has its plural form aelin = “meres, *pools, lakes”.
Conceptual Development: This word had a long history as a cognate to Q. ailin; although the Quenya form was quite stable, the Gnomish/Noldorin/Sindarin forms went through a number of changes. The earliest iterations of this word appeared in in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s as G. ail “a lake, pool” or G. ailion “lake” (GL/17). In the Gnomish Lexicon Slips the latter became {ailin >>} eilin “pool” (PE13/113). In Early Noldorin Word-lists of the 1920s Tolkien had ᴱN. ailin “lake” with plural form ailiniath from Old Noldorin oilin (PE13/136, 158).
In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien had N. oel “pool, lake” derived from primitive ᴹ✶ailin, a combination of the root ᴹ√AY and ᴹ√LIN¹ (Ety/AY, LIN¹). In that document, its plural form was oelin (Ety/AY), where the plural preserved the final n that was lost in the singular. In The Etymologies it was an element of N. Oelinuial “Pools of Twilight” (Ety/AY), but in the contemporaneous narratives this name was Aelin-uial (LR/262), as it was in later Sindarin (S/114, 122). This reflects Tolkien’s vacillation on the development of the diphthong ai in Noldorin.
In The Silmarillion appendix Christopher Tolkien implied the regular Sindarin form of this word was aelin (SA/aelin), but more likely this was the plural form in Sindarin, as oelin was the plural in Noldorin.
References ✧ S/162; SA/aelin, lin¹
Variations
Related
Inflections
| aelin | plural | “lake, pool” | ✧ SA/aelin: [glosses in SI:Aelin-uial indicate it should be plural] |
Elements
| √AY(AR) | “sea” |
| √LIN¹ | “pool, mere, lake” |
Element In
Cognates
N. oel n. “pool, lake” (Category: Lake, Pond)
References ✧ Ety/AY
Glosses
Variations
Inflections
| oelin | plural | ✧ Ety/AY |
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ᴹ✶ai-lin- > oel | [ailin] > [aili] > [ail] > [oel] | ✧ Ety/AY |
ᴱN. ailin n. “lake” (Category: Lake, Pond)
References ✧ PE13/136, 158
Glosses
Variations
Inflections
| ailiniath | plural | ✧ PE13/158 |
Cognates
G. ail n. “lake, pool” (Category: Lake, Pond)
References ✧ GL/17; LT2A/Elwing
Glosses
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
G. ailion n. “lake, pool” (Category: Lake, Pond)
References ✧ GL/17; LT2A/Elwing; PE13/113
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Elements
| ail | “lake, pool” | ✧ GL/17 |
| #-(i)on | “adjectival suffix” | ✧ GL/17 (#-ion) |
Cognates