A word in notes from 1968 for “ago” or “behind (earlier in time)” also functioning as the past tense of ná- “to be”, based on the ancient past-tense marker ✶-nē (VT49/31). Tolkien further said it “is used actually as a curious past form of ‘yes’ in answers to questions of fact = ‘it was so, it was as you say/ask’ (VT49/31)”. For example ma i Elda túle Anarya? “did the Elf come Sunday?”, answered with né “yes, it was so”. The word ᴹQ. né “ago” also appeared in the the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) and Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC), both written in 1948 (PE22/96; PE23/109).

Conceptual Development: Tolkien used a lot of different was for “ago”. The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had adverbial ᴱQ. luin and adjectival ᴱQ. luina “ago” (QL/56). The English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s had ᴱQ. ie “ago” with several variants (PE15/68). The Etymologies of the 1930s had ᴹQ. yá “formerly, ago” (Ety/YA). The word yá reappeared with the gloss “at that (distant) time” in DRC in 1948, but in that document né seems to be the more normal word for “ago” (PE23/109). The word né “ago” also appeared in QVS from 1948 (PE22/96) and again in notes from 1968 (VT49/31) as mentioned above. The word auta “ago” appeared in notes from 1969 as part of paradigm where its root √awa meant “before, ago of time” rather than its more usual meaning “away” (PE22/168).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I prefer né for “ago” as the best attested and most enduring of the various options.