S. no aer i eneth lín “hallowed be thy name”

S. no aer i eneth lín “hallowed be thy name”

[< Previous Phrase] Ae Adar Nín [Next Phrase >]


The second line of Ae Adar Nín, Tolkien’s Sindarin translation of the Lord’s Prayer (VT44/21). The first word no is the imperative form of the verb na- “to be” followed by aer “*hallowed, holy”; see that word’s entry for further discussion.

The third word is the definite article “the”, followed by eneth “name” and the possessive pronoun lín “your”, with the adjectival element following the noun as is usual in Sindarin. As pointed out by Bill Welden (VT44/24), the formation i eneth lín seems to be modeled after Welsh, with the possessive pronoun following the noun, which itself is preceded (at least sometimes) by the definite article. A rough English equivalent might be “*the name yours”. A similar construction appears in the Moria gate inscription: i thiw hin = “the signs these”.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

no aer i eneth lín = “*be holy the name yours”

Reference ✧ VT44/21 ✧ “hallowed be thy name”

Elements

#na- “to be” imperative ✧ VT44/24 (no)
aer “*hallowed, holy” ✧ VT44/24
“the” ✧ VT44/24
eneth “*name” ✧ VT44/24
lín “*thy” ✧ VT44/24

Element In