√HEK root. “aside, apart, separate”
This root appeared in the Quendi and Eldar essay from 1959-60 glossed “aside, apart, separate” (WJ/361) with derivatives having mostly to do with exclusion, abandonment and outcasts, such as: Q. hequa/T. heco “excluding, except”; Q. heca/S. ego “be gone!”; Q. hehta-/T. hecta- “abandon”; Q. hecil/S. eglan “outcast, (one) forsaken” (WJ/364-5). The last of these is especially notable, in that it is the basis for S. †Eglan “Forsaken (Elf)”, one of the names the Sindar used for themselves, especially among the people of Círdan.
Although there are no obvious precursors to √HEK itself in the sense “apart, separate”, Egla was long among the words Tolkien used for the Elves, along with related names like Eglamar, originally “Elfhome” and later “Home of the Eglain”. It appeared as G. Egla “being from outside” in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s, based on G. eg “far away” < ᴱ√EIKA (GL/32). In the 1930s this became Ilk. Egla “Star-folk, Elf” < ᴹ√ed(e)la with the Ilkorin sound change whereby [dl] became [gl] (Ety/ELED). Thus it seems √HEK was Tolkien’s latest attempt to preserve Elga(n) as a word for Elves, though with a different meaning than its earlier incarnations.
References ✧ WJ/361, 364-365, 392
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