ᴹ√TUB root. “to fall low[?], go down (below normal ground level), (esp.) to go down (sink, dive) into water”
Tolkien used several similar roots over his lifetime as the basis for Q. Utumno and S. Udûn, the underground stronghold of Melkor. The earliest of these was unglossed ᴱ√TUM(B)U in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with derivatives ᴱQ. tumbo “dale, valley” and ᴱQ. tumna “deep, profound, dark or hidden” (QL/95). It also had derivatives in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon like G. tûm “valley” and G. tumla- “excavate, hollow out” (GL/71-72).
The root ᴹ√TUB appeared unglossed in The Etymologies of the 1930s with derivatives like ᴹQ. tumbo/N. tum “deep valley” and ᴹQ. tumna/N. tofn “lowlying, deep, low”, as well as ᴹQ. Utumno/N. Udūn (Ety/TUB; EtyAC/TUB). The root reappeared in a rejected page of roots from the Quenya Verbal System of the 1940s where it had the verbal sense “to fall low[?], go down, below normal ground-level, esp. to go down (sink, dive) into water” (PE22/147). In this 1940s document the root had derivatives similar to those in The Etymologies, as well as a verbal derivative ᴹQ. tumba- “to cast down (into a pit[?])”. One indication that this verbal sense was not a new idea was the verb ᴱQ. tum- “dive” from Early Qenya Word-lists of the 1920s.
Tolkien’s continued use of both Q. tumbo and S. tum for “valley” indicate the ongoing validity of ᴹ√TUB, but in drafts of The Silmarillion from the 1950s Tolkien derived Q. Utumno from ✶Utupnŭ and the root √TUI, probably a malformed √TUP (MR/69); see the entry on √TUP for a discussion of that root.
References ✧ Ety/TUB; PE22/127
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ᴱ√TUM(B)U root. “‽”
References ✧ LT1A/Tombo; QL/95
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