√RAT¹ root. “to find a way”
This root first appeared as ᴹ√RAT “walk” in The Etymologies of the 1930s with derivatives like N. râd “path, track”, N. ostrad “street”, N. rath “course, river-bed”, and N. rant “lode, vein”, the last with the meaning Ilk. rant “flow, course of river” in Ilkorin (Ety/RAT). Hints of this root can be seen as early as the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s in words like G. rada “track, path, way” with primitive form rad·, probably actually *ᴱ√RATA (GL/64).
ᴹ√RATA reappeared on a rejected page of roots in the Quenya Verbal System from the 1940s with the gloss “go in a line (as a road)” (PE22/127). Above it Tolkien wrote “usually of animals/or two feet is {SRATA}”, perhaps indicating Tolkien was divorcing this root from the sense “walk”, which in later writings seems to be attributed to the root *√PAT (PE17/34). In notes from the late 1960s Tolkien glossed √RAT as “find a way”, saying it “applied to persons journeying in the wild; to travel in roadless land; and also to streams and rivers and their courses” (NM/353). In this document it was the basis for S. rant “course” in S. Celebrant “Silverlode”, as well as Q. ratta “track” and S. rath “(climbing) street”, the latter also influenced by √RATH “climb” that was itself a more emphatic variant of √RAT (NM/354).
Reference ✧ NM/363 ✧ RAT “to find a way”
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Derivatives
ᴹ√RAT root. “walk, go in a line (as a road)”
References ✧ Ety/AT(AT), LÁWAR, RAT; PE22/127
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