Thank you, Gábor!

I had been wondering how David had solved the comparative - I see now that he opted for *eb "before". Tolkien's concept in Quenya is the opposite, lá, "beyond"; but of course epe/apa both meant "after" at certain stages.

Through the movie phenomenon one also learns other novelty factoids, like with this sentence on Orcrist :

http://www.bladecenter.com/orcrist-sword-of-thorin-oakenshield-uc2928.aspx

"nagol e-lyg / onnen o goew ithluig"
(last word actually written just so according to a post in a Finnish forum)

Well... at least they were smart drakes?

I don't understand goew, but ithluig is probably just i thluig (in and plural of lhûg), or Ith luig if it might be written like that. We picked apart these runes last year and tried to figure them out; interesting to see how off we were from onnen and goew, for whatever reason.

My preliminary thought on *goew was to trace it to either GÁY(AS), GAS, GOS, or WÂY(Â) -- should the /s/ > /h/ disappear in due time, etc. (the transcribed Stop Mutation would exclude ÑGAW). Pitty that e.g. elfdict.com isn't as of yet able to include the full etymology of lhoew (though we know oew < CE *ok-mâ).

I certainly appreciate David for indirectly giving me a nudge with this one to once again enjoy some quality time with Brythonic etymologies and my online and offline Celtic sources... long enough to fill another useful paper slip that I hope won't be lost for at least a while! A few people here can probably relate to that.

"?*eb: before (cf. Q epe) [though of time Q epe means "after"]"

As Patrick Wynne has pointed out, the probable meaning of N/S eb- is likewise 'after', when it's used of time.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/lambengolmor/message/830

+Björn Fromén
 true. However, the metaphor Quenya employs to express comparison is spatial; it seems unlikely to me that N/S would use a temporal metaphor; and it does not really make sense to me either to use 'after'.

+Tamas Ferencz
Evidently Tolkien wasn't always crystal clear on this matter, but generally words for 'before' in a spatial sense are said to mean 'after' when used of time. Thus Q epe means 'before' "in all relations but time" (VT 49:32) and can metaphorically be used in comparison as a synonym of lá. So the fact that N/S eb- means 'after, of time' doesn't contradict its possible use in a spatial metaphor, but obviously it can't simultaneously be taken to mean 'before, of time'!