Demonstratives are special words that provide a handy shorthand for referring to things by proximity.
Quenya uses a three-way distinction in some cases: near the speaker, away from the speaker, and somewhat further away. This is similar to Spanish (este, ese, aquello), Japanese (kono, sono, ano), and many other languages. For other cases, Quenya uses a two-way distinction (near speaker and away), like English does.
Besides demonstratives, which indicate a specific reference, we also have interrogatives (question words), which ask a question (What? Where?), and relative pronouns, which refer to something mentioned earlier in the sentence (“...the house where he lived...’). In English, interrogatives and relative pronouns use the same words; in Quenya, they are different.
The difference between tana and sana is that the former refers to “that over there”, while the latter refers to “that previously mentioned”; they both translate to the same word in English. The same difference applies for tanome vs. sanome.
| Nearby | Not Close | Distant | Question/Relative | ||||||
| Person: | man | ye i |
who | ||||||
| Thing: | si sina | this | ta tana sana | that | ?enta | yon | mana | ya i |
which; what |
| Place: | sís sissë sinomë | here | tás tassë tanomë sanomë | there | ?entassë | yonder | ?massë | ?yassë yas |
where |
| From: | silo sio | hence | talo tó | thence | ?mallo | yallo | whence | ||
| Toward: | sir sira simen | hither | tar tara tamen tanna | thither | ?manna | yanna | whither | ||
| Time: | sí silumë | now; at this time |
tá talumë | then; at that time |
en | then soon; again |
malumë | yá | when |
| Manner: | sillë sië sin | like this | tallë san | like that; thus; so |
?mallë | yallë | in which manner; how |
||
| Kind: | sítë | of this sort | taitë | of that sort; such |
|||||
| Means: | sinen | by this means | tanen | by that means | manen | yanen | by which means | ||
—generated by quettali version 0.28.5