A preposition in the King’s Letter appearing as ben “in the”. Carl Hostetter’s suggested it is connected to the root √MI/IMI “in” via the strengthened form MBI that appears in Q. imbë¹ “between” (VT31/19-20). David Salo instead proposed that it may be a cognate of Q. ve¹ “as, like” derived from primitive ✶bē, suffixed with a form of the definite article -n and having the sense “as in the [Shire-reckoning]” (SG/226). This second option seems more likely to me; the primitive form ✶bē was not published when Carl Hostetter made his analysis.

Conceptual Development: There are some words in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s that have similar forms and the meaning “in”; see G. ba “in” for discussion (GL/21). The Gnomish Lexicon also had G. fel “like (as av.); as, like”, apparently meaning it was both an adverb and a preposition (GL/34). It might have been related to the early root ᴱ√VĪ “as” that was the basis for ᴱQ. ve “as, like” (QL/101), though why the Gnomish form has a voiceless spirant f rather than voiced v is unclear.

The Nebrachar poem from around 1930 has ᴱN. a “like” in the phrase dir avosaith a gwaew hinar “like a wind, dark through gloomy places” (MC/217).

A preposition for “in” in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s (GL/21). With the article it has the form bi- and without the article b’- or ba, presumably pre-vocalic and pre-consonantal. It was equivalent to ᴱQ. ve “as, like”, which in the contemporaneous Qenya Lexicon was derived from the early root ᴱ√VĪ “as” (QL/101). On other pages of the Gnomish Lexicon Tolkien previously had G. avin “into”, G. bi “in”, G. bin “into”, and G. bir “in, within, inside”, all deleted but more in keeping with the Qenya Lexicon root (GL/20, 22).