What Did Kíli Mean When He Said “Amrâlimê” to Tauriel in ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’?

In this article, you’ll find out what Kíli said to Tauriel in The Battle of the Five Armies and what that phrase actually means. “Amrâlimê” is one of the more controversial additions to the movie that are not present in Tolkien’s original book, which is why I thought it merited a certain explanation.

What does Kíli say to Tauriel in The Hobbit?

Peter Jackson has taken some liberties with his adaptation of The Hobbit. First of all, the took one novel – a relatively short one at that – and divided it into three films and although we do like to see more of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, that move still seems to be financially motivated more than anything.

Second of all, to make Bilbo’s story more appealing as a wholesome unit, he added a lot of original scenes and details, mostly to fill the three-movie, but also to add a bit of flavor. Some of these things worked great, some worked not so well, and some are just in the limbo between these two groups.

One such example is the beach scene, where Kíli speaks to Tauriel. Now, we know already that Tauriel is a movie-exclusive character, so every scene with her is an addition not present in the book, including this one:

This is a scene where the Dwarf finally admits his feelings – which were quite obvious, though – to Tauriel, also getting from her the reaction he wanted. Although she did not explicitly reciprocate, it was pretty clear that the feelings were mutual.

This was fully confirmed when he uttered the phrase “amrâlimê”, which completely shocked Tauriel as it was an expression of true emotion. We have given you a rough description of the phrase’s meaning, but what exactly did he say? Let us see!

What does “amrâlimê” mean?

Since “amrâlimê” is a phrase used solely in the movie, there is actually no precise translation of the phrase. Still, the Internet is an amazing thing and we have managed to find something. The wonderful editor of The Dwarrow Scholar has analysed the phrase for us in his article and he has come to the following conclusion:

I believe the word consists of three parts “amrâl”, “im” and “ê”:

1) “amrâl”  – means “love”. It used the abstract construction aCCâC as seen in the Tolkien original khuzdul words such as “aglâb”.  The radicals in amrâl, MRL are faintly reminiscent of the Quenya “melmë” (love) and “mírima” (very lovely), and of the Sindarin “meleth” (love), while also hinting at the latin “amorem” (love).
2) “im” – Updated:  based on a screenshot from the video Appendices for DoS, provided by one of the readers of this blog (thank you Maite), it seems clear this is a genitive marker, indicating “of”. So, likely not a female indicator as previously assumed.
3) “ê” – is the first person possessive pronoun “my”, also use for “me”.

Putting all of this together we get “love-of-me”. So, as a result we get: “My Love”

Based on the context of the phrase, as well as the situation, we do believe that the analysis is correct, even if it’s not a completely precise translation. There is no doubt that Kíli expressed his romantic feelings to Tauriel with that phrase, so even if it might not be exactly “my love” it is certainly something akin to that phrase.

What did you think of Kíli’s and Tauriel’s relationship? Let us know in the comments below!