Comments by Gilruin
These are the 6 posts of 226 by Gilruin.
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The Enūma Eliš in Quenya
Ok, so I might not be the most qualified person to comment on this but I will do so regardless. It quite an interesting and challenging text to translate, you picked there!
Yá tárienna lá menel n’ estáne “When on high, heaven was not named,”
I'm not quite sure what "to be on high" should exactly mean mean in English. Currently your Quenya reads "when towards height" which I can't make sense of in either. Lambert suggests "the heavens above" which to me sounds like a good place to use tarmenel. I also don't quite get n' estáne, n' looks like elided na but estáne looks like some wierd compound tense. My take would be Yá tarmenel lá estaina (with a participle) or Yá lá estaner tarmenel (as an subjectless passive)
[Ar] nu, i cemen lá quetiélane essenen “[And] below the earth had not been spoken by name,”
In Quenya, I think, every preposition needs a noun it modifies, it cannot left dangling like nu in your example. I'd suggest nusa "under it" (the historical form would be nusa > nuza > nura but I believe it would be reformed to nusa). I'm a bit doubtful if "spoken by name" can work in either Quenya or English, if you want to avoid a second esta-, maybe yal- can work. If you however want to retain quet-, perhaps the following rendering with a direct object can work: nusa, i cemende lá equétier esserya "below it, on earth they (=subjectless passive) have not spoken its name"
Sinomë n’ Apsu Minyaron, nostarintwa “There was [primeval] Apsu, their begetter,”
"There is X" can be translated as Sinome na when it occurs in the sense "there, but not here". Normally the intended meaning is "X existed" for which we have the special verb ea-: Enge Apsu. Minyaron means "of the First" (in a Middle-Earth context I would read "of the Vanyar"), I think Apsu Minya can perfectly well work as an epithet. I don't think "their begetter" needs inte as an element (also ntw is forbidden in Quenya), just nostar + -twa. It's a bit unclear whether the connection vowel would be e or i in this case but we can help ourselves by restoring the unstable o of -r(o): nostarotwa
[Ar] Úpartallë-Tiamat, i óntiélane tú “[and] Chaos-Tiamat, who had birthed them;”
Your current word for chaos means literally "disorder", it is derived from parta- "arrange, order". If your interpretation of the underlying meaning as "unmaking" is correct, I'd suggest nancarie and would render it in the genitive Nancarieo/Nancariéno/Nancario Tiamat "Tiamat of the unmaking". Also, the Pluperfect of onta- should be ontiélane, there cant be a long vowel before a consonant cluster.
Nentwar tú óstímer “their waters they mingled together,”
For nen + -twa now we must decide on an epithetic vowel, since ntw is disallowed, my choice would be e: nenetwar. "they mingeled" would be expressed by an subject suffix, in this case 3rd person dual -tte. Also, I would form the preterite of *óstim- as óstimne(tte) rather than rely on analogy to verbs like túle to spread into this domain.
Mal wísse lá narassë, þangane lá motto “But wefted no pasture, padded no reed bed;”
I can't interpret this phrase. What are the intendet citation forms of wísse, narasse, þangane?
Yá i-Ainur lá nemniélane, alaquen “When of the gods none had appeared, not one,”
i Ainur means "the gods [previously mentioned]". To say "[all] the gods" leave of the article. The Pluperfect of nem- is némiélane not nemniélane. Now the problem of double negation: What happen when two negative elements occur in one sentence (e. g. "I didn't do nothing") differs from language to language, in some they cancel out each other (e. g. Latin, "standard" English, -> interpretation "I did do somthing"), in some others it intestifies the negation (actually the majority, Russian, Greek, Old English an certain dialects, -> interpretation "I really didn't do anything"). We don't have an example for Late Quenya but based on the Goldogrin (read: draft-draft-Sindarin) sentence u laudin laithin hastath unweg “*floods and times do not wait for anyone” one can base the assumption that the Eldarin languages falls in the second category. If this is true one could render the emphatic negation as yá Ainúron alquen lá nemiélane "lit. when no one of the gods had not appeared, read: when absolutly no one of the gods had appeared"
Yulá camnessentar, maranwentar úmártaner “Nor received their names, their destinies [were] not ordained”
Your spelling of camnessentar is a bit strange, the usual way to write its elision would be camn' essentar. Atwe's neologism is spelled yúla. furthermore I think it should actually read "had received" cámiélane and the "had" is just implied from the previous phrase. maranwentar úmártaner is "their destinies ordained not", passive is needed here. Also, as you're using LĀ-negation in the rest of the text you should lá- as the simple negative prefix: maranwentar lámartaine
An nér i-Ainur óntaner imberumandesse “Then were the gods created in the midst of heaven.”
Again i Ainur >>> Ainur, again Ainur ontaner reads "the gods created", agian óntane can't have a long ó before a cluster. An ontanet Ainur with an implicit reference to Apsu and Tiamat would be my choice. Eruman can't really work in a world without Eru, Erumande is already a nonstandard locative, so no *erumandesse, I would suggest endesse tarmenelwa "in the middle of heaven".
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Gloss “onóna” by Eldamo Import
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Name help
This is a chart of consonant mutations by Elaran for quick reference but it won't be enough without context. This is the currently most up to date grammar primer by Fiona Jallings that covers consonant mutations as well as all other topics of interest for a beginner but it won't equip you with the knowledge required for compounding/name formation. This is arguably the hardest problem in Sindarin (which is why I haven't done the example myself but have stolen it from Elaran) and you need to dive deep into the phonological history of the language to master it. This actually means that I don't consider myself to be proficient with name formation in all its intricacies, I just know enough about it to see that single intervocalic m can't work.
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could someone translate something for me into sindarin (tengwar script) please?
On second thought maybe mi should mutate to vi as well. Deferring this to someone with more experience
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could someone translate something for me into sindarin (tengwar script) please?
Your translation ignores and important phenomenon of Sindarin: Consonant mutation. It dictates that in certain portions words change their initial consonant:
- ach causes soft mutation, therefore man > van
- os causes sibilant mutation, therefore edwen > hedwen (often written oh edwen for clarity)
- edwen should follow the noun it modifies, cf. Gwirith edwen "second [day] of April" in the king's letter
- the n-m in amrûn + mâd should assimilate to amrummad. (though I'm not entirely sure what would happen to the long vowel in amrûn so I would play safe and say mâd mi amrûn "meal in the morning"
That leaves me with Ach van o mâd edwen mi amrûn?. For the Tengwar, this forum natively supports transcriptions via Glæmscribe:
- General mode for Sindarin:
@sindarin:Ach van o mâd edwen mi amrûn ?@: Ach van o mâd edwen mi amrûn ? - Mode of Beleriand:
@sindarin-beleriand|Ach van o mâd edwen mi amrûn ?@: Ach van o mâd edwen mi amrûn ?
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Name help
Your suggestions misses an important phenomenon in Sindarin: Consonant mutation. Those rules dictate for example that m between vowels needs to become v, so rather Athaevuig which possibly reduces further to Athevuig (like athelas).
On another point, arwen-undomiel.com is rather outdated.
