These are the 10 posts of 195 by Elaran.

  • Help with name

    Here:

    • Lothrusc "Snow-fox"
      (The initial element is actually loss "snow" but it is changed due to the "s(s)+r=thr" rule and thus can be misunderstood as loth "flower".)

    • Nimrusc "White-fox"


  • How do you learn?

    By joining a community of speakers with beginners and experts alike, and by studying with accurate sources (the document itself, not the book) alongside them.


  • Translating a phrase

    The "r" in raudh would be a "tapped r" (click for voice file); Tolkien described "r" in Elvish languages to be generally "rolled r" but he pronounced "tapped r" in certain positions. The "au" is read like in the word "now" (here is a video on it). And the "dh" is the same as in "that" (click for voice file).

    The double "r" in errych needs to be rolled (click for voice file), but some people cannot do this, so two "tapped r" sounds can be used instead. The "y" can be tricky for some: It has the rounded lips of "oo" but the forward tongue of "ee", so put your tongue forward as if to say "ee" and (while keeping the tongue in that position) round your lips as if to say "oo"; it is same sound which is written as "ü" in German (click for voice file). And finally the "ch" is pronounced like a strong "h", to put it simply, like the German "Bach" (click for voice file).

    Now, raudh is monosyllabic, so it is stressed by default. And in errych the stress falls on the initial syllable, like "ERrych". You can also use this IPA-reader website by copying the following text into the text-box and choosing "Dora [Icelandic]" or "Karl [Icelandic]" voices to read it for you (the others do not pronounce it correctly in this case), here:

    ˈraʊð ˈɛr.ryx


  • Translating a phrase

    A clarification: "Elvish" is a term that encompasses multiple languages which Tolkien made for different Elf groups. The most important of which are called Quenya and Sindarin. View this FAQ post on Reddit for more information on them. I will try and provide a Sindarin translation, since this is the most commonly spoken Elvish language in the books.

    Sadly, translations for neither "return" (as a noun) nor "mearh (singular of mearas)" can be found in the notes of Tolkien for Sindarin. However, a neologism (based on the ancient Elvish root √RAD "to return" by him, derived with his phonetic rules) in the form of *raudh could work as "return". And I would personally translate "mearh" as "noble-horse", thus *arroch. Finally, pluralising it to *errych, I would offer:

    Raudh Errych
    "Return [of the] Noble-horses"

    (The genitive element "of" is implied by word order, and the article "the" can be omitted, hence in brackets.)


  • Translation Help

    No one would knowingly provide ungrammatical translations (unless they have a grudge), so I find the last part rather amusing!

    I doubt that you can find the words "too" and "pass" in Sindarin, because they do not exist; Tolkien never wrote them down (or the ones that he did, he later rejected, so they should not be used). There are ways to make a Sindarin translation work, but it would be safer to translate this into Quenya.

    You are unable to find "shall" either because you are not considering the gloss "will" which is more frequent and has the same translation as "shall", or you are looking specifically for a word in isolation whereas both Quenya and Sindarin rather employ a suffix to express the future tense. In the case of Quenya, this is -uva.

    In a late (1960s) note, Tolkien said that adverbs should follow the verb or appear at the end of a sentence, but since we are not translating "This shall pass, too", the emphasis on "too" could be made by placing it before the verb just like in the English phrase. So I would offer:

    Si yú autuva


  • help with translation (english->sindarin)

    As I demonstrated here, simply combining two words would rarely yield accurate results in Sindarin. There are a lot of rules which make that difficult. For "Blackhand" I would offer Morgam or older Morcham.


  • help with translation (english->sindarin)

    That "e(n)-" is a grammatical element, it is never used with names of persons.

    Quenya has -ndur "servant", but Tolkien did not derive any Sindarin words from ancient √NDUR, so a Quenya name like Calandur would be much safer. But if you are set on Sindarin, we can derive a neologism from √NDUR and say that Calannur works as a Sindarin name.

    An arguably safer Sindarin alternative is possible. Tolkien once said:

    [...] the distinction [between √NDUR & √NDIL] is not always made (especially not by men [...]) [PE17/152]

    The point being that both √NDUR and √NDIL refer to devotion of some sort. Thus we could use the -ndil "friend" element which appears in both Quenya and Sindarin. So I would say Celennil (or with restored vowel qualities Calannil) in Sindarin as "Light-friend(/servant), Friend(/Servant) of Light". Also an archaic name would keep the medial "nd" as Celendil (or Calandil).


  • Translation help

    It is incorrect.

    Firstly, er is rather an adjective that means "alone", it needs to be min and (although adjectives should follow the nouns which they modify) cardinal numbers precede the nouns, so its position will remain as it is. However, "one day" feels rather idiomatic and may not really convey (when used in Elvish languages) the "at an indeterminable time in the future" sense with which we use it in English. In other words, "one day" could just be "one day", as opposed to "two days, three days" and so on. If you are fine with that potential mistake, you can use it. Otherwise, I think that mi lû "in time" may be safer.

    As for cin, it is the accusative (object) form of the second person familiar/impolite pronoun (so with proper mutations those last two words would rather read "(s/he) will kill you"), it needs to go and the subject suffix -(o)g should be used instead. And I am not sure how you ended up with that ï in "fïratha" but it needs to be a regular i. Thus:

    [Min aur / Mi lû] firathog.
    "[One day / In time] you will die."


  • Account “Tyler Turman”

    About what exactly?


  • Need a Sindarin Expert

    [...] my friend told me that it's definitely not gonna work [...]

    Your friend sounds wise. Compounding (or name formation) is one of the most complex subjects in Sindarin, despite being rather straightforward in many other languages. It is so complex, in fact, that it requires one to be familiar with the historical phonetic development rules between the Primitive Quenderin (> Common Eldarin > Ancient Telerin > Old Sindarin >) and Sindarin stages. Here is an example that I had written some time ago.


    Well actually I'm still confused about the naming rules

    If you are referring to this comment from me, the basic rule is that neither "glimmering" nor "fountain" can work as names by themselves (no single adjective or noun would), but their combination would indeed work. As for the word choices, I agree with Röandil that eithel is the right word for "fountain". And regarding "glimmering", I would rather pick another word, because the etymology of that one is questionable. But other attested alternatives are also somewhat unfitting (either due to etymology or connotation), so I would use *tend (cf. Q. tinda) which can mean "gleaming, glinting, glittering, glimmering, shimmering, twinkling, sparkling" (Tolkien used them interchangeably in his translations to English). Combining that with eithel would yield either (older) Tinneithel or (newer) Tenneithel.