Comments by Tom Bombadil

These are the 10 posts of 114 by Tom Bombadil.

  • Rune Translation

    Skyrim?

  • Subjunctive in Quenya

    Thank you very much for your detailed answer, Aldaleon. Especially the Parma Eldalamberon excerpt helps me and also the sentence care mára quí tyare naxa was unknown to me. In case of doubt I will just use the aorist/infinitive in both sub-clauses. Thanks once again!

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  • A question about a wedding ring engraving

    Technically it is not a sentence, so what could be wrong? The only thing that could be wrong is the syntax, but that is right, because the adjective comes in front of the noun.

  • A question about a wedding ring engraving

    Celvanya and cuimanya would be right, but I am not sure about lamannya.

    Usually compound words merge, so I think, it should be Lamanya. Otherwise it is known that -nya will become -inya if the former word ends with a consonant, so maybe it could be lamaninya too.

    I confess that I never understood if the longer formes or the merging forms were required, but it seems as if Tolkien prefered the merging forms. So in case of doubt I would choose lamanya instead of lamaninya, but if I were you, I would simply use celvanya or cuimanya, for both of them are definitely right.

    PS. If you are interested, there will be several alternative words for oiale. You could also use oiave, oiala, oira, oia or oiavea instead.

  • Dracula translation

    In quenya I would say it like that:

    Anat ena ólea nin. Ar lórenyasse tarin undu menelo landan calla lanotoite elenen ar palda salquenanda pono nin, ya racta palanna yasse órta oronion morë lómini. Ar ilya na ascene ar lanwa ar calina ar tanome na taitë sére, taitë íre ar isil na quanta ar nalve narmor ar nóvalve. Ar menellandar nore oiale undu talalva.

    I decided to speak usually in aorist, because it is a dream and therefore anyway timeless, especially because it repeats often. There is no quenya word for even, therefore I omited the "even still" in the first sentence. I also had to invent a word for horizon. Therefore I called it sky-boundaries (Menel-landar), because that is the greek meaning and part of horizon's etymlogy. Who does Mina mean when she says: "We are wolves"? I thought she would mean the inclusive plural (you, me and at least one other person). Otherwise, if she does not mean the conversational partner too, it must be nalme, nóvalme and talalma instead of nalve, nóvalme and talalva.

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  • Subjunctive in Quenya

    Hi, I would like to use Quenya in an everydaystile, at least in theory, and therefore I am searching for polite ways to express wishes. Of course there is an imperative, but "give me a waterglass" is not very polite. Of course "mecin" could be used as "please", but "give me a waterglass, please" is still not polite enough in my opinion. I think, the best would be to use the subjunctive in a leading question, maybe even combined with please, like "Could you give me a waterglass, please?".

    So: does a way exist to put verbs in the subjunctive? It should be possible, for Tolkien also created imperative and indicative, so subjunctive would be the last missing mode.

    The words for "if" do already exist, like cé and qui, but how are sentences created with that? I mean: what is the syntax like, and how have the verbs to be? Like the tenses in the three english if-clauses? Are there precedents how Tolkien used it?

    One more thing: I thought, maybe the suffix -ce could make a verb a subjunctive one. At least there is a precedent: náce, but for two reasons I am still sceptic.

    At first -ce is added to the verb in the present tense, not to the stem. That sounds unusual. Secondly na is such a fundamental word that I am not sure if we will be able to reason any linguistic rule on this fundament (and of course one single word is not enough to deduce a rule).

    Anyway, what do you think? Could I say for instance "lertace" (stem+ce), or maybe "lerteace" (present tense+ce) for "could"? Or do you know other ways for if-clauses and subjunctive verbs?

    I'm grateful for any answer.

  • "You are worthy." [Translation]

    I would say it's right. There many other ways to say it, if you will be interested, but nalye valda is also right. You could use the shorter form nál instead of nalye. You could also say it without a conjugated form of na, and use pronouns and the infinitive instead (like Galadriel did; nai elye hiruva instead of nai hiruval). So you could say:

    Elye na valda (impressive)

    Lye na valda (usual)

    Also

    Etye na valda (impressive)

    Tye na valda (usual)

    are possible, that would be more familiar and less formal. It is also possible (and more usual, if the context is clear) to avoid na and to use just pronoun and adjective (Varda mára, aistana elye imica nísi, etc.). So it would just be elye valda, lye valda, etye valda or tye valda.

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  • Case endings to pronouns (Quenya)

    So ... are the dative and possessive pronouns still necessary? Why should one use words like nin, ven and men if it's possible to say inyeo, elveo and elmeo instead? Would there be any differences?

  • Quenya Imperativ without free "a"

    How could words like "must" or "should" be expressed? Like for instance "you must come." instead of "come!" I mean: how can I tell a person that he/she is forced to do something, but that I am not the one who forces him/her? Could it be usefull to put the imperative particle to the word's end instead of putting it in front of it? Like in cena, tula and tira? Or could maybe the forms with "a" at the beginning and the pronominal suffixes at the end be used to express this status of being forced? Like alye for instance? Would that mean "you must"?

    PS. And one more thing: Could I maybe just use "horya-" as "must"? I think that would be much easier.

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  • Case endings to pronouns (Quenya)

    Thanks