Certain words

Bea Stevens #964

I need help translating normal words such as "heard" and "urgent". Most of the dictionaries and translating sites don't have translations for it, and I'm close to just breaking and using The Tel'Quessir Online Generator haha.

Elaran #965

Those words seem like they belong to a sentence. I can offer them but their exact form would depend on the context in which they appear. In other words, if you are trying to translate a sentence (which you should not do with just the help of a dictionary, as it cannot help with grammar), simply share the whole sentence so that I can translate it properly.

Bea Stevens #966

It's a simple sentence and I feel kind of silly asking for help on it but I'm not a linguist aha. The sentence is just, "It's an urgent matter," in relation to some other dialogue.

Elaran #967

If you have attempted other translations (since you mentioned another dialogue, and since your requested "heard" does not appear in that sentence), and if you are concerned about accuracy, it would be best to let me review / re-translate them as well. Also assuming that we are dealing with Sindarin and not Quenya.

As for that sentence, it is not simple at all. One could argue that nad "thing" works well enough for "matter" (as some of Tolkien's drafts show) which otherwise does not exist in the attested lexicon, but "urgent" simply never appeared in Tolkien's notes, so it needs to be constructed. Fortunately, the notes from 1940 had Quenya hormë "urgency", which gives us a lead on how "urgent" can be expressed. Unfortunately, Tolkien seems to have updated the primitive root of that word from √KHOR to √ƷOR and then to √HOR. This is problematic because Tolkien vacillated on Ʒ & H, sometimes saying that the former did not exist, and this has phonetic implications that affect even the attested lexicon.

The initial ancient Ʒ (when it existed for Tolkien) becomes G in Sindarin, whereas initial ancient H disappears (but KH becomes H) in Sindarin. To add to the confusion, there was an old variant √GOR, which also yields G in Sindarin. That is to say, in order to derive "urgent" (by adding the adjectival -jā to these roots), we would need choose between *huir (from √KHORjā), *guir (from √ƷORjā & √GORjā), and *uir (from √HORjā), by determining which of these roots is the "right" one (or rather "more accurate" as it seems impossible to have a solid answer for this). There is more to this, but I will spare you the rest and choose *huir.

Te nad chuir.
"It [is] (an) urgent matter."

Bea Stevens #968

Thank you so much!