Elvish from Amazon’s Rings of Power

Gilruin #1979

This is a thread to collect all the bits and pieces of Elvish (that being both translation into one of the Elvish languages, such as Sindarin or Quenya and transcriptions into one of the Elvish writing systems, such as Tengwar, Sarati and Cirth) as a more or less comprehensive resource to link to. I'll generally try to discuss where their translation diverges from usual conventions of Neo-Elvish and point out where Tolkien’s published notes point to a different conclusions; however it must be mentioned that this is not necessarily a good source to learn or practice Elvish with. If you wish to learn more, refer to our collection of Links & Resources.

The translator has been confirmed to be Carl F. Hostetter, member of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship (EP Lindsey Weber & Showrunner Patrick McKay interview, 1:15), it is however probably unreasonable to assume that he did all items from this list, dialect coach Leith McPherson spoke of a “team appointed by the estate” and also said that otherwise unpublished material has been used (The Rings Of Power Wrap-up #007, 34:00, 36:30).

(I would appreciate if discussions of the items or further speculations could be kept to different threads to keep this one nice and uncluttered. Naturally everyone is encouraged to submit new entries as they appear though, this is collaborative!)


This analysis is based on discussions with and suggestions from many others, who I would like to thank for their contributions, especially Sid, Quirinius, TolkienGuide, zionius, machsna, Elaran, Röandil, Lokyt, EruannoVG and Ríon from the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord server, u/NachoFailconi, The Dwarrow Scholar and TengwarTeacher.

Gilruin #1980

The Ring Poem

A Neo-Sindarin translation in the mode of Beleriand

Title Reveal — January 19th, 2022

This Reddit post has been the base for deciphering this text, which appears to be translation of the Ring Poem.

R: cyr neledh di menel “three rings under the sky”

  • cyr “rings”, plural of cor “ring, circle”. Notice that this is different from the neologism *corf “ring (for fingers)” used in the title reveal.
  • neledh “three”. In our two attested examples of numerals modifying nouns levain tad-dail “two-legged animals” and N. lheben teil “five foot” the number appears before the noun it modifies, unlike normal adjectives which tend to follow their noun, but here the translator seems to have chosen the standard position for adjectives.
  • di menel “under [the] sky”. Given its primitive form ndī and the phrase di’nguruthos “beneath death-horror”, it is likely that di would cause soft mutation turning m- to v-, but in the similar situation vi Menel “in Heaven”, menel remains unchanged, leading to the theory that menel as a proper noun is immune to mutation.

I: ‘nin edhil erain “of the Elf-kings”

  • ‘nin “to the”, probably a combination of an “to, for” and in the plural article “the” with the first a- being dropped as can be seen in ‘ni Pheriannath “to the Halflings”, where it additionally introduces nasal mutation.
  • erain “kings”, plural of aran “king”. The phrase edhil erain is intended to be a loose compound “Elf-kings”, though the order is unexpected: genitives like this are (outside of ancient names) expressed by placing the modifying noun second, e. g. Aran Moria “King of Moria, *Moria-King”.

N: odog vi gond gaith “seven in stone-caverns”

  • odog “seven”.
  • vi gond gaith “in stone-caverns” ← vi/mi “in” + gond “stone” + gaith, plural of N. gath “cavern”. Again the same surprising ordering of loose compounds as in edhil erain appears. Also, while vi is generally believed to cause soft mutation (here g- → ’-), some have suggested based on vi Menel “in Heaven” (instead of **vi Venel) that this might not be the case after all. However since the translator already appears to use the alternative theory that menel is immune to mutation above, this interpretation seems unlikely, another possibility would be that the absence of mutation is caused by the abnormal word order in gond gaith.
  • G: an nogothrim thûr “to the Dwarf-?Lords”
  • an “to, for”.
  • nogothrim “dwarf-folk”, class plural of nogoth “dwarf”.
  • *thûr. From context, this should cover the “lords”-part of “Dwarf-lords” and could thus be related to primitive turū “Great Lord or King”, with t → th possibly being intended as a nasal mutation after the -m of Nogothrim. What is puzzling though, is that thûr shows no signs of pluralization, which would be required both for the noun “lords” and the adjective “lordly”. A third possibility would be a genitive phrase “Dwarf-folk of Lordship”, but in genitive phrases no mutation should happen (e. g. Amon Hen “Hill of the Eye” does not become **Amon Chen), so the exact intentions remain unclear.
    (Alternatively it could be derived from √THUR “surround, fence, ward, hedge in, secrete” from which is also thurin “secret, hidden” or from a lengthened form of √STOR “steadfast”, producing “Dwarf-folk of ?Secrecy/Steadfastness”.)

S: neder an amarth “nine for doom”

P: fîr edain “[of] mortal men”

  • fîr “mortals”, plural of Feir “mortal [men]”, in this case probably used as an adjective to describe edain. While adjectives usually follow the nouns they modify, in poetry the order can be reversed (cf. galadhremmin ennorath “tree-tangled middle-lands”).
  • edain “Men”, plural of adan “human”. The whole phrase amarth fîr edain might be intended to form a genitive “[the] doom of mortal Men”.

O: mîn ani dúhaur “one to the Dark-Despicable one”

  • mîn “one”.
  • ani “for the”, ← an “to, for” + i “the” (cf. ’ni Pheriannath “to [all] the Halflings”, possibly the same an + in compound with the plural article causing nasal mutation and the a- being elided).
  • dúhaur “?Dark-Despicable one”. One might expect that ani would either cause soft mutation like the definite article on its own, indicating that the unmutated form of this word would be ?túhaur or mixed mutation which can be seen in other compounds with the article, which would allow for both ?túhaur and ?dúhaur (though in all attested cases an -n intervenes that we don’t see here: uin aran “from the king”, ben genediad “according to the reckoning”). Since I can’t find suitable elements producing ?túhaur — judging by the context in the Ring poem, this should be a name for Sauron — , I would assume it’s the latter despite the missing -n (an alternative explanation is that ani is intended to cause soft mutation and Dúhaur resists it as a proper noun just like Menel above). In this case, dúhaur might be a compound of “night, dimness; dim, dark” and the soft mutated form of saur, which appears in one note connected to Q. saura “foul, vile”, the base element of Sauron, but is itself glossed “bad (of food), putrid” and as Tolkien reverted back to the root √THAW “cruel” as the base of Sauron at the end of this note and there gave Gothaur as Sindarin form of his name, Dúhaur is rather odd.

W: archadh(?)/or châdh dîn dûr “(?on) his dark throne”

  • archadh “throne”, probably based on arahadw but substituting a neologism *hâdh “chair” derived from the bare root √KHAD “sit”, instead of the attested word hadhw from khadmā, which is hard to explain. Alternatively it might read or châdh “above (on?) [his] seat” with N. or “above” and the same neologism *hâdh with liquid mutation.
  • dîn, soft mutated from tîn “his”. For inanimate objects we only have the possessive pronouns attested together with an article, e. g. i eneth lín “your name”, while for animate nouns we see no article, e. g. sellath dîn “your daughters”. It is somewhat unclear whether this represents a genuine pattern or is just an effect of our limited examples, but it would indicate that an article should be present in this phrase.
  • E: danin gardh mordor “upon the region of Mordor”
  • danin “upon the” ← dan “back to, against, down upon” + i “the” with the intervening -n that was missing above in ani Dúhaur. The in the phrase dan i ngaurhoth “against the werewolf-horde”.
  • gardh “region”.
  • Mordor “Balck Land”, gardh Mordor is again a genitive “region of Mordor”.

R: ias caedar úgelain “where un-lights lie”

  • *ias “where”, based on Q. yasse “where” and ennas “there”.
  • caedar “[they] lie”, present of *caeda- “to lie down”, with an -r indicating a plural subject. *Caeda- itself is a neologism based on Q. caita- “to lie (down)”.
  • úgelain “un-lights”, plural of *úgalan, derived from ú-, the negative prefix, and the soft mutated form of calan “(day)light”.

As pointed out by Ryszard Derdzinski this might have been inspired by a translation by Christopher Gilson and Bill Welden in Vinyar Tengwar #13, p. 13.

Gilruin #1981

Title Reveal

A Neo-Sindarin translation in the mode of Beleriand

Title Reveal — January 19th, 2022

hîr i chorvath “The Lord of all the Rings”
corvath bâl “All the Rings of Power”

  • hîr “lord, master”
  • corvath “all rings”, class plural of *corf “ring”, a neologism based on Q. corma “ring” (cf. Q. parma vs. N. parf “book”). In the first part, it appears with the plural definite article in “the” causing nasal mutation in + corvath → i·chorvath. In the second phrase corvath is probably still intended to be definite (what would an indefinite class plural even mean?), but the article is left of since there is some indication that it’s not needed when the noun is modified by a genitive.
  • *Bâl “power” ← √BAL. One could argue that it is too simplistic, given that Sindarin also has a basic verb bal- “*to have power” indicating that it’s a verbal root, which would make formations like bālē > baul, balassē > balas more likely. However the word Balrog implies it’s existence to some extent, even though it is glossed as “mighty deamon”, because adjectives and nouns can have the same form in Sindarin.

In both parts the two noun phrases just appear next to each other implying a genitive relationship, cf. Aran Moria “King of Moria”.

Gilruin #1982

Teaser Poster — The Dwarven Hammer

A transliteration of English with the Angerthas Erebor

Poster — February 3rd, 2022

“awake the sleeping stone”

Teaser Poster — The Tengwar Scroll

A transliteration of English with an unidentifiable Tengwar Mode

Poster — February 3rd, 2022

“kings square — view from south”

The transcription is rather odd, it appears like an attempt to write English in a phonetic Mode of Beleriand (which is impossible since Sindarin and English have massive phonotactic differences, the Later or Westron Convention, an English full mode works differently), especially confusing is the transcription of k, g as q, g, whereas it should be either c, g or c, g according to the featural system of the Tengwar. See also Mach’s analysis.

In the corner of the scroll there is written faintly in the mode of Beleriand:

  • Eregion “Eregion”

Teaser Poster — The Golden Dress

Some Cirth

Poster — February 3rd, 2022

There are some Cirth spelling out ...ELB... on the sleeve. This might be part of the name Elbereth.

Teaser Poster — The Gold Ring

Perhaps some Tengwar signs?

Poster — February 3rd, 2022

The pattern on the gold ring might represent some Tengwar ...vornaentu... “...vornaentul...” though this is uncertain. The end might be the start of a form of entul- “to come again, *return”. The interpretation of the first part is more uncertain, because no attested Quenya word ends in -vor or -vorna, though vorna could theoretically be a Quenya cognate of Sindarin *-born “steadfast”

Teaser Poster — A Scroll with Pictograms?

Non-Tolkienian

Poster — February 3rd, 2022

This is not a Tolkienian writing system, however it might be inspired by the Goblin Alphabet from Tolkien’s Letters from Father Chrismas.

Gilruin #1983

Date of the First Teaser

A Neo-Sindarin translation in the mode of Beleriand

Announcement Video — February 7th, 2022

paenelui en Nínui “thriteenth of the Watery”

  • *paenelui “thirteenth” ← *paenel “thirteen” + -ui “adjective suffix” (cf. nel(edh) “three” → nelui “third”). Paenel itself is derived from pae “ten” + nel(edh) “three” according to the pattern seen in Q. quainel “thirteen”.
  • en Nínui “of the Watery” with the genitive preposition en “of [the]”. Nínui “Watery” is the second month of the calendar of the Dúnedain, thus the intended reading is “February 13th”, even though a more systematic approach at aligning the calendars would produce different results, e. g. synchronizing the Mid-year’s Day with the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice would result in Nínui 13th being equivalent to February 2nd.

Note that in our attested examples of dates dolthen Ethuil “eighth day of Spring”, Gwirith edwen “second day of April”, nelchainen ned Ethuil “thirty-first day of the Stirring” do not include the Genitive preposition en.

Gilruin #1984

Names from Vanity Fair

Neo-Sindarin and possibly some Mannish language

Article — February 10th, 2022

  • Halbrand: possibly a compound of hall “exalted, lofty” + brand “steeple” or brand “towering”, likely a spin on the name Halbarad. Alternatively the first element might be hall “secret, hidden”.
  • Arondir: possibly a compound of arod “noble” + [n]dîr “man”
  • Bronwyn: Probably of Mannish origin, there is a Welsh name Bronwyn meaning “White Raven” or “White Breast”. If it is an Elvish name instead, it might be linked to the root √BOR(ON) “endure”.
  • Tirharad: The first element is probably √TIR “watch”, for the second, one would expect *sarad according to Sindarin's mutation rules, but I can't find any suitable derivation that would produce this word, so I'd assume that it is harad “south” without mutation, thus aiming for “South Watch”. The lack of mutation could be an early instance of ch (the expected mutation for h) weakening to h in Mannish usage.
Gilruin #1985

The Vanity Fair Neo-Khuzdul Inscription

Neo-Khuzdul in Angerthas Moria

Article — February 10th, 2022

The text on the right and left part of the doorframe, with the left part stopping after uzôiras · g... and the right picking up with ...gt ⋮ aisulna

  • ikhshisshu · milikt · ainagt ⋮ aisulna · uzôiras · ganâi · khazaddûmu: Sulna appears to be a derivation form the radical S·L·N, given in the form sulûn “to fall, descend swiftly”, the prefix ai could be related to the one we se in khazad ai-mênu “the Dwarves are upon you”. Khazaddûmu is the attested genitive of Khazad-dûm “Dwarrowdelf”, thus one could speculate that the whole phrase ai-sulna ... Khazaddûmu could mean “upon the fall of Moria”. Ikhshi is a Neo-Khuzdul word for “count”, Z·R·S is a Neo-radical for “tree”, which might be present in uzôiras.

On the lozenge behind Disa, the writing on the sides opposing each other seems to be the same:

  • m · au · mazarb · maha(l?): Mazarb is attested as “records, documents”. Mahal is the Khuzdul name for Aulë, the creator of the Dwarves.
  • [ba?]yâ · khôzudu · dawô: Khôzudu appears to contain the radical Kh·Z·D “Dwarf”, the -u in the end could be intended as a genitive morpheme “of (the) Dwarves” like we see Khazad-dûm → Khazad-dûmu

The door appears again in a trailer about Durin and Disa (Aug 25th), confirming the reading above.


Neo-Khuzdul is different from Neo-Elvish in that it requires more additions to a smaller existing corpus to become usable. While for Neo-Elvish more source material is available, stricter rules for Neologism can be applied and are generally accepted amongst Neo-Eldarin scholars, then accepted or applied to Neo-Khuzdul.

Gilruin #1989

The Runes on Gil-Galad's Clothes in the Trailer

Sindarin in the Angerthas Eregion

1st Trailer — February 13th, 2022

The runes are rather hard to read and it is uncertain whether some parts are actually runes or part of a decorative pattern, but my best guess is the following:

(a)ran·einior

This reads Aran Einior “Elder King”, a title of Manwë.

Gilruin #2064

Names from Various Leaks

(Neo-)Quenya

[1], [2] — April 11th, 2022

  • Ñólion (a friend of Isildur, leaked as Nolion) might be ñolë + -ion “son of knowledge”.
  • Ontamo (a friend of Isildur) is attested as “mason”, probably in this case as a title, like we see with Nówë being primarily known as Círdan “Shipwright”
  • Valandil (a friend of Isildur) “Friend of the Valar” is attested as the name of Isildur’s son
  • Kemen (son of Ar-Pharazôn) is attested as “earth”. (The name has been confirmed by the Explore Entertainment article) This is somewhat problematic as a name:

    The mere names of things, such as ‘hill, river, tree’, and especially of unique things, as ‘sun’, were not used, at any rate without differentiation: [...] for that would imply some kind of total equation or identity. An Elf (or Man) would not be called Anar ‘Sun’ even to depict great glory or radiant vigour. [...] But an Elf or Man could be called Anárion, Anardil [Parma Eldalamberon #21, p. 86]

    Also, it would be uncharacteristic for Ar-Pahrazôn, who didn’t use his Quenya name Tar-Calion and renamed Tar-Míriël to Adûnaic Ar-Zimraphêl due to his hatred of the Elves, to give his son an Quenya name. Potentially since it is spelt with k rather than c it might be intended as a Mannish name instead. Adûnaic words however cannot contain a short e, which makes the name still somewhat hard to explain (or at least Anûnaic as described in Sauron Defeated doesn’t permit short e, later we see words such as Belzagar. However dismissing the description in Sauron Defeated essentially means that we have thrown out our only substantial source for Adûnaic, which seems counterproductive for making up Adûnaic names).

  • Carine: the sister of Isildur was confirmed to be named → Eärien later.
Gilruin #2284

Inscription on Gil-galad’s spear Aeglos

A Neo-Sindarin translation in the Mode of Beleriand

Nerdist-Article — June 30th, 2022

On the blade of his spear is written:

Gil-galad maetha maegar aith, i-orch tôl gostad helui naith, ceniel ni, di ñuruthos enethen tôl istad, Aeglos.
“Gil-galad wields a well-made spear, the orc will fear an (it’s?) icy point, seeing me, under the shadow of death will know my name: Snow-point”.

  • Gil-galad “Starlight, (lit.) Star of Radiance”.
  • maetha- “to handle, wield, manage”.
  • *maegar “well-made” ← mae “well” + soft mutated car- “to do, make”, compare constructions like fair “quick, ready, prompt” + car-fergar “soon done”. Alternatively it might be a neologism for “sharp” derived from *maikrā, but that seems unlikely since there is an attested word maeg “sharp” already.
  • aith “spear-point” (updated from N. eith). It is somewhat unusual that the adjective maegar precedes aith instead of following it, but it is possible in poetry (cf. galadhremmin ennorath “tree-tangled middle-lands”).
  • i-orch “the orc” with a definite article.
  • tôl gostad “will fear” ← N. gosta- “to fear excedingly”. Per PE22/168 Sindarin expresses the future with tol- “to come” and the main verb as a gerund. Tolkien exemplifies this with tolen cared “I will do”, where tolen is a otherwise unknown tense form (for the present one would expect telin based on other forms), but here the translator has decided to use tol-’s present forms.
  • *helui, probably “icy, cold” ← √KHEL “ice, freeze” + -ui, an adjectival suffix.
  • naith “spearhead, gore, wedge, narrow prominitory; angle”. Helui naith again shows the unusual order adjective-noun. As the phrase lacks a definite article, it means “an icy point”, but from context it’s clear that something like “it’s icy point” must be intended (even though we don’t have any evidence that Sindarin can drop possessives like this).
  • ceniel “seeing”, present active participle of cen- “to see”. While Tolkien at least at some point conceived of such participles ending in -iel, the better attested formation uses -ol: cenol “seeing” (attested in it’s soft mutated form -genol in fergenol).
  • ni “I, me”. In Sindarin, the pronouns can appear either with an -n in the end or without it. The evidence is a bit tangled, but a common theory is that -n marks object pronouns: ni “I”, nin “me”. As it’s clear from context that “me” is intended here, the translator doesn’t seem to follow this theory, but whichever else they assume the trigger for the -n to be, the discrepancy with tiro nin “guard[/whatch] me!” is odd.
  • di ñuruthos “in dread of Death, beneath Death-horror” ← di “under” + [soft] mutated guruthos “death-horror”.
  • enethen “my name” ← eneth “name” + -n “my” as seen in lamlammen “my tongue”. It is somewhat unclear if this suffix preserved the lost ancient vowel (which in this case is not clear but might be a by comparison to Telerin’s suffix -(s)tā > -tá for verbal nouns) or just always adds -e-, but nallan “a/to/my? call [reading uncertain]” ← nalla might indicate the former, which would make enethan more likely. Most Neo-Sindarinists use a seperate possessive pronoun to avoid this problem: i eneth nín.
  • tôl istad “he will know” ← ista- “to know”, again with the same analytic future as above.
  • Aeglos “Snow-point, icicle”. At one point Tolkien wrote the name as Aiglos for the benefit of an English audience that would have a hard time distinguishing ai and ae. It is hard to see whether ai or ae is written in the inscription, but as Aeglos is the more proper spelling, I will assume that.

The intended meaning is close to David Salo's translation for the movies but the translation differs considerably.