Quenya translation of "Ḥad Gadya" proofreading

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer #2065

Hello everyone! I'm a former linguistics major and an amateur conlang enthusiast, and I'm working on a translation of the Passover song Ḥad Gadya into Quenya. I'm well aware that my grammar is lacking, so I thought I would post it here for some expert help. I use several fan-made terms, such as cuimacir for "butcher" and luhtya- for "extinguish", as well as one original neologism, yacincë for "kid-goat."

I'm planning on posting this on OpenSiddur, a source for fair-use Jewish liturgical innovations, as soon as I get it proofread. Since Ḥad Gadya is a cumulative song, I'm only including the last verse, along with its intended translation. Thanks!

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Last verse: San túlë Eru Ilúvatar, ar nahtanes i máyá fíriëo, i nahtanë i cuimacira, i nahtanë i mondo, i yulnë i néna, i luhtyanë i ruiné, i urtanë i olbá, i palpanë i roá, i nancë i miué, i mantë i yacincé, i homancanë atya telpenten; er yacincë, er yacincë.

Translation: Then came the One All-father (original liturgical text: Holy Blessed One), and killed the Maia (original liturgical text: angel) of death, which killed the butcher, which killed the ox, which drank the water, which extinguished the fire, which burned the branch, which struck the dog, which bit the cat, which ate the kid-goat, which my father bought for two silver; one kid-goat, one kid-goat.

Gilruin #2066

That’s a lovely idea, don’t let the long list of points scare you, your translation is already quite good!

máyá, cuimacira, néna, ruiné, olbá, roá, miué, yacincé

The accusative case only existed in an ancient version of Quenya called Parmaquesta, later the nominative/common was used instead. Since your verb forms on the other hand don’t look archaic at all, I’d suggest to drop the distinct accusatives.

nahtane

I would prefer it’s attested half-strong past nacante (√NAK-T-a > nahta-, past √NAK(A)-T-ne > nacante)

máyá

Later the spelling maiya/maia is more usual.

fíriëo

One can break up this three vowel sequence as fíriéno (cf. márie → máriéno), but your form should be fine as well (cf. sindie → sindieo), though a bit more awkward to pronounce.

mondo

I would prefer the form mundo, Tolkien used both but the latter is more in line with the Sindarin cognate mund.

yulne

-ln- is not an allowed sequence in Quenya, it changes to -ld- yielding past forms like tul- → tulde, yul- → yulde, but there is a competing form in analogy to the perfect tul- → túle, yul- → yúle. I would suggest you use the same paradigm for both verbs in a single text.

luhtyane

This neologism is somewhat uncertain and the -tya ending doesn’t make it easy to figure out a past tense form. One can make a case that the Sindarin verb luithia- “quench” is instead cognate with the attested Quenya verb luita- “to flood, inundate, drench”, which would have either a strong past luine/lúye or a half-strong form luyunte.

palpane

Due to the form of it’s root √PALAP, I would suggest that this is a TALAT-stem verb, which would result in a past form √PALAP-ne > palampe

i yacince, i homancane atya

This reads “the baby goat, that bought my father”, you want i yacince, i atya homancane to keep “my father” as the subject.

telpenten

I don’t think you can say “two silver” in Quenya because it’s a mass noun, just like you can’t say “two oil” in English. Unfortunately Tolkien didn’t leave us with much trade related vocabulary, but we know of a Gondorian silver coin, the canath “quater”, which would be casta in Quenya, so perhaps castanten.

er yacince

I’d use min instead of er, becaues it isn’t “the one baby goat, the single or most outstanding baby goat in exisance”, but merely one in its plain numeric sense; the father could have decided to buy two instead and the semantics of the poem wouldn’t massively change.

i X i Y

I think in this long chain of rellative clauses it is permissable in Quenya to drop the first i, so e. g. nacante cumacir, i nacante mondo, i yulde nén instead of nacante i cuimacir, i nacante i mondo, i yulde i nén, because the following relative clause helps to define the noun in question.

Isaac Gantwerk Mayer #2067

Thanks! So now what I have is this:

San túlë Eru Ilúvatar, ar nacantes i máiya fíriéno, i nacantë cuimacir, i nacantë mundo, i yúlë nén, i luyuntë ruinë, i urtanë olba, i palampë roa, i nancë miuë, i mantë yacincë, i atya homancanë castanten, Min yacincë, min yacincë.

Does that look better?

Gilruin #2069

That looks great!

(though máiya >> maiya)