Help with teaching my dog Sindarin!

dgou ps #3113

Can someone help me translate some casual phrases in Sindarin for just when I'm talking to him?

He already knows a fair few Quenya commands, but Sindarin is less formal, and I'm unsure of the syntax of more full sentences.

I'm looking for help with -

'I'm home/I have returned.'

'I missed you.'

'How was your day?'

'You are safe.'

'You are my best friend in the world.'

'Have a rest/Rest now.'

And, finally, 'Good boy!' 🙂

Can anyone help out?

Hantanyel órenyallo!

Ellanto #3114
  • "I have returned" - dandúlen.
  • "I'm home" - ni m' i·mâr.
  • "I missed you" - ebin gin annin (quite speculative, lit. "you weren't had to me")
  • "How was your day?" - manef nî i·aur gín? (manef extrapolated as a cognate of Q. manima).
  • "You are safe" - Ci barn.
  • "You are my best friend in the world" - Ci i·vellon róvaer nín v' i·amar.
  • "Rest now" - sedho hí.
  • "Good boy" - iond vaer (may rather mean "good son", but we don't really have a better word for boy as far as I can tell).

Let me know if you need explanation of pronunciations and such.

Also quick note regarding hantanyel - the general consensus is to not use object suffixes apart from the 3rd person ones. So I would phrase this as hantan(ye) lyen.

dgou ps #3151

Thank you so much! That's excellent.

I think the only one I need help with pronunciation is 'róvaer' - how is the accented o pronounced?

Ellanto #3152

The accent indicates a long vowel - you simply hold it longer than a normal one. Likewise in dandúlen - simply hold the 'ú' longer. In both róvaer and dandúlen the long vowel also happens to be the stressed vowel, but that is not always they case.

dgou ps #3153

Thank you very much, Ellanto. This is fantastic and he's picked up a lot of it already.

I know this is, by the title, off topic, but do you have any ideas for Quenya for:

  • Not now.

  • Help me.

I'm a rank amateur, so I was only able to use Parf Edhellen and Eldamo for simple commands. I was never able to figure out even approximations of these two

Ellanto #3154

I can offer these:

  • Not now: Lá sí.

  • Help me: Á aþya ni(n), or aþyá! if very urgent.

dgou ps #3155

You are truly very helpful. Thank you so much.

For the thorn, in Quenya, is the pronunciation ah-thya or ah-sya? I'm trying to make sense of this article on Eldamo.

Hantanyë lyen.

Ellanto #3156

Ah yes, the question of sá-sí!

If you have access to The Peoples of Middle-earth, I recommend you read The Shibboleth of Fëanor, which explains this topic. But I'll explain the basics:

First things first: I would recommend using þ in spelling, regardless of how it is to be pronounced, if only because the Elves themselves retained the distinction in spelling. E.g. in the text of Namárie the words and sindanóriello (= þindanóriello) are to be spelled with different tengwar for their first consonants: and þindanóriello respectively.

As for the pronunciation and what The Shibboleth of Fëanor tells us:

At some relatively recent point in the historical development of the Quenya language amongst the Ñoldor many of them lost the distinction between the consonants [s] (as in English soup) and [θ] (written þ, pronounced as in English think, not as in that), and merged both into [s]. Not all Ñoldor made this change in their pronunciation; notably the House of Finarfin did not. More notably still Fëanor resisted this change, and even made it into a political issue.

Fëanor felt slighted by this change in pronunciation, primarily because it affected the sobriquet of his mother, Míriel Þerinde, meaning "Broideress, Needlewoman"; it is not plainly stated by Tolkien, but some Tolkienian linguists have observed that, if it is mispronounced as Serinde, it may be misinterpreted as a derivative of ser-, and thus mean "she who rests".

“[...] So Fëanor would call himself ‘Son of the Þerindë’, and when his sons in their childhood asked why their kin in the house of Finwë used s for þ he answered: ‘Take no heed! We speak as is right, and as King Finwë himself did before he was led astray. We are his heirs by right and the elder house. Let them sá-sí, if they can speak no better.’” [The Peoples of Middle-earth, The Shibboleth of Fëanor, p. 336]

The issue was indeed so political in the end, that Galadriel, though a member fo the House of Finarfin (who did not sá-sí to begin with), spoke with s in place of þ to spite Fëanor.

At the same time, however, þ has partly returned to Quenya following the exile, through the influence of Sindarin (= Þindarin), but that was mostly restricted to the recitation of literary texts. Loremasters, though, tended to speak with þ in their daily speech as well.

So to wrap up the answer - which may well be much longer than you bargained for - you may pronounce it either with [s] or with [θ], up to your preference. You may motivate your choice in various ways, if you want:

  • For [s]: by taking a political stance against Fëanor, as Galadriel did; or by simply being one of the many speakers who simply spoke that way, as for example King Finwë himself.

  • For [θ]: by sympathising with Fëanor; or by being one fo the speakers who never switched to [s] in the first place (e.g. the House of Finarfin, or the Vanyar etc.); or by being one of the loremasters who preferred þ.

[Important note: not all words with s in Quenya are related to the s vs. þ issue! Some words indeed simply have a s in them.]

dgou ps #3157

That is amazing. I am genuinely extremely thankful for the thought, effort and time you put into summarising that. Now I'm going to have to go and buy a copy of The Peoples of Middle Earth.

The answer was precisely as long as it needed to be.

As for what I will do - I would cut off my own hand to spite Fëanor. I would crawl over fiery rock and scalding ash to spite Fëanor. I would go back in time (and across dimensions?) with a launch-capable orbiter, steal all three silmarils, and blast them into high geosynchronous orbit to spite Fëanor, so he could always see them but never touch them.

I will be using [s].

Ellanto #3158

Always happy to help!

Your description made me laugh! Here's an alternate use for þ, if you don't want to use it in the language itself: