The Sindarin Conversation Thread

[Erucheb]

Welcome to the forum, I should say. I'm always excited to meet another Sindarin enthusiast. Feel free to introduce yourself in the "general forum stuff" forum. I'm intrigued by your name. Eru (the One) + heb (some derivative of the verb hebi- "to keep")? Am I close? What meaning were you going for?

You nailed it. It's a very rough approximation of my real name, and it means "Eru keeps (me)" or "Eru retains (me)", with the pronoun understood. It's derived from *Eru-khap-i-se. I did toy with deriving a full name with the pronoun incorporated, but "Eruchebien" was too much of a mouthful for my taste.

What Sindarin resources do you use, out of curiosity? At first glance, I don't disagree with anything in your alternate translation save the positioning of adjectives. According to Gateway, adjectives ought to follow the nouns they modify, save in a few poetic exceptions. Do you have a resource that says otherwise? Just curious.

I mostly try to construct my own resources (wordlists, etc.) from the books I have; LotR, PE17, the HoME series, and the Silm. (which I rarely use, however). I do use Thorsten and Helge's work along with Hisweloke to keep up with releases of VT, since I'm not subscribed.

And you're right about adjectives; I didn't mean to have any preceding. Where were they?

[Ernildir]

You know what -- I'm just insane. Nevermind.

We have all of these "North of"s and similar constructions. I suppose I had gotten into my head the adjectival directions should have followed their destinations, but the meaning we wanted was, following the same example, "North of Fornost" not "North(ern) Fornost", so of course you did it correctly, and I erred in thinking they were out of place. Then I looked back at my own translation and saw we had placed our adjectives in the same manner anyway. :/

[Erucheb]

Well, to keep this conversation going:

Túlon forn e Minhiriath; orathrannen i-Varaduin oer tâd io. Mas gwaethan aen i im govenithan aen i-yrch ir anglennar?

Translation follows:
~
I am coming north from Minhiriath; I crossed over the Baranduin two days ago. Where might I go that I may meet the orcs as they approach?

1. Túlon - the 1st-person continuative present form of tol- "come". It means "I am coming". (The justification for this is found in the change of tôl acharn to tûl acharn. I take this to be a change from simple to continuative; "vengeance comes" vs. "vengeance is coming". Cf. Quenya sile "it shines" vs. síla "it is shining".)
2. forn - north.
3. e - from ed; "out of, from".
4. Minhiriath - lit. "Mesopotamia"; actually a place in Middle-earth, south of the Shire.
5. orathrannen - I crossed over; or-athra[-n-]n-en. Actually athrannen ("I crossed") with or- ("over") prefixed. Athra seems to mean "cross" in the sense "wander back and forth over", so I prefixed or- to clarify the meaning "cross over".
6. i-Varanduin - the Brandywine. Lenited from *i Baranduin.
7. oer - days. Singular aur.
8. tâd - two.
9. io - ago.
10. mas - where? Hypothetical; based on a Quenya cognate.
11. gwaethan aen - 1st-person future subjunctive "I might go, might I go". The use of aen is debated; I tend to believe it is a subjunctive marker, as Thorsten in Pedin Edhellen, and that is how I use it here: Salo uses it as a marker for passivity instead.
12. i - that (i.e., "in order that"). Hypothetical, derived from a Quenya cognate.
13. im - I. Used here to emphasize that I, as opposed to someone else, is meeting the orcs.
14. govenithan aen - I might meet. From govan- "meet, come together at a point".
15. i-yrch - the orcs.
16. ir - when. Used in the sense "while, as".
17. anglennar - they approach; anglenna-r

~

[Ernildir]

Thanks for posting that, Erucheb. Very good. You seem to be much more familiar with Sindarin than I, and I look forward to seeing and learning from your translations in the future as you continue to post them.

[Ernildir]

It isn't relevant to the conversation, but I thought I'd share this Sindarin composition with y'all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofEC45TG ... playnext=6

I just found it today. Please do yourself a favor and listen to it -- I think it's incredibly beautiful. You will really miss out if you don't click on the link.

[Erucheb]

That's really nice! It's not perfect, and I think there's some Quenya mixed in, but it sounds good and is a pretty impressive go. I'm glad people are doing things like this.

[Dailir]

I-yrch tolavorn. I-dunedain garan rinc avorn an gadti.
I think thats right. Honestly I have no idea.
Translation: The orcs come fast. The Dunedain have to move fast to catch them.

[Ernildir]

Dailir,

I'm glad you're getting in on this. Could you please give an explanation of what meaning you have ascribed to each word? With that, I can go over your translation with Salo's Gateway when next I get a little free time and make some comments on your translation to our mutual benefit.

And what resource(s) were you using to help with your translation, out of curiosity?

[Erucheb]

Well, i-yrch and i-Dúnedain are definitely right. Avorn, however, means "fast" in the sense of "steadfast, enduring, lasting, firm". The word for physical speed would be lim. I'm not sure what gadti is -- 'dt' wouldn't occur in Sindarin. Is it from gad-? I'm also not sure how garan, rinc, and an are being used.

Still, it's very good for a first try, right off the bat. One thing that would make it a whole lot better is using boe ("it is necessary") to replace the "have to" clause. Something like: boe i-nDúnedain telithar lim i hain gedithar aen. I'm not really sure how to express purpose in Sindarin; this technically means, "it is necessary [that] the Dúnedain will come quickly that they might catch them". I'm also not sure if "catch" is really being used in the sense of gad-, which really has more to do with hooks (i.e., fishing), as I understand it. I think govan- ("meet") might be better for the sense "catch up". So the full sentence might be, i-yrch telir lim; boe i-nDúnedain telithar lim i hain govenithar aen. (We might also see túlar indicating present-continuative, and gevenithar, with the umlaut carried all the way through.)

[Ernildir]

Well, i-yrch and i-Dúnedain are definitely right. Avorn, however, means "fast" in the sense of "steadfast, enduring, lasting, firm". The word for physical speed would be lim. I'm not sure what gadti is -- 'dt' wouldn't occur in Sindarin. Is it from gad-? I'm also not sure how garan, rinc, and an are being used.

Still, it's very good for a first try, right off the bat. One thing that would make it a whole lot better is using boe ("it is necessary") to replace the "have to" clause. Something like: boe i-Dúnedain telithar lim i hain gedithar aen. I'm not really sure how to express purpose in Sindarin; this technically means, "it is necessary [that] the Dúnedain will come quickly that they might catch them". I'm also not sure if "catch" is really being used in the sense of gad-, which really has more to do with hooks (i.e., fishing), as I understand it. I think govan- ("meet") might be better for the sense "catch up". So the full sentence might be, i-yrch telir lim; boe i-Dúnedain telithar lim i hain govenithar aen. (We might also see túlar indicating present-continuative, and gevenithar, with the umlaut carried all the way through.)

Erucheb has skills. Glad to see you posting! And I agree, Dailir has done very well for a first translation.

[Erucheb]

Erucheb has skills.

No, Erucheb just had a lot of free time a few years ago and wasted it studying languages that no one has ever actually spoken . . . (But beautiful languages, nonetheless. )

Glad to see you posting!

Thanks; I try to keep track of what's going on when I have time.


EDIT: I just thought of something. A better way to indicate the sentiment in this sentence might be to use a conditional. "It is necessary [that] the Dúnedain will come quickly if they intend meeting them." Boe telithar lim i-Ndúnedain ae mennar govaned hain.

[Dailir]

I-yrch tolavorn. I-dunedain garan rinc avorn an gadti.
I think thats right. Honestly I have no idea.
Translation: The orcs come fast. The Dunedain have to move fast to catch them.

Thanks! Here is what the words (Or so I thought) would come out to. I've begun reading an ebook (Pedin Edhellen a Sindarin-Course, http://www.phy.duke.edu/~trenk/elvish/d ... _en.pdf.gz) and its starting to make sense, but not much.
I-yrch - The orcs
tol- - Come
avorn - fast (Okay, I'll remember to use lim next time)
I-dunedain - The dunedain
gar - have
an - to (Boe? Okay.)
rinc - move
gad- - catch
ti - them

[Erucheb]

I-yrch tolavorn. I-dunedain garan rinc avorn an gadti.
I think thats right. Honestly I have no idea.
Translation: The orcs come fast. The Dunedain have to move fast to catch them.

Thanks! Here is what the words (Or so I thought) would come out to. I've begun reading an ebook (Pedin Edhellen a Sindarin-Course, http://www.phy.duke.edu/~trenk/elvish/d ... _en.pdf.gz) and its starting to make sense, but not much.
I-yrch - The orcs
tol- - Come
avorn - fast (Okay, I'll remember to use lim next time)
I-dunedain - The dunedain
gar - have
an - to (Boe? Okay.)
rinc - move
gad- - catch
ti - them

Pedin Edhellen is a great resource for beginners. Thorsten and I disagree on a couple points, but it's pretty minor (mostly about pronouns, which everyone disagrees about).

So, given those words, here are some pointers:

1. i-yrch is good.
2. tol- is just a root. You need to inflect the verb for tense, person, and number. In this case, you want some sort of present tense, so either aorist or continuative. Aorist is simple; add an -i- to the end, and umlaut the o to an e: teli-. For the continuative, you lengthen the stem vowel (which then becomes ú for historical reasons), and add -a- to the end: túla- You also want to have a 3rd person pl., so you add the personal marker -r to the end, and so you get either telir or túlar.
3. avorn -> lim.
4. i-Dúnedain -> i-Ndúnedain. I forgot to mention this earlier. The plural definite article will cause nasal mutation on the noun, and since Dúnedain is historically an nd- root, it will come out as i-nd.... You might see simple d-root mutation if the speaker is less cultured: i-Núnedain.
5. gar- needs to be inflected just like tol-. Also, it really means "to have" as in "to possess, to hold". Not "to be obligated to". And you can't really suffix an to change the meaning (an is a different kind of "to", anyway). Just use boe, and make it an impersonal statement.
6. rinc is not -- so far as I know -- a word meaning "move". It may be the past tense of rig-, meaning "to wind", but I can't think of anything else. Was this in Pedin Edhellen? At any rate, I don't know of a simple word for "move" off the top of my head. Try using a word for walking, running, riding, following, or coming instead. (Don't try to use the word gwa(e)- "to go", though; it's irregular and annoying.)
7. gad-: I already talked about this some. Needs to be inflected, as well.
8. ti is probably a reconstruction. You could use hain instead, since it's actually attested.

[Ernildir]

Well, it is now summer, and I have a bit of free time, so I hope to start posting here more often. At least while summer lasts.

For starters, here is a small contribution to our old conversation.

Gevenim hyn na Annúminas i dhannen?

[Should] we meet them at Annúminas the fallen?

I wanted something more like "Should we ambush them from the ruins of Annúminas," but Tolkien does not have enough vocabulary for that to work.

Anyway...

Gevenim: "we meet," from the verb govad. Most of us will recognize a similar form in the common phrase mae govannen, "well met."

hyn: "them," masculine

na: a versatile preposition, here meaning "at."

i: "the"

dhannen: "fallen," usually it would be dannen, but the "d" mutated to a "dh" (pronounced like the "th" in "the," by the way) because it followed the definite article i. This is a form of the verb danna-, "to fall."

[Erucheb]

Ah, I've missed this!

Coron echaden dûn an Velegrond; telithan na i-Minas in-Erain Ioer. Linnatha pengen ir anglennathar i-yrch! Gurth an Glamhoth!

Translation follows:
~
I make my camp west of Michel Delving; I will come to the City of the Ancient Kings. My bow will sing when the orcs approach! Death to the Din-horde!

1. Coron - the 1st-person continuative present form of car- "make". It means "I am making".
2. echaden - my camp; echad "camp" + -en "my".
3. dûn - "west".
4. an Velegrond - lit. "for Michel Delving", colloquial "of Michel Delving".
5. telithan - "I will come"; tol-itha-n.
6. i-Minas - "the tower, the city"; the m- is not lenited to v- for colour -- sometimes it was left unlenited in common speech.
7. in-Erain - "[of] the Kings", singular i-Aran.
8. Ioer - "of Old, Ancient", singular iaur.
9. Linnatha - "it will sing"; linna-tha.
10. pengen - "my bow"; peng "bow" + -en.
11. ir - "when"
12. anglennathar - "they will approach"; anglenna-tha-r
13. i-yrch - the orcs.
14. Gurth an Glamhoth - "death to the Din-horde"; gurth "death", Glamhoth "Din-horde, Yelling-horde, orcs"

~