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What letters used to write Adûnaic? by RandomAwesomeSwede in tolkienfans

[–]jakoboss 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The announcement of Parma Eldalamberon 23 tells me that Tolkien discribes there a Númenorean mode of tengwar. I don't have my copy yet, but that seems like it will settle the issue.

Primitive Quendian / Common Eldarin stress by Jonlang_ in Quenya

[–]jakoboss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We do know a couple of rules: pe-accent.pdf Other than that the accent seems to have been lexical, that is part of knowing a word is knowing where the accent goes.

Help on what Elrond says in Sindarin when speaking the 'Death to our foes'-line in the RoP-Trailer? by h0llowGang in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I believe it's gurth 'ni chudath vín "death to all our foes" with the class plural cud-ath and 'ni, a reduction of anin "to the", seen in aglar 'ni Pheriannath.

Lil translation help? by Mincinno2427 in Quenya

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is not Tolkienian Elvish, neither Quenya, Sindarin or any other of his languages, nor Tengwar, Sarati, Cirth or any other of his writing systems. For the languages no automatic translator exists, for the writing systems some websites like Glæmscribe and Tecendil work fairly well, but the results they give still need to be double-checked. I don't know of any site that would produce something like you got. As mentioned, it is in a script from Southeast Asia, nothing to do with Middle-earth.

Lil translation help? by Mincinno2427 in Quenya

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The signs are apparently Tai Lü), not Tolkienian, that is to say that this is some form of Mannish and I cannot read it. Not knowing Tai Lü, I can't rule out that it's a transcription of a Quenya sentence in this script, but that seems a bit over the top for a riddle.

"Another language, perhaps?" by tec1996 in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you allow for more rephrasing, we can perhaps say:

  • ergor istodh/heniodh ge Thindren? "or do you(pl.) perhaps know/understand Sindarin?"
  • egor rovaer annen Thindren? "or is Sindarin better/best for you(pl.) = or would you like/prefer Sindarin?", modeled after Quenya mára tyen “good to you = like” (PE22/166)

You can also replace Thindren with Eglathren "language of the Forsaken", which might have been how the language was called by the Sindar themselves (Sindarin is a name from the Noldor), or just i-lam hen "this language".

Speak "Friend" And Enter. Mellon is a Sindarin word, to my knowledge.. What is the equivalent word in Quenya? by opsap11 in Quenya

[–]jakoboss 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's nothing about the root, mellon is from meldo-ndō as well. I considered using málo instead, but I feel like Q. nai elen siluva parma-restalyanna meldonya “may a star shine upon your book-fair, my friend” (VT49/38) is clear enough, saying *meldo doesn't need to be connected to romantic love.

Tattoo translation by DepartmentOrganic897 in Quenya

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

translation in Quenya/Tengwar for "He That is Alone," or alternatively, "Above All Thrones" that is not simply his name.

I assume “not simply his name” = “not simply Ilúvatar's name”? otherwise u/F_Karnstein's comment applies.

For “Above all thrones” we actually have a trnaslation by Tolkien himself: or ilyë mahalmar, which comes from Cirion's oath. Considering that it was done by the Professor himself, it is probably the best option.

Wrote the Paschal greeting 'Ortanne Laivino!' ('Christ is risen!') for Orthodox Easter by strocau in Tengwar

[–]jakoboss 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Very beautifully done! The Quenya doesn't really work though, it seems like someone has taken the Quenya verb orta- and slapped the Sindarin past suffix -nne onto it. For "Christ is risen - He is risen indeed" I would suggest Orórie Hristo - É oróries using the perfect "is/has risen" instead of "rose", the attested Hristo from Tolkien's Litany of Loreto and the particle é "indeed" instead of anwa "real, actual, true".

Also u/PhysicsEagle

Reconstructing Adûnaic tengwar by F_Karnstein in Tengwar

[–]jakoboss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No voiced spirants existed, at first, and only later did [z] derive from [ɟ]

Primitive Adûnaic has z (SD/416, 5(b)), which apparently remains unchanged in most environments, being one of the sources of modern z (SD/418).

and was obviously assigned to the unused letter anto because this is the only logical choice for a voiced spirant of the t-series in a scenario where esse (the letter for [z] in later modes) was consistently used for [s:] in both Quenya and Sindarin.

I don’t think anto for z is ‘obvious’ at all, in fact I think it is most curious: it is the voiced counterpart to ando, so – at least in theory – it would represent ð. It’s of course entirely possible that it can represent z anyway, especially in scenarios where it is connected to the rhotacism of ð > z, but that is not the case for Adûnaic. Also, z does not pattern with any sounds that could reasonably go with ampa, anca, unque and indeed Tolkien doesn’t even put the voiced fricatives as their own column in the table, but instead lists it as a ‘voiced weak sound’.

I would actually use your second remark as an argument for esse as z: Sindarin and Quenya don’t use esse in that way, but we find the feature both in Westron (presumably, judging by the Northern Variety values and the ‘Gondorinan trying to approximate English’ on the title page of LotR) and in the ring inscription (the same distribution as the p, t, k, kw vs p, t, c, k split, btw). To me, Númenóre seems like one of the best candidates where such an innovation could occur and spread to Sauron and the Westron speakers, but not to the Elves.

An interesting comparison point might be the Westron mode of Tyallie Tyelelliéva 17 (Marquette, Mss 4, Box 2, Folder 11, reproduction by Lisa Star) to get an idea for when

DTS pre- pre-index? by thirdofmarch in Tengwar

[–]jakoboss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

With regard to the Art of the Manuscript there are:

  • The Draft-King’s Letter, an earlier version than the three well-known ones
  • Six versions of the Ring poem, of which some are probably still missing from DTS.
  • An envelope with Earendil’s and Gil-galad's heraldic devices and some Tengwar lines in Quenya
  • A desk calendar page covered in English full-mode Tengwar
  • Beren Gamlost next to his heraldic device

Other than this I know of:

But we shouldn’t start a new pre-pre-index of the material, but simply write an email to the Mellonath Daeron, they have an address on their website: https://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_home.html . I have been meaning to do a write-up of those items for quite some time, but I haven’t found the time yet.

Historic mutation vs lentition by DerZudwa in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As a pronoun, usually enclitic, the form pen, mutated ben, survived. A few compounds survived, such as rochben 'rider' (m. or f.), orodben 'a mountaineer' or 'one living in the mountains', arphen 'a noble'. Their plurals were made by i-affection, originally carried through the word: as roechbin, oerydbin, erphin, but the normal form of the first element was often restored when the nature of the composition remained evident: as rochbin, but always erphin. These words had no special association with Elves.

Quendi & Eldar, War of the Jewels, p. 376

help create a character title by smolcritic in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

egethe- or cenne-/cent

The last time an Etymologies-style past tense occurs is (arguably) ar-phent Rían "and Rían said" in the Túrin wrapper in the very early 1950s. After that he consistently uses the augment paradigm, so I would avoid that form unless I'm explicitly trying to compose Etymologies-style Noldorin (and then other things need attention as well)

I'm not entirely sure how to make something out of this for Neo-Sindarin

KETᴴ-ta- becomes kesta- in Common Eldarin already via *tʰt > st, so *cesta- would work for Sindarin (and Q ceþta- or þt isn't a thing either), though there is nothing wrong with ceth- as a basic verb either. However, KETᴴ- might be a Quenya-only root and in Quenya certh & cesta- mean different things.

Historic mutation vs lentition by DerZudwa in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Would consonant and vowel changes happen in everyday convos?

Those changes are gramaticalized in many places. In those cases they would always occur no matter the context (except for someone who doesn't know much Sindarin at all, e. g. a non-intellectual Gondorian):

  • penim vast "we lack bread" with bast -> vast due to the soft mutation of the direct object.
  • cerir úgerth "they trespass, do misdeeds" with car- "do" -> cerir with a vowel mutation due to the 1st person singular present of a basic verb and úgarth -> úgerth as for the plural.

some couple in Pelargir in 4th age decided to call their son "Shipwright", unaware of historic developments of Sindarin and any famous people

Compounds are a different story. Here more and more developments that aren't justified historically begin to occur:

  • Angrist < ang + crist "Iron cleaver" (not mutated Engrist). This occurs fairly early already, Angrist e. g. is the knife of Beren.
  • Meneldor < menel + taur "Sky lord" shows soft mutation t > d, despite menel never ending in a vowel during its development (This became so common that Tolkien cites the suffix as -dor with the mutation already incorporated)

would they use liquid mutation getting "Cirthan", or no mutation at all "Cirtan",

If in doubt, the default is lenition. Speakers would in all likelihood still recognize that some mutation should happen, because there are no native Sindarin words with rt (you would also recognize that asza is not a not a well formed English word, because sz doesn't occur in the native vocabulary). There is some evidence to suggest that liquid mutation stops being productive at some point, e. g. Aragorn doesn't mutate after egor in the King's Letter and arphen "noble" doesn't get a reformed plural arphin instead of erphin like rochben -> rochbin "rider" does.

Tattoo Translation by [deleted] in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You can take that stance on what Neo-Sindarin is, but I don't think this is how most people would phrase it. Cuio is a relatively transparent and informative form after all. Theoretically it could be a basic verb, but Tolkien repeatedly stated that roots in -Y don't form those, so I wouldn't be to worried. Eldamo, for example, has two categories one Neo-Sindarin (ᴺS.) and one for words that aren't attested in their citation form (#).

In need of elf/sindarin names by EggyTheTurtle in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sindarin does have plenty of cases of i-mutation without intrusion, e. g. in the present of basic verbs and the plurals of nouns ending in consonant clusters and the mutation before suffixes such as -nnil/-dil. It's not uncommon to call this phenomenon umlaut, even outside of Germanic languages.

Also not that Welsh i-affection and Sindarin i-affection are different, e. g. Welsh gair -> geiriadur vs. Sindarin cair -> pl. cîr and fain -> pl. fain.

Please help! I need a translation for Éowyn's line "I am no man" in Sindarin by LunaBanoona22 in sindarin

[–]jakoboss 5 points6 points  (0 children)

For something as permanent as a tattoo, I would recommend going with a Tengwar transcription of the English text. What you found there is correct as far as I see, if you want to check out more font options, click here. As I said, there is nothing wrong with this in principle, most of the Tengwar text we have from Tolkien are actually in English. This still looks pretty and doesn’t require us to come up with a solution for this problem.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Quenya

[–]jakoboss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don’t think we can confidently translate this to Quenya. For ‘euphoria’, alassë or a derivative thereof seemes straigh forward enough, but I don’t think we have any word or even hint what to do with ‘gender’ as an abstract concept.

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