Language Help Desk 45

True, if it were to be pronounced like "groin", "Thóin" would be an accurate spelling.  What about "THO-inn" (with soft th)?  Would Thoín be correct?

I do wish there was something of a dictionary or whatever of all these accented letters and how they may be pronounced in a variety of situations.

Okay, I give up.  I'm writing a story (actually, I'm writing loads of stories) and I want to change how I pronounce a character's name.  I tried figuring it out for myself by surfing the internet, looking in the LotR appendixes, etc., but couldn't figure it out.  Currently it is spelled "Thoin" as in "groin" (th pronounced soft, as opposed to hard th as in "the"), but I'd like to make it pronounced "THO-in" (soft th and "o" as in throw; in as the regular word "in").  Would this be Thoín, then?  What accented "i" would I use?  Sorry if this isn't the right thread -- I wasn't sure.  This seems to be a general language help thread, instead of specific to translation or the pronunciation of Tolkien-words.

Galeon, Westron isn't actually quite English- it is translated as English throughout the books, but it's technically a quite different sounding language. So, for example, Samwise is the English translation of 'Banazîr', and Hamfast of 'Ranugad'. As a genuine Westron-Westron name, Galeon doesn't work very well, since these tend to sound pretty distinctive, as you can see.

Hey, I originally posted this in the translation thread, but since I took a stab at translating I thought perhaps I'd shuffle it over here.

Original (wanted this version in particular):

All that is gold does not glitter;
all that is long does not last;
All that is old does not wither;
not all that is over is past.


My attempt:

Pân i valt law thilia,
Pân i ifant law brenio,
Pân i iaur law pelin,
Law pain i gwann methen aen

It's the last line . . . I'm not very confident about. Tenses and all that. :/

Muchas gracias!  

i love elvish lang !

I'm trying to figure out what my name is in Sindarian Elvish.  My name (the real one is not listed here) means "Beautiful Star."  The translations I have found for this are "Baingil" or "Bainel."  Are they spelled correctly? Which one would be considered more feminine?  Or is there another version I should use?

Edited by El-Mâshi - 25/Feb/2010 at 5:24am

i believe she had to make some changes to the text "He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; / Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." changing the references to sleep to something about stopping. (i'm not really sure)

Edited by El-Mâshi - 12/Feb/2010 at 4:32am

LoTR: Your tutorial was LOTS of help .

Atwe: Hmm...maybe I need to download gimp. I'm sure you could do the same thing in Photoshop but I'm not sure how. And it took me a little while, but I mostly figured out the left-shift thingy. 'Tis hard to type stuff like this, but it's kind of fun. Thank you!

Edited by Aerlinn Mordagnir - 08/Feb/2010 at 5:22pm

Hello there. I have a few semi-related questions, so I hope this is the right place to be. I haven't spent a lot of time in the language forums recently.

I was wondering if there was an explanation somewhere around here on how to type the tengwar. I think I've garnered a fairly good idea of how exactly Tengwar works but I can't figure out how to type it (Yes, I downloaded a font). If I'm understanding correctly, vowels are supposed to go above the consonant immediately before them. How can you do that when you are typing?

On a more practical note, even if it is a little out of place in this forum, the reason I'm trying to type something is so I can make a banner for Rivendell and I'm not tech savvy enough to get the white background off of the images of Tengwar I've been pulling up. If someone can tell me a way to get Tengwar characters into a picture (using Photoshop) without a background color that would be amazing.

Third and final (I promise ) question. Has anyone spent any time using this site http://tengwar.art.pl/tengwar/ott/start.php, and do they know if it's legit?

Thank you much!

Likewise, a literal translation into German is impossible.

I'm not sure if that would turn out to be idiomatic like "try harder" was and not literally as written in English — you'd have to get a second opinion. One thing I do think, though, is that the "life" part wouldn't be translated using a word from KOY/KUY (whatever the root is for 'being alive'), but rather √WEG- "live, be active". What word to use, though, I'm not sure. As for "get," an imperative is what I think'd be necessary. If you wanted to say "You don't have a life" it'd be penig (life), but to say "get" ... perhaps the opposite to peni-, i.e. savo? So savo (life)? Though I wonder if a word like "acquire, possess" would be better than "have" ... 

I think you need a second opinion.

I've always simply used the Ctrl+F (Search) command in Fauskanger's Quenya wordlists in combination with actually looking up entries (I prefer to simply search through the Quenya-English doc than look up words in the English-Quenya one), but there may be something else out there — I simply don't know.

I think that trying Quenya is a good thing — knowing even basic Quenya greatly enables one to further understand the processes (mutations, phonological changes, conjugations, pronouns, etc.) of Sindarin, in my opinion.

Does anyone know further information on an interactive Quenya dictionary for Endilion?

The CoE Sindarin "workbook" and the Sindarin phrases are partly outdated because the new information that was published within the last five years was never incorporated. (I did not check the Quenya sections.)

Hi Atwe-reborn and Aranhael! Thanx for the info. I managed to find the webpage again. Here is the link.
http://www.dragons-inn.org/Ifreann/Tynntangial/elf_eng.html

Oh and I must have been blind at the time it's actually listed as Aryante, without the I.

Actually, Aryante is attested as fem. 'Day-bringer' (literally '-giver'; ANA1-, AR1-). It is from *ari-ante, where i becomes consonantal. I would rather interpret *Ariyante as fem. 'day-joiner' (from YAT-), whatever sense it makes.

Hi I'm new here.

Have been struggling to find correct translation so was wondering if u guys had any ideas.

I wanted to translate this "Daybringer's freedom".

I found a translation for Daybringer only on one site and now I can't even remember where, but it was the only one that actually had Daybringer literally and it was translated as Ariyante. The second part is proving troublesome. There doesnt seem to be a word for freedom. Free or freed yes but not freedom. Also how do u express a possesive? As in Daybringer's freedom.

Any help would be much appreciated. :-)

Thank you very much, atwe_reborn.