Shamukh! Thank you for everything you have done and are doing so far. My question will be about the translation and meaning of the word Thorin shouted out right at the 6th minute of the film, and I'm not talking about Atkât, but about the word that I made out as Nithar. And, if it's not difficult for you, I was also extremely interested in the translation of Bifur's rather long phrase into Khuzdul at the very beginning of the film, where he was indignantly saying something to Tharkûn. Thank!
Shamukh!
Thank you for the kind words, and for the excellent questions. I get variations of these fairly regularly, so it’s good to finally put the answers together in one place.
Thorin’s shout in the opening scene
I assume you are referring to the moment early in the film, just shortly before Smaug enters the mountain, when Thorin Oakenshield shouts a command to the troops.
What Thorin shouts there is therkâ.
The base form here is therek, meaning “firm,” “fast,” or “steady.” Normally, one would expect a direct imperative such as ikhlitî (“hold!”), or possibly ikhlitî therek (“hold firm!”). However, therek can also be pluralised, resulting in therkâ.
Using a plural adjective in Neo-Khuzdul is somewhat unusual, but it does occur when one explicitly wants to state that every individual in a group possesses the quality being expressed. In effect, this functions as something like “Hold firm, every single one of you. Do not move.” Given the urgency of the situation and the fact that Thorin is addressing multiple defenders at once, the usage makes sense, even if it is stylistically marked.
The second line you ask about, spoken by Bifur to Gandalf at the very beginning of the film, is a much trickier case.
According to William Kircher, the intended meaning of the line was roughly:
“Our great leader is not here,”
with Bifur gesturing to his left forearm, referring to Thorin Oakenshield. Gandalf’s reply (“Yes, you’re quite right, Bifur. We appear to be one dwarf short.”) clearly supports that intended meaning.
However, when we listen closely to what is actually spoken, things become far less clear.
Personally, I consistently hear something along the lines of ’ut bayana aimâ ut karibâ, while in the behind-the-scenes Appendices (Part 8) I seem to hear maimâ ut karimâ instead (audio clips below).
At first glance, most of these forms look like gibberish, and they certainly do not straightforwardly translate as “Our great leader is not here.”
That said, it is still worth examining the pieces.
ut can be identified as the infinitive “to be.”
bayana does not correspond to any radical set I recognise, but it bears a very loose phonetic resemblance to zayara, meaning “he is present” or “he is here.”
This raises the possibility that what we are hearing as ut may in fact be lu, meaning “not.” That would move the sense closer to “he is not here.” This is not as far-fetched as it may sound, since David Salo provided ekûn lu zayara (“There is one missing”) as a translated line for the film.
Alternatively, one could consider a construction such as … zayara ma aimâ …, using ma as an archaic negative.
As for aimâ, one could analyse this as ai-mâ (“upon us”), but ya mâ (“with us”) seems the more likely candidate, even though one would normally expect zai rather than ya for this type of “with.”
I briefly entertained the idea that aimâ might relate to 'aimu (“voyage”), as in “he is not with us on this voyage,” but that makes even less sense in context.
This leaves us with ut karimâ, which is difficult to justify directly. The closest defensible reconstruction I can arrive at is kharmmâ (“our brother”), combined with ut as “is.”
Putting all of this together, the best possible reconstruction, while admittedly strained, would be something like:
ut zayara ma, ya-mâ, ut kharmmâ
“He is not present, with us, (he) is our brother.”
This is not elegant Neo-Khuzdul, and it requires some awkward manoeuvring to reach the intended meaning, but it is the closest I can get while still respecting known forms.
It is worth adding that Salo has noted that kharm “brother” can extend beyond literal siblings and be used for a kinsman or fellow Dwarf. Under that broader reading, the term would still be applicable here, despite Bifur and Thorin not belonging to the same family line or clan.
Crucially, the word “leader” itself poses a major problem. Any Khuzdul term for “lord” or “leader” would normally rely on the ZBD radical set, and those elements are entirely absent from what Bifur actually says. For that reason alone, I do not believe the spoken line was ever meant to be linguistically precise.
In other words, this appears to be performance Neo-Khuzdul rather than structurally grounded Neo-Khuzdul, something we do encounter from time to time in the Hobbit films.
Incidentally, Bifur does use fully recognisable Neo-Khuzdul elsewhere, for example khuzd belkul, meaning “a mighty dwarf” (khuzd “dwarf,” belkul “mighty”).
Thorin’s shout (therkâ) is meaningful and linguistically interpretable.
Bifur’s early line has a clear intended meaning, but the spoken form resists clean analysis. Any exact translation of that line must therefore remain tentative.
Thank you again for listening closely enough to notice these details.
Ever at your service,
The Dwarrow Scholar