meneldilmë

Nómë Almáreva i lambion Eldaiva. Almárë's place of the Elvish languages.

[meneldilmennna]

Moving

I’m moving my Quenya-ing to a new account =>

meneldilme.tumblr.com

[rucifie]

Hey LOTR fans, help?

I’m trying to find out how to say ‘Star Born’ as in born of stars or birthed by/of stars. In Quenya I’m getting ‘Nosta Elen’ but I feel like I’m butchering this.. Help?

[meneldilmennna]

Elennóna, literally just elen “star” plus nóna “born”. If you wanted to make it a feminine name change the -a to -e, for a masculine name change the -a to -o.

Nosta elen would be ‘birth(day) star’.

[stuckslumber-blog]

Does anyone on here know any Elvish Dialects?

I am a huge LOTR and Hobbit fan, and i have a huge interest in learning some Elvish dialects. There are a lot of different ones (Sindarin, Telerin, Nandorin, 3 dialects of Quenya, and Avarin) and I’m totally open to learning any of them, I just would really like a good program or tutor for it. Also I don’t really want to spend any money on this project unless it is very worthwhile. I’d also like to learn any form of written language that corresponds with the spoken one. Hit me up if you have any experience, ideas, or general help. My goodness this would be super great!! 

[meneldilmennna]

It’s only really possible to learn Quenya or Sindarin. There are a ton of resources out there. I can help you with Quenya / point out more specifics on where to look, and Sindarin101 can probably help you wrt Sindarin.

Anyway, welcome to the Tolkien language community. :)

[berensreverie]

Would the proper translation of “follow me into dream(-land)” in Quenya be Hilyani mina oloré?? ;0;

[meneldilmennna]

Ányë hilya minna olórë. “Follow me into a dream“

Ányë hilya olornórenna. “Follow me to dreamland.”

[memorial920-blog]

Everyone,

There is a group on Goodreads where we are learning Quenya together. The group provides a platform for dicussing the many aspects of the language, asking and answering questions, and motivating each other to learn more. Right now there are only five of us and new members are needed to keep the conversation going. If you are interested in learning Quenya and tengwar, you are more than welcome to join us! Search for Quenya Learners on Goodreads or click the following link: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/186306-quenya-learners

[everythingquenya]

I saw where you transcribed the "you will never walk alone..." post. What would the Quenya and Tengwar be for just "For we walk by faith not by sight"??

That would be: An patangwe astarn, lá cenna.

And on the picture would start with the third word. :D

[meneldilmennna]

*astaren (hya estelen, pan astar naa “faith” ve "loyalty” laa “belief”)

[no-soul-no-problems]

elvish insult/curse masterlist:

matnya hacca - eat my ass

lavnya tocot - suck my dick/cock

pukta norna - fuck

pukta nornye - fuck you

úvanima - ugly

amal pukta norna tyaro - mother fucker

more to be added

[meneldilmennna]

Cursing in Quenya is not easy. Tolkien didn’t exactly give us a lot of negative adjectives. It’s all ú + opposite.

á mate haccanya - ‘eat my ass’

Needs the imperative á, and the possessive suffix attaches to the noun.

á lapsa vienya - ‘suck (lit. lick) my manhood’

Again, the imperative and the possessive. The noun ‘tocot’ is not exactly well attested (single reference to PE14), and since cock is slang anyway, the term listed probably means cockerel. Vie is manhood/vigour and IMO a better option. There’s an attested Qenya ‘puntl’ for penis, which would (possibly) be puntil in Quenya... so you could have puntilinya. If you want to use tocot, then it would be tocotinya.

I’m not 100% on using puhta as fuck. The English word is rather complex in its usage and attempting to create an equivalent in Quenya doesn’t really work for me (fine for the literal sexual meaning of fuck, but less so for the more general usage). Better to come up with something else IMO. We have attested ‘Heca!’ - ‘Be gone!’ for example.

amal pukta norna tyaro - mother fucker is very unwieldy. I don’t think you need to have norna here at all, and the agental can be done as a suffix ‘no’ (or ‘ne’ for feminine). Perhaps amillepuhtano or ammepuhtano.

[toboestar]

Concerning Quenya

Hello to all Tolkien fans, elvish enthusiasts and hobby language learners!

I am currently writing my bachelor thesis about Quenya, it´s status as invented language and whether it is alive or not. 

And for that I need your help!

With my survey (you can find it here: https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/8ZL376C ) I want to find out, if there are people who have learned Quenya, how they have learned it and when they use it.

If you´ve learned Quenya, please answer my survey! If you know someone who has learned Quenya, please send them the link! And if neither of this corcerns you, please reblog anyways!

Thank you for your help!

~toboestar

[lantala-elen-blog]

Vantala Pír "Walking Flies" (Thing Explainer)

Original Text: Walking Flies These tiny animals live in big groups and make holes. Most of them don’t have babies; each family has one mother who makes all the new animals for the house. They usually don’t fly, and they’re not much like house flies. They’re in the same group with the kinds of flies whose back end has a sharp point that can hurt you.

Animal Hill This is the dirt that the walking flies took out of the ground while making their holes.

Quenya Translation: Vantala Pír I celva tittë coita combion altë ar carir unquer. Allinteo umë nosta wini; ilya nossë harya minë amillë ye carë illi vinyë celvar coan. Senwavë umentë wilë, ar umentë va coa-pír. Nantë combion imya va nostali píon yëo ca mentë harya aica cendë tana polë malalyë.

Celva Tundo Cemen sina ná ya i vantala pír mapanë et talanello yá carala unqueryar.

Lit: Walking Flies These tiny animals live in big groups and make holes. Most of them do not have babies; each family possesses one mother who makes all the new animals for the house. Usually they do not fly, and they are not like house-flies. They’re in the same group as the kinds of flies whose back end possesses a  sharp point that can hurt you.

Animal Hill This dirt is that which the walking flies took out of the ground while making their holes.

Notes: I struggled with the verb “to live” for a while. There are plenty of nouns and adjectives derived from the root coi-, but not a single verb… except eccoita “wake up”, which should probably be read as eccuita in later Quenya, as coi- tends to mean “life” whereas cui- tends to mean “awake”. Similar but different meanings, and not wholly inseparable. On the whole, I would prefer to err on the side of coi-… but the question is still how to make a verb from it. The easiest and most clear thing would be to add a verbal suffix, and when I investigated that, I found that the suffix -ta, coita, brings us very close to the glossed verb eccoita. So what does the prefix ec- mean? It denotes an opportunity to do the thing in the verb. In other words, ec- “to have the opportunity + coita "to live, to be alive” = eccoita “to wake up, awaken”. I don’t know if this is what Tolkien was thinking, but, I’m comfortable with using it. I struggled with “group” as well. I could have tried using the possible “group suffix” -asta, but I wouldn’t know what to suffix it to. Instead I went with combë “gathering, assembly, collection”. Better safe than sorry. I was also unsure of which case ending to add to it for “in groups”; I don’t know if the locative would apply, since this is more of a metaphorical “member of a group” rather than a physical “inside a group of people”. I decided to go with the genitive in the sense of “among”, but I’m not 100% sure on that. The phrase “many of them” was sure worrisome. With a lack of any other direction, created the phrase thusly: an- (superlative prefix, assimilated to al-) + lin- “many” + te “they, them” + -o (genitive). In other words, lin- “many” is being superlatived to allin- “most” and that whole mess is being tacked on to teo “of them”. I’m not entirely sure if this works. I wondered if I should have made “house flies” genitive to go along with the preposition va “like”. The subtle difference between “like” and “after the manner of” doesn’t really resonate with me; both imply enough similarity that I would use them interchangeably. In fact, I feel most would.

[meneldilmennna]

Ah the joys of coi/cui. I think coita is fine, could also have coiva, from the attested coivië. If you wanted an alternative, mar- “to abide” would also work here.

The active participle usually follows the noun it describes.

combion altë ... either altë combion or combi altaron (altëon?) I think.

You’re missing plurals coitar, umir (or uar)

Unquer should be unqui (unless you have a reference of this as an irrgular e=er plural).

I’ve read somewhere that harya wouldn’t be used of relationships (you don’t “possess“ family members). So perhaps samë instead. Or perhaps using ëa... ëa amillë minë an ilya nossë “there is one mother for each family”. Numbers usually come after the noun.

Va should be vë? Perhaps even sívë in this context.

combion imya mixing plural/singular and as combion altë I think imya combëo or combë imyo. (of [the] same group).

píron (the r plural marker comes in first)

yëo should be plural and yë is only singular (plural i) but how to do plural genitive relative pronoun IDK. Something I need to find out.

tana (demonstrative) should be ya/i (relative) and the lyë on malalyë needs to be in object position, either prefixed lyë-mala or with extended infinitive stem malatal(yë).

ca mente harya aica cende i polë malatal.

However the “you” here is English’s indefinite you (which English uses instead of saying “one”). So probably shouldn’t use lyë here at all, and rather “mo”

ca mente harya aica cende i polë mo-mala.

Celva Tundo Cemen sina ná ya i vantala pír mapanë et talanello yá carala unqueryar.

The ná is irrelevant (but not wrong). Mapane should be plural mapaner. Et talamello as talan has the stem talam-.

[lantala-elen-blog]

Quilda Lómë Mapail "Quiet Night Catcher" (Thing Explainer)

Original Text: Quiet Night Catcher These birds fly very quietly and have big eyes to catch animals on the ground in the dark. People think of them as knowing a lot of things, although that may just be because they’re quiet and have big eyes.

Quenya Translation: Quilda Lómë Mapail Aiwi sinë wilir anquindavi ar haryantë antë ceni mapa celvar talamessen mornassen. Queni savir istantë linnati, ananta enta cenasit pan nántë quindë nar haryantë antë ceni.

Lit: Quiet Night Grabber These birds fly very quietly and they have big eyes to catch animals on the ground in the dark. People believe they know many things, and yet that may be because they are quiet and they have big eyes.

Notes: I have a list of Quenya affixes, which describes several of them as agental. The fact that there are so many options worries me; are they all useable? Are a few preferred? I’ve heard that the general one is -il, but does that only fit with primary verbs? Does it work with a-stems? I’d rather not use a masculine or feminine ending if I can avoid it, but, nearly all of them seem to qualify as agental as well! I think I’ll stick with -il until something better comes along… I’m using the suffix an- in “very quietly”, which, according to my wordlists, it can be used for, despite its most commonly known usage to be the superlative “most” or “-est” (as in “brightest”). I suppose I could just leave it out entirely, if accurate grammar is more important than emphatic quietness. Does lië “people” count as plural for the sake of verbs that follow it…? Or is the shade of meaning for that word more like nossë “clan, family, house”? I think I’m safer going with queni “people” (plural of quén “person”). I debated using the phrase “people believe they are wise” rather than “people believe they know many things”, as the former would be easier to translate and would fit better with people’s perceptions of quiet night catchers. The shade of meaning may still be present in ista-, as Tolkien often said that the Istari were primarily wise but also knowledgeable, but the fact remains that saila “wise” would have fit better. I ended up not using it, because I’m going for as best a translation as I can get before resorting stepping outside my word-list… even if doing so means I get a more accurate explanation. I have no idea what cobbled-together piece of garbage is the phrase ‘ananta enta cenasit’. I know ananta “and yet” is the best approximation for “although” (to my knowledge) and cenasit “may be, perhaps” fits thematically for “may just be”, and of course I stuck the demonstrative enta “that (over there)” (should I have used ya?) simply because it’s there in the sentence… but, gosh, each one of those seems to have a shade of meaning that I’m not entirely familiar with or comfortable using. On a positive note, cenasit or canasta “if it be so, may be, perhaps” may work as a circumlocution for “could”, since that word doesn’t exist. Neither do the other words of the trifecta, “should” and “would”, to my knowledge. My word-list says that pan “since” was later struck out, but as I don’t know of any other word for “because”, there it be. Did I use quindë “quietly” correctly in the phrase nántë quindë “they are quiet”? Most of the time, adverbs end in “-ly”, at least in English, but an adverb modifies a verb… the verb here being “are” or “to be”, in other words, they exist quietly; they are quiet. This is more of a grammatical question than a Quenya one.

I’d sure like to get this stuff going in a regular schedule; maybe a few times a week? It’s taking me a few hours just to translate a few sentences… ideally this will go faster as time goes on. I’m going to make flash cards of some of these words and study them so I don’t need to keep referring to my word-list. I’d like to update this at least thrice a week, but, some days are easier for me than others, so I might not be able to stick to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule (certainly not Wednesday…) I may aim for a Tuesday/Thursday/Weekend schedule, but, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll do a bunch over the weekend and have them auto-publish on certain days. For now, no schedule; just whenever I have the time. I know that’s not good for long-term projects, but, I’m enjoying this. It’s a lot of work, but I’m progressing steadily, and that’s good. It means I’m not failing so much that I lose hope and quit, which happens often with me.

For all of you who are interested in this (and support this!) despite it being only two days young, hantanyel meldonyar!

[meneldilmennna]

Finally remembering to reblog this on my Quenya blog. Ha.

Quilda Lómë Mapail Aiwi sinë wilir anquindavi ar haryantë antë ceni mapa celvar talamessen mornassen. Queni savir istantë linnati, ananta enta cenasit pan nántë quindë nar haryantë antë ceni.

I would probably use “mapiën” (”in order to catch”, “for catching”) instead of “mapa” and the allative instead of the locative for talan (which also doesn’t need to be plural) ... talamenna but perhaps  talanna? talamma?

I would use mornie(ssë) for in the dark, rather than morna(ssë).

Lië is people as in a national/ethnic/etc group. Eldalië “the elvish people”, Telellië “the Teler people”. So it’s a single noun and would take the singular verb. The plural liër would be different peoples. So yes, in this case queni is better.

I would have Mapil instead of Mapail. Suffix to the base root. That said, -il is an impersonal agental suffix, so might not be the best for animals. Most attested animals have personal agental suffixes.

“ ananta enta cenasit “ Enta (demonstrative) doesn’t work here, should be i or ya (relative).

I have quilda for (adj.) quiet (noun quiet is predictably quildë) instead of quindë...

Drop the long á in nantë as long vowels don’t come before consonant clusters... though ná is probably an exception to that, if the verb is emphasized. (But here it’s not).

The conditional as a tense is usually represented with cé + future so far as I’m aware... (cé caruvanyes for “i could do it”). Apparently there’s lots of new verb stuff in PE22 which I haven’t got, and the site’s down so I can’t buy. Yay.

[eldritch-gilthoniel]

Istintyë ve i Rómen istë i Ára.

“I know you as the East knows the Dawn.” (via saurons-ring-finger)

The verb is a-stem ista, and if you’re using two pronominal suffixes the first should have the long form and the second the short form (istanyel/istanyet) and then the aorist ista instead of istë.

[first-son-of-finwe]

I love how they felt the need to clarify that THE NOLDOR DID NOT POSSESS SOUND JUDGEMENT

WHEN WE SAY WISE WE MEAN THEY KNEW A LOT OF SHIT

BUT THEY WERE FUCKING IDIOTS

[greenekangaroo]

where the lie tho

[meneldilmennna]

There is no Sailafinwë.

[everythingquenya]

Practice

So I feel the need to practice my quenya more, but I don’t want tocarefully pick out phrases or so to translate. Hence why I would like all of you out there to send me suggestions. Nothing too long though! :D

Warning: Some words just aren’t in my two dictionaries. I might not be able to do the sentences word for word then, but interpret them a bit.

So what would you all like to have written in quenya?

[meneldilmennna]

Ma istalyë elfdict.com?

Ecë lyen quetë nin Quenyanen.

[wei--wuxian]

Fëanáro (I think…)

[meneldilmennna]

Close, it says Fiánaro. The first tehta should be a dash instead of a dot, the first a on a short carrier, and the second a on a long one.

[mantarinia]

my favourite insult in Elvish (Quenya):

Eca, a mitta lambetya cendelessë orcova

Pronunciation: ˈɛ.ka ˌa ˈmit.ta ˈlam.bɛ.tʲa kɛn.dɛ.ˈlɛs.sɛ ˈɔr.kɔ.va

Translation: Go french-kiss an orc

[meneldilmennna]

Just a couple of points...

Lamba not lambë (lambë is tongue as in language, lamba is the physical tongue).

I would also use cendelenna (allative) over cendelessë (locative).

Aaand physical parts of the body take the genitive (orcuo) not the possessive (which would be orcuva).

[xx-ogthegaylinguist-xx-deactiva]

a thing that is weird to think about and also really frustrating is that, no matter how many tolkien linguists we get together, how long we study every instance of sindarin or quenya that we have at our disposal, no one will ever–can ever– be as good at elvish as christopher tolkien. we just can’t. he has ALL the stuff. all the notes, notes as yet unpublished, on the language. and he has the power to release it all. he could just publish every last piece of elvish, or even compile it for us, and we would have as much as we will ever get of elvish… but. he.. doesn’t

…wow.

[meneldilmennna]

... Tolkien’s language notes are being published through the journals Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar.

[tuxedomask3]

Ok question.

Following that general rule to turn words into Elvish text, what happens with a name like Matthew?

Do you do the horizontal line for the double T? Or do 1 T and then the combined symbol for TH?

The TH symbol WITH a line????

A E _MT[TH]W_

A E _M[TT]HW_

A E _M[TTH]W_

????????????

[meneldilmennna]

I would say use thúlë, perhaps with a line if you wanted.