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Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:12 pm
by Ernildir
I very much enjoy playing with the Sindarin language. If anyone ever has any texts that he or she would like to be translated, I would love to translate them, free of charge. I can also help with transcribing the Elvish words into the Tengwar script. This can be useful for the production of beautiful words and letters which can be engraved/burned/etched/etc. onto weapons/armor/leather/etc.

Thanks.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 10:00 pm
by Greg
I may take you up on that, when I finish off the bow I've got on the tillering tree right now...I wanna burn some runes into it. Glad to hear we've got another linguist amongst us; David's been my go-to guy, but he's gonna be in school soon, so he doesn't have as much time for that sort of thing during the school season.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 12:10 am
by Dinendir.
Oh wow. You know, I may have to take you up on that. :D

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 2:09 am
by mcapanelli
I've got an idea if your game. Why not help us to learn Sindarin?

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:00 am
by Ernildir
mcapanelli wrote:I've got an idea if your game. Why not help us to learn Sindarin?
I would love to. I'm always looking for people to learn with -- I'm far from fluent myself; I only have a sufficient understanding of the grammar such that I can construct sentences and perform translations with the aid of David Salo's Gateway to Sindarin. I have tried various methods of learning with others in the past, and have always gained a lot from them before the process was unfortunately severed. Did you have a particular method of study you would like to try? Any particular aspect of the language you wanted to learn about?

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:10 am
by Greg
Ernildhir wrote:Gateway to Sindarin.
EXCELLENT. BOOK.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 2:07 pm
by mcapanelli
Ernildhir wrote:
mcapanelli wrote:I've got an idea if your game. Why not help us to learn Sindarin?
I would love to. I'm always looking for people to learn with -- I'm far from fluent myself; I only have a sufficient understanding of the grammar such that I can construct sentences and perform translations with the aid of David Salo's Gateway to Sindarin. I have tried various methods of learning with others in the past, and have always gained a lot from them before the process was unfortunately severed. Did you have a particular method of study you would like to try? Any particular aspect of the language you wanted to learn about?
Well now that you ask. More then anything I'd like to be able to speak it. I know it may sound a little crazy but the sound of it spoken intrigues me. I'd like to be able to write some songs in it and preform them for the forum. I'm a professional musician so I guess that's where the sound thing comes from. It's an added bonus that when I go to the NYRF and see the elves I can harass them in elvish for S&G as well. So I guess the short version is I want to have a functional, working understanding of the language so I can speak it.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:43 pm
by Greg
mcapanelli wrote:I'm a professional musician so I guess that's where the sound thing comes from.
ARE you, now? Likewise! How was I not aware of this? Do tell!

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:59 pm
by Ernildir
Greg wrote:
Ernildhir wrote:Gateway to Sindarin.
EXCELLENT. BOOK.
Indeed, an incredible book. I couldn't imagine even being able to gain a foothold on the language without it.

mcapanelli wrote: Well now that you ask. More then anything I'd like to be able to speak it. I know it may sound a little crazy but the sound of it spoken intrigues me. I'd like to be able to write some songs in it and preform them for the forum. I'm a professional musician so I guess that's where the sound thing comes from. It's an added bonus that when I go to the NYRF and see the elves I can harass them in elvish for S&G as well. So I guess the short version is I want to have a functional, working understanding of the language so I can speak it.
Okay, there are two ways I suggest we can proceed from here. In order to learn to speak it, you must, of course, learn the language, and also nail the pronunciation. Pronunciation will be important for maximizing the phonetic beauty of the language, and if you intend to record and share songs, you'll want to pronounce everything correctly anyway. How do you feel about your pronunciation abilities already? Tolkien does have a number of guides in some of his books, but even those can be a bit difficult to understand. Mostly the vowel diphthongs and stressed syllables are the most difficult to grasp, I've found, but they're so much fun to pronounce once understood. If you'd like I can post a guide for you.

Now on to our two options:

1) This is the preferred option. If you're really serious about learning Sindarin, I suggest you obtain your own copy of A Gateway to Sindarin. It would really make the process so much easier. I suppose it might be possible to learn the language without the book, but if you really have the motivation, why take a more time consuming and less efficient path? If I were you, I'd just dish out the $30 to get your own copy. From there, after familiarizing yourself with the book for a few hours, you should theoretically have just as much translational potential as I. It would take you a bit longer to translate things, because you'd need to look up every single grammatical rule and vocabulary word, whereas I already know a decent amount, but you should be able to perform translations nonetheless. After you feel that you know the book well enough to be able to reference every rule and word you need, I would suggest that we create a separate thread somewhere in these forums for Sindarin conversation. I believe the best way to learn a language is to use it. We could simply hold a conversation in Sindarin in that forum: each participant translating his own responses and those of his learning partner. Eventually, through repeated use of vocabulary and grammar, we should be able to master the language. We could even try roleplaying in our Sindarin thread, just to make it more interesting. Anyway, if you like this idea, here's a link to where you can acquire the book. http://www.amazon.com/Gateway-Sindarin- ... 874&sr=8-2

2) If you're not willing to get the book, the only other way I can think of us learning together is for me to create another thread in which I periodically give Sindarin lessons, or perform translations and detail what is going on in the translations. This would essentially give you the same knowledge present in A Gateway to Sindarin, but in smaller doses, and you wouldn't be able to reference or learn whatever you like, neither would you gain the experience of actually using the language yourself, but if you really study my posts you should be able to learn a bit of the language.


I'm fine with either option, but if you're really serious about learning, I highly recommend option #1. I really think we could learn so much more that way. I'm also open to whatever suggestions you or anyone else might have for a learning process, or suggestions and critiques concerning the methods I have suggested.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:22 pm
by mcapanelli
Greg wrote:
mcapanelli wrote:I'm a professional musician so I guess that's where the sound thing comes from.
ARE you, now? Likewise! How was I not aware of this? Do tell!
I don't know. I don't think I've ever really talked about what I do on these boards before. I've worn many a hat in the entertainment field. I've been in two signed bands, ghost wrote for some semi famous people, played guide tracks for some Sony artists. I currently teach, just started working on a new acoustic album and writing my first screenplay (which has proven to be a LOT harder then I first thought).

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:02 pm
by Willrett
[quote= I don't know. I don't think I've ever really talked about what I do on these boards before. I've worn many a hat in the entertainment field. I've been in two signed bands, ghost wrote for some semi famous people, played guide tracks for some Sony artists. I currently teach, just started working on a new acoustic album and writing my first screenplay (which has proven to be a LOT harder then I first thought).[/quote]


I think we could use a few names if you wouldn't mind???

back to Sindarin I will look into getting the book and will also follow anything posted in the mean time.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 1:53 pm
by kaelln
I wonder what everyone thinks about Pedin Edhellen A Sindarin Course by Thorsten Renk? I have read that Gateway to Sindarin is difficult, full of errors, and not intended as a language course. Read a review here: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~trenk/elvish/s ... ssion.html

This is not meant as a criticism of those that like or use Gateway, I just like to do a little research before I lay out 30+ bucks! The author, David Salo did do the elven for the movies, so using his version should match up with those. On the other hand, while I lack the knowledge or expertise to judge these things, Pedin Edhellen at least has the virtue of being available in a free pdf version, as well as an $18 paperback. Here's a link to the latest pdf:

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~trenk/elvish/d ... _en.pdf.gz

What do you think, folks?

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 2:51 pm
by Willrett
I think it will be getting printed out very soon.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 3:08 pm
by mcapanelli
You know I downloaded it only to realize I already have it. I have some other stuff I could share if someone could tell me how to post a PDF.

Re: Sindarin Translations and Transcriptions

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 5:00 pm
by Ernildir
Kaelin, I very much like Pedin Edhellen. I used it before I acquired Gateway to Sindarin. I didn't actually spend a lot of time with it, but it seemed a useful resource and a decent way to learn the language by going through the lessons.

Concerning the Gateway controversy,

I skimmed that review you posted. In one sense, I do agree that the book can be difficult, but that is, as the review agreed, dependent on the reader's understanding of grammatical terms. If the reader doesn't know what nominative and subjective are, or what a present participle is, and is unwilling to seek the meaning from a dictionary or even wikipedia, then the concepts can be difficult to grasp. Concerning errors, I suppose it's entirely possible that it has a number of errors in it, but I wouldn't say it's "full of errors", neither would I suppose it has any more than Pedin Edhellen or other Sindarin resources. And I agree, it is not intended to be a language course, neither is it advertised so. Pedin Edhellen is certainly a language course, and if someone plans to learn the language in a lesson-by-lesson manner, it would certainly be a better way to go. I believe, however, that Gateway has much better reference-potential, in other words it is much easier to find charts of consonant mutation trends, verb inflections, etc. This makes it a much better translational resource, in my opinion.

That being said, I thank you for bringing up Pedin Edhellen. I had forgotten about it. If we're going to start a Sindarin conversation thread, Pedin Edhellen would be a great alternative to Gateway. Of course, the Sindarin language being somewhat incomplete, every attempt to teach the language is a bit different, as it is impossible to have the language in a complete form without making some educated speculations concerning certain aspects of the grammar. Not every needed piece of grammar is attested in Tolkien's Sindarin writings. We will therefore have some unavoidable differences between "Sindarin versions" among those who use Gateway and those who use Pedin Edhellen, but they shouldn't be too difficult to work out. We can easily offer explanations of our translations for everyone to learn from, and even develop a common Sindarin style among ourselves. It's unfortunate that Sindarin doesn't exist in a universally uncontested form, but that's the way it must be. :)

I recommend downloading the pdf form of Pedin Edhellen to all those who do not wish to purchase A Gateway to Sindarin.