The Sindarin Conversation Thread

[Ernildir]

Maethotham na Annúminas a cui vîn golinnotha!

We will fight at Annúminas and our bows will sing together!

maethotham: we will fight

na: at

a: and

cui: bows, plural of cû. I prefer cû over peng just because of Dor-Cúarthol.

vîn: our, lenited from mîn

golinnotha: together "go-" + (they) will sing "linnotha"

And now I have a question for you, Erucheb. It is my understanding that we ought to be affixing our "-tha"s onto the infinitive form of the verb. Is this right? I ask because I, for example, came out with linnotha as opposed to your linnatha.

Please feel free to critique any of my translations, by the way, when you see anything wrong with them. I like critique, and your grasp of the language is superior to mine.


Anyway, as far as our "conversation" goes, I suppose we now ought to switch to a narrative form and describe the events of our battle with these Orcs. Not much more we can say to each other before we encounter them, right?

[Erucheb]

Maethotham na Annúminas a cui vîn golinnotha!

... cui: bows, plural of cû. I prefer cû over peng just because of Dor-Cúarthol.

Either is fine. Cû refers to any sort of bowed shape -- including a crescent moon. Peng refers specifically to the weapon.

And now I have a question for you, Erucheb. It is my understanding that we ought to be affixing our "-tha"s onto the infinitive form of the verb. Is this right? I ask because I, for example, came out with linnotha as opposed to your linnatha.

Well, we have linnatha- itself in LotR:

Fanuilos le linnathon / nef aear, sí nef aearon.

So I feel pretty confident it's right.

As for why, it's because you attach the endings not to an "infinitive", but rather to the stem of the verb. The -i- in strong verbs (a la 'telitha-') is probably what makes it look like an infinitive; it's actually just a generic connecting vowel inserted after the stem.

On a related note, the whole idea of an "infinitive" may not be valid in post-LotR Sindarin. Tolkien seems to have started using gerunds in place of infinitives, so I generally avoid them altogether.

Please feel free to critique any of my translations, by the way, when you see anything wrong with them. I like critique, and your grasp of the language is superior to mine.

Thanks! I don't really see much wrong with your translations vocab-wise. There's the future tense thing mentioned above, but that's pretty minor. The only thing I might say is that I personally don't think this na (there are 3, each rather different) is quite so versatile as it's made out to be -- specifically, it always refers to direction: "to, towards, [moving] at". So I'm not quite sure if it means "at" in the locational sense in "staying at": it's more like the directional sense in the sentence "I threw it at him". But that could just be me being nit-picky.

Just as a purely stylistic point, it may be more common in Sindarin for intransitive sentences to be VSO (tûl acharn), in contrast to the SVO of transitive sentences (Celebrimbor ... teithant i thiw hin). However, you certainly can write them SVO as well, so it's just style.

Anyway, as far as our "conversation" goes, I suppose we now ought to switch to a narrative form and describe the events of our battle with these Orcs. Not much more we can say to each other before we encounter them, right?

Not unless you want my journey to Annúminas in Narn form . . . and I don't think my Sindarin skills are ready for that . . .

[Ernildir]

Thank you! Attestation from Tolkien certainly clears up that linnatha- issue.

I suppose we will continue in a narrative form as soon as one of us gets around to beginning it, then.

[Erucheb]

Well, I'll take that as a subtle nudge that I should write something.

I think narrative mode would be a useful way to break out the (dreaded!) past tense, so that's what I've attempted:


Anglennannen Annúminas e charad. Egínen echad en-mellon nín, min emyn leben n’amrûn. Dregasser in-aew; túlar in-yrch a pain tínin. Ú-egínen gwadoren.

~
I approached Annúminas from the south. I saw my friend's camp, between five hills to the east. The birds [have] fled; the orcs are coming, and all [things] [are] silent. I did not see my arms-brother.

1. Anglennannen - the 1st-person past transitive form of anglenna- "approach". It means "I approached". The transitive past tense of (most) weak verbs ending in -a seems to be formed by adding the ending -nt plus a pronomial ending -- inter-vocalically, -nt becomes -nn-. anglenna-nn-en.
2. e charad - out of the south; ed "out of" + harad "the south". Stop-mutation turns the h into ch and causes the d to drop out.
3. Egínen - the 1st-person past transitive form of cen- "see". It means "I saw". The past tense of (most) strong verbs seems to be formed by prefixing the stem vowel and lengthening it; a long é then becomes í. After this, pronomial suffixes are added. e-gín-en.
4. echad en-mellon nín - lit. "camp of my friend", colloquial "my friend's camp".
5. min - "between"; extracted from Minhiriath "between-the-rivers".
6. emyn leben - "five hills"
7. n’amrûn - "to the east"; na "to" is contracted before the vowel.
8. dregasser - the 3rd-person plural past intransitive form of drega- "flee". It means "they fled". The intransitive past tense of (most) weak verbs ending in -a seems to be formed by adding the ending -s (or later -st) plus a pronomial ending -- inter-vocalically, -s becomes -ss-. drega-ss-er.
9. túlar - "they are coming"
10. pain - "all"; an adjective used substantively: "all things".
11. tínin - "silent"; singular tínen.
12. Ú- - "not"; prefixed to a verb to negate a sentence.
13. gwadoren - "my sworn-brother, brother-in-arms". Gwador is used specifically of a brother by oath or bond, rather than blood.

~