Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen, yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron! Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier mi oromardi lissë-miruvóreva Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni ómaryo airetári-lírinen.
Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?
An sí Tintallë Varda Oiolossëo ve fanyar máryat Elentári ortanë ar ilyë tier undulávë lumbulë; ar sindanóriello caita mornië i falmalinnar imbë met, ar hísië untúpa Calaciryo míri oialë. Sí vanwa ná, Rómello vanwa, Valimar!
Namárië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar. Nai elyë hiruva. Namárië!
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees! The long years have passed like swift draughts of the sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly.
Who now shall refill the cup for me?
For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars, from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shadow; and out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us, and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever. Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar!
Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!
This is truly amazing. To hear Elvish the way it was supposed to be spoken. Absolutely beautiful.
This is a flowchart I created for how I create words in Dothraki. Walking through step by step, a concept like “computer” is not culturally appropriate, since this kind of technology doesn’t exist in the world the Dothraki inhabit, so such a concept is immediately rejected.
A concept like “book” is plenty common in that world, so it passes the first hurdle. Given that the Dothraki have no writing, paper, book binding, etc., though, a concept like “book” would never have a native term, so it too is rejected (to be filled in later via borrowing—in this case from High Valyrian).
A concept like “weather” is certainly in-universe, and while it might be borrowed in some language, most of the time it won’t be, so it will have a native term. It’s a rather complex concept, though, so I wouldn’t create a new root for it. Instead, when it came to coming up with this concept, I decided to derive it from thew word chaf, which refers to wind. Chafasar is something that means like “a collection of winds” or “all winds”, and the idea is that the concept of weather is based on how the winds are behaving (either at the moment or generally), with the idea that this then extends to everything else having to do with weather (sun, snow, rain, etc.). Thence came the word chafasar, used for words like “weather” and “climate”, or basically how things are feeling outside.
A concept like “blood”, on the other hand, is definitely in-universe, almost definitely native to any language, and, will probably be a basic term (it’s not in English, though!). For that reason, a created the root qoy, and had it mean “blood” as far back as Dothraki goes. (Though note: In the real world, this was a backformation from a word George R. R. Martin created: qiya, which means “bleeding”. I decided to use this opportunity to create a semi-regular derivational process where you raise the vowel of a mass noun and add –a to make a word that means “oozing that substance”. For example, thom is “juice”, and thima means “leaking”.)
I wrote this down specifically to illustrate in a talk, but otherwise this isn’t written anywhere (and the same is true for all my languages). It’s just a mental checklist. There have been several people who have asked how to create words, and while this might help, I get the sense that the parts where they get stuck are either step 0 (coming up with a concept), for which I can’t offer any insight (you have to come up with words for everything in a language, so just think of something and do that!), or the very last step (creating a root), for which I also can’t offer any insight (just make sure it’s phonologically licit then do whatever you want. Unless you’re doing something specifically onomatopoeic or phonosemantic, there’s no reliable relationship between form and meaning. Anything you come up with is fine).
I found that I wanted to share this recently but didn’t have an easy way to find it, so I’m posting it here so I can find it in the future. (After all, it’s easy to find something specific on Tumblr, right…? *dies laughing*)
So English used to have the formal/informal you distinction, and “thou” was informal. Tolkien makes use of this in his books, whether it’s Fingolfin’s brotherly closeness (”Thou shalt lead and I will follow”) or Eowyn and Aragorn sharing a moment after her recovery and engagement (Aragorn’s ”I have wished thee joy ever since I met thee”) where he had previously used the formal “you” while she, in love and desperate to stop him from taking the Paths of the Dead, had used “thee” (”because they would not be parted from thee–because they love thee”). In general, Tolkien uses “thou” to show moments of high emotion and closeness.
But “thou” can also be fighting words, when used inappropriately. (Remember Shakespeare’s Tybalt telling Romeo “Thou art a villain”?)
Feanor’s confrontation with Melkor is a moment of emotion, but not closeness. Feanor uses the informal “thou” as an insult, showing how he looks down on Melkor, when he says, “Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!” In case the point wasn’t clear enough, he proceeds to slam the door in the face of “the most powerful being in all Ea.”
Melkor must be furious. Feanor, a mere elf, not only refused him, but refused him rudely, showing even in his pronoun choice that he looked down on Melkor despite all Melkor’s power.
I’d make a point that Feanor never uses formal you when talking (I may be wrong but I don’t remember one instance, even in Tolkien’s extended lore), nor does anyone else. It’s still pretty poignant, however, that he would do it both to Melkor and, notably, to the Herald of Manwe (maaaybe Eonwe, but the name isn’t in the text.)
Then turning to the herald he cried: ‘Say this to Manwë
Súlimo, High King of Arda: if Fëanor cannot overthrow Morgoth, at least he delays not to assail him, and sits not
idle in grief. And it may be that Eru has set in me a fire
greater than thou knowest. Such hurt at the least will I do to
the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of
Doom shall wonder to hear it. Yea, in the end they shall
follow me. Farewell!‘
In that hour the voice of Fëanor grew so great and so
potent that even the herald of the Valar bowed before him
as one full-answered, and departed; and the Noldor were
over-ruled.
Here’s Feanor using the formal “you” even when angry:
But good point about the Herald of Manwe part!
Boy how could I forget the speech to Olwe of all things lol
But thank you for the reminder! Though I wonder if it isn’t a plural instead of formal?
And this is why I’ve written 6,000 words of feanope thou/you porn, in case anyone was wondering
To Christopher Bretherton 16 July 1964 76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford
Dear Bretherton, ….I made the acquaintance of languages not usually studied by the modern English, each with a powerfully individual phonetic aesthetic: Welsh, Finnish, and the remnants of fourth-century Gothic. Finnish also provided a glimpse of an entirely different mythological world. The germ of my attempt to write legends of my own to fit my private languages was the tragic tale of the hapless Kullervo in the Finnish Kalevala. It remains a major matter in the legends of the First Age (which I hope to publish as The Silmarillion), though as ‘The Children of Húrin’ it is entirely changed except in the tragic ending…
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Letters of J.R.R.Tolkien. A selection edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Nouns in Adûnâyê are separated into four “genders:” Masculine, Feminine, Neuter, and Common. Unlike some languages, in which the grammatical and literal genders of a noun may not match, Adûnâyê’s Masculine and Feminine classes refer only to male beings/functions and female beings/functions. The Neuter class is applied to inanimate objects, and the Common to general words which are not characterized as to sex/gender, such as words for animal species.
For example, karab, horse, is a Common noun. However, karbû, stallion, and karbî, “mare,” are Masculine and Feminine respectively.
Adûnâyê nouns have three numbers: the singular, the plural, and the dual. The dual form is an interesting one. It is only used in cases of natural pairs, not in any situation in which there are two of the same thing. The classic example is huzun, ear. If I am referring to one of my ears and one of your ears, I would use the plural form, huzîn. If, however, I am referring to both of my own ears, which constitute a natural pair, I would use the dual, huznat.
Nouns are also divided into “strong” and “weak” categories, which division influences the formation of the plural. Strong nouns form their plural by modification of the last vowel of the stem word. Weak nouns add inflexions.
And the Adûnâyê noun has three forms which might be called cases: the Normal, the Subjective, and the Objective.
The Normal form of the noun is the basic, uninflected form, not morphologically marked by any affix, and would be used in all cases in which the sentence structure does not require either the Subjective or Objective form. Perhaps confusingly enough, the Normal (not the Objective!) is typically used when the noun is the object or predicate of the sentence. For example:
Sauronun Zigûr. (Sauron is the Wizard/Zigûr.)
In this example, Zigûr is in the Normal form, serving as the predicate. (Note: State-of-being verbs are generally not included in sentences, being implied by the structure.)
The Subjective form is used when the noun is, indeed, the subject of the sentence. In the example used above, Sauronun is in the subjective form. The Subjective is also used when the noun stands in apposition to another noun. For example:
Sauron Zigûrun. (Sauron the Wizard)
The Masculine subjective is formed by adding the suffix –un, and the Feminine by the suffix –in. Strong Neuters are formed by a process known as “a-fortification.” Zadan, house, becomes zadân, huzun becomes huzôn. What is actually happening here is an extra “a” is being added to the last syllable, and the final forms therefore represent “zadaan” and “huzaun” being monophthongized or simplified.
Weak Neuters take –a, the element which was infixed in the Strong form here being suffixed instead. Common nouns take the suffix –a(n) in the singular. The plural subjective is formed by adding –a in Neuter nouns and –im in non-Neuters. This does mean that in the event of a plural Weak Neuter, number is not discernible through the form of the noun but must be inferred by the context.
The Objective form is not an independent form of the noun, as might be guessed from Adûnâyê’s use of the Normal noun as the object of sentences. The Objective form is only used in compound words, and is created by adding “u” to the noun as either an infix or suffix, often replacing the final vowel altogether. As an example, the Objective of azra, sea, is azru, and the Objective of batân, road, is batânu.
The Objective is used as the first element in a compound word when the second element in some way acts upon the first. A common example is the name Azrubêl, sea-lover. In this example, azru is in the Objective because it is the object of the lover’s love. In the compound Minultârik, pillar of heaven, the pillar (târik) is seen as upholding the heaven or sky, therefore acting upon them.
The Objective can be considered effectively numberless (as opposed to singular) and will never appear in dual or plural forms. This “numberless” state can be seen in some compound names: Balkumagân (shipwright) and Nimruzîr (elf-lover or elf-friend). In theory, using the singular Objective forms of balak, ship, and nimir, elf, should make direct translations of these names “builder of that one ship” and “lover/friend of that one elf.” However, it should be clear that “ship” and “elf” are used here as collectives which are therefore, grammatically singular despite their implications of number.
There is no genitive form in Adûnâyê. Compounds are often used, as in Yôzâyan, the Land of Gift. Possession is indicated by the prefix an- or the elided ’n-, as in Bâr ‘nAnadûnê, Lord of Anadûnê.
WOW OKAY so I never gave a damn about The Problem of Ros before because etymology is not something I generally care about, but there’s actually some good stuff in here about which languages certain characters would have spoken! (That is really all I’m interested in when it comes to Tolkien’s languages, I’m very sorry.)
The folk of Bëor continued to speak their own tongue among themselves with fair purity, though many Sindarin words were borrowed and adapted by them.
This matches my initial headcanons PERFECTLY, so I’m just going to ignore the version from UT that says they switched completely to Sindarin.
This was of course the native tongue of Beren, lineal descendant of Bëor the Old. He spoke Sindarin after a fashion (probably derived from North Sindarin); but his halting and dialectical use of it offended the ears of King Thingol.
This…also fits all my headcanons perfectly! TWO FOR TWO! Beren would have learned Sindarin from his family members, who would have learned it from Angrod and Aegnor’s people. He is actually quite good at the language when he’s younger, but when he meets Thingol his speech is “halting” because he hadn’t spoken Sindarin in about nine years before he met Lúthien (Barahir and his men would probably have used their own language among themselves), or to anyone during the four that he was on his own (imagine having no one to talk to for FOUR YEARS); and “dialectical” because he learned Northern Sindarin from the Noldor, not the older, fancier Sindarin of Doriath that Túrin learns in the Narn.
But it was told in the legend of Beren and Lúthien that Lúthien learned Beren’s native tongue during their journeys together and ever after used it in their speech together…Dior their son, it is said, spoke both tongues: his father’s, and his mother’s the Sindarin of Doriath. For he said: ‘I am the first of the Peredhil (Half-elven); but I am also the heir of King Elwë, the Eluchíl.’
This doesn’t fit my headcanon quite as precisely (I’d imagined Beren and Lúthien using mostly Sindarin with each other, as they both already know the language) but this is more than I could possibly have hoped for, and I am totally ready to go along with it! And it’s not like it says they only used Beren’s language when talking to each other – they probably used both. I also think that Dior (and probably his parents) learned the language of the Green-elves while they were living in Ossiriand.
Hello there! Well met! No need to beg for assistance, happy to aid when I can.
I would translate these lines as:
“Iziz Tumunzaharul ra Gabilgatholul.”
“Gunrû ‘Urstarâg ra Fantnuhûb.”
“Mahal maharuma.”
“Iziz” – I’m using the nominative form here as I’ve added “-ul” to both place names. The -ul form is used here because we want to indicate descriptive origins (like: “from the iron” (“Zirnul”) – indicating origins of an element. There are other options, using the constructive for instance, but I believe this would fit best.
Incidentally, the “-az”-form I no longer included in the current Neo-Khuzdul grammar, what I referred to in the documentation as “Classical Khuzdul” (CK). It however would still be present in the “Blue Mountains Khuzdul” (BMK). And seeing that we are talking about just these halls, it is indeed still a valid option for your translation (if you want to give it that local touch). In that case, this part of your translation would be perfectly fine.
Usage of “ra” instead of “/”: I used “ra” (meaning “and”), as I do not believe the “/”-sign would be present in Khuzdul runic writing. Note though that “ra” does have its own rune, which you could use (if you are writing this in runes of course). More on that HERE.
I also translated “property of” literally to “Gunrû” (using the construct form), which means the clan names would not need to be modified to include a possessive genitive marker.
The last line “Mahal be praised”, is translated perfectly. One could be tempted to use the passive imperative (”maihrim” here, but seeing we are not “commanding” Mahal to be praised, but merely suggesting others should praise him, your choice of the passive subjunctive is absolutely spot on! “Mahal Maharuma”, literally meaning “Mahal, let him be praised” fits perfectly.
Please do show me those coins when you are done, I would love to see them.
Ever at your service,
The Dwarrow Scholar
I am swooning. You’ve swooned me. I am disproportionately gleeful to have conjugated a verb correctly. This is an excellent night.
The “/” sign I blame on tumblr’s character limit and my own hubris… I’d meant to have two separate sentences whose only differences were the proper nouns; “Coin from Tumunzahar property of the Firebeards” and “Coin from Gabilgathol property of the Broadbeams”. My theory is that each hall has their own mint, and would wish to differentiate their own coins from their neighbor’s, even if the value was the same.
Would the same construction apply? Making it “Izizaz Tumuzaharul gunrû ‘Urstârag” and “Izizaz Gabilgatholul gunrû Fantnuhûb”, respectively?
…And if I can sneak in a separate topic: I’ve done my best to coin (hah) some words for “electrum” and “nickel”, but I’m at a loss as to how to shorten them into the terms for coinage such as “Kibil” –> “Kabl” or “Mikil” –> “Makl”. For electrum, I compounded words for “containing gold and silver” with the same ending as the other coins, and got “Barkadzurl”, (or “Zurl” but I am less confident that would be recognizable on its own). For nickel I tried “yellow-tin” or “tahfazimil”, and shortened it to “tahfl”. Again, I am not confident that holds together.
Thank you so much for lending me your expertise and time, and for the truly epic undertaking that is your Neo Khuzdul lexicon. 🙂 Hobnobbing with you linguists is the coolest part of being a Tolkien fan. It will be my pleasure to show off the coin designs when they’re done! I’ll be sure to tag you in it and give all due credit for the translation assist.
Remember yourself reading all things Tolkien for the first time? Surely, all the distant “magical” lands, Elves and dragons took your breath away (or failed to do so). But there always were these parts where you could not restrain yourself from laughing out loud because of the very way the words you were reading sound.
Those names!
In case English is not your mother tongue, chances are that you’ve had a feeling (once, at the very least) Tolkien was purposedly trolling you and all of your fellow Finnish/German/Italian/(choose for yourself) speakers. In case English is your native language, you’ve probably had this feeling as well.
Here goes a list being compiled with the help of people mentioned at the end of the post. If you wish to contribute, please don’t hesitate and send me a note (or two, for the sake of double-checking); I’ll update this very post.
I always thought that in Númenor there must be an expression like “túrin’s bridge” to refer to an idea that seems great at the moment but will prova catastrophic in the future
you know like we say pyrrhic victory or achille’s heel, I think they’d say túrin’s bridge, and maybe barahir’s ring for a trumph? Like “yes but he has that advantage, that’s his ring of barahir”
Sarati was an early writing system developed by Rumil, a Noldorin elf of Valinor. It was actually a source of inspiration for Feanor when he was developing the Tengwar system (which ended up being used much more widely among the elves than Rumil’s Sarati, or even Daeron’s Cirth in Doriath).
Sarati looks, in some ways, similar to Tengwar, with one big exception: in most cases, Sarati was written from top to bottom (whereas Tengwar is always written from left to right.) But there’s actually a lot more variation among different examples of Sarati than there are with Tengwar. From an external point of view, this might be because Tolkien worked on it off and on for decades, so he kept changing his mind about things. From an internal point of view, though, this could be seen as a result of the fact that Sarati, as the earliest written form of language, simply hadn’t really been unified or standardized before it was largely replaced by Tengwar.
As far as examples go: we don’t really see Sarati used within Tolkien’s writings about Middle Earth (excepting, of course, when he was actually writing about the development of Sarati.) However, there are some examples of Tolkien using Sarati – most notably, his 1919 diary. The sample below comes from the Amanye Tenceli website.
SOURCES: “The Sarati of Rumil“ at Amanye Tenceli, as well as a few brief mentions spread throughout the Histories of Middle Earth
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 