Learning Quenya - Discussion Thread

[Lhunardawen]

I suggested it, but I did not live up to it myself.

I realized it would be quite weird to insert a single Quenya word into a myriad of English words. That would make the lone Quenya word so...lonely.

But I did try to help all of us Werewolf VII participants, didn't I? Playing the game alone is so nerve-wracking, then here goes me trying to make things much more complicated.

Oh well.

(End of Lhunacy. )

[the guy who be short]

Aiya vendi (ar Lúmen).

August is approaching, and the first poetry competition was set to begin on the 1st of September. However, the minimal requirement for being able to actually write in sentences or phrases is Lesson Five. As far as I know, only Kath and I have completed this.

There also only seem to be six of us - Kath, Enca, Fea, Lhuna, spawn and I - who are actively participating on this thread, and, presumably, actively learning Quenya. It would be foolish to start the poetry competition before at least most of us six have reached lesson five.

Long story short - do you all, and the four other people explicitly mentioned, feel that you will have got to lesson five by the first of september, with enough spare time to do some writing, or not? I'm widely anticipating a "no," so the competition could be set back a month to the First October

Thoughts? Comments? I'm interested to see how far other groups have got, and whether the four quieter people have started yet.

By the way - personal info here - I've just started writing my first Quenya poem. It will doubtless be full of horrendous grammatical errors which will later have to be rectified, but it's still really cool writing in Quenya.

[Kitanna]

Oro and I made it through lesson one, but Oro has told me of RL problems. So it looks like we will not be going on to lesson 2 very quickly. Which makes me sad, but RL problems are RL problems.

[Encaitare]

Fea and I have both read lessons 1 and 2, but due to some RL conflicts we had to cut our discussion short. We'll be resuming this Monday to finish the two up, and then assuming we work steadily through August, we should be ready by September.

[Orominuialwen]

I'm sorry, but Kitanna's right. I may have to go out of town at any time to attend to the funeral of a family member, but I have no definite idea of when that will be, or how long I'll be gone, except that it's likely I'll have to go sometime in the next few days. Once I get back, we'll be able to get on with the lessons.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

By the way - personal info here - I've just started writing my first Quenya poem.

That's really cool, congratulations!

Lhuna and I have successfylly finished lesson 3. I'd believe that we are done with lesson 5 before September.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

It's true... life got really busy. While I might be done with Lesson 5 by September, having September 1st as our poetry competition start is absolutely irrevocably impossible for me. I'll be moving into college that day and then trapped in four days freshman orientation, and after that, I'll be adjusting to classes. So I have little access to the internet at best for the first week of September.

[the guy who be short]

Firstly, Feanor - September 1st would be the date that poetry starts to be submitted, presumably you would have started writing it in late August. So the question is really, could you get to lesson 5 by late August AND have time to write (what you feel is good) poetry?

Orominuialwen - I'm sorry to hear that, and it's entirely understandable of course. I don't expect people to think of Quenya as a priority, even in much less important situations. It's a casual club.

Lhuna and dancing spawn look in the best position to be ready by September, but I feel that the poetry contest would end up with 4 contenders if we kept the date.

So...

The first poetry contest will be delayed to October the First. I'd been toying with this idea before as well; if the contests are to be bimonthly (once every two months, not twice a month... stupid word has two meanings) this would avoid a contest starting on the 1st of January, when people will most likely be on holiday etc.

This means everybody should have time to get up to lesson 5, and most of us would hopefully get past it, allowing for more complex language and better quality poetry.

By the way, four lines into my first poem, I realised that we don't learn how to use pronouns until about lesson 12. Which means until then, our poetry will be full of proper nouns. Oh well.

For those of you interested in creating rhymes in your poems, the Ardalambion wordlists feature a "reverse wordlist" to help find rhymes. Unfortunately, Quenya is so heavily inflected (I stole that phrase from the course, yes) that it isn't of huge use. The other wordlists can of course be used to help in poetry.

Finally, CaptainofDespair and durelin have just joined our ranks.

[/Rambling]

[the guy who be short]

Being an Englishman with English as my primary language (I actually learnt it second, but I think in it now, so it's most important to me) I find it easiest to stick with the English order,

The same question arises in Lesson 5 with verbs - the sentence could be

I Eldar mápea i Nauco.
The Elves seize the Dwarf.
I Eldar i Nauco mápea.
The Elves the Dwarf seize.
I Nauco i Eldar mápea.
The Dwarf the Elves seize.

In sentences, I prefer the English method of object-verb-subject, but in poetry, it's very handy, because you can shift things around to match rhyming patterns (which I'm very fond of). When writing poetry, I use whatever order I like.

As for leaving ná off completely... I don't think I could cope with that. Too much brain strain, like you said.

[Durelin]

I actually prefer the verb at the end of the sentence. But only be cause I'm used to translating Latin...

But, as TGWBS said, it's useful to be able to put it in whatever order you'd like... It's sad that you can't do that with English...shows you what kind of language we have, doesn't it?

[the guy who be short]

Originally Posted by durelin

But, as TGWBS said, it's useful to be able to put it in whatever order you'd like... It's sad that you can't do that with English...shows you what kind of language we have, doesn't it?

Technically, you can do whatever you like in poetry. As long as it's still intelligible, anything goes.

Originally Posted by durelin

We have cookies?!

Yes.

Actually, durelin, learning every single day? Good luck to you! Kath and I are going at a rate of about one lesson per week, which we think works quite well.

Does anybody here (who has got to lesson three) like to put the adjective after the noun?

I parma carne - The book red
Instead of
I carne parma - The red book.

Again, it's incredibly handy that you can use both, because it makes it that much easier to rhyme. I prefer the English method in sentences though.

[Encaitare]

Ye Olde Short One, I personally prefer the way which mirrors the English form, because it's what I am used to. But, like you said, in poetry anything goes!

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by the guy who be short

Does anybody here (who has got to lesson three) like to put the adjective after the noun?

I parma carne - The book red
Instead of
I carne parma - The red book.

Again, I think that the first version is more poetic and I think I even know why. In old Finnish poems and song lyrics the word order is similar to "I parma carnë" - noun comes before an adjective. I think I'm going to use both ways in my writings even if I don't make them rhyme (so it won't be necessary).

So, when can we have cookies?

[Lhunardawen]

I suppose in answering the exercises we can use the 'English' format for greater ease. But, as everyone else already said, we can play around with the order when writing Quenya poetry. I suppose putting the adjective after the noun tends to emphasize the adjective rather than the noun? Like

I carnë parma (of Westmarch ) - you just have to know it is a red book

as opposed to

I parma carnë - the book (is) red...it is 'more important' for you to know the color of the book than the book instead

or something like that in a smaller scale?

EDIT: How do we avail of these cookies, tgwbs?

[the guy who be short]

Originally Posted by She who was Spawned

Again, I think that the first version is more poetic and I think I even know why. In old Finnish poems and song lyrics the word order is similar to "I parma carnë" - noun comes before an adjective.

Technically, this can be done in English too. To quote the Lay of Leithian:

‘twas sewn with golden lilies fair

And other such instances.

I think I'll simply use whichever seems more aesthetically pleasing at the time. That's what Quenya is all about, after all.

Originally Posted by The Lhunatic

I suppose putting the adjective after the noun tends to emphasize the adjective rather than the noun?

I'd disagree with that actually. I think it was just a feature of the language, rather than having any effect on emphasis; the red book and the book red being interchangable. Looking at the examples given in the exercise, I don't think there's any reason to think that having the adjective after the noun emphasises it, though it may look liek that to native English speakers.

Originally Posted by Lhunspawnlin

We have cookies?!
So, when can we have cookies?
How do we avail of these cookies, tgwbs?

Well, to be honest, the reference to cookies was false advertising. The idea is, people see my siggy and think "Ooh! Cookies! I like cookies..." *click* Then they come to Quenya, and it's such a lovely idea they forget about the cookies.