Learning Quenya - Discussion Thread

[Encaitare]

It's Finnish and means "my mead so rancid".

Maybe that's why Galadriel wanted someone to refill her cup.

[Joy]

Originally Posted by dancing spawn of ungoliant

Do you see any similarities in it with this sentence: Simani julma niin eltaantuva. It's Finnish and means "my mead so rancid". Anyway, beautiful language this Quenya, is it not?

Now, that is too cool!!! Is it pronounced in any way like Quenya?

[Encaitare]

I'm working on translating a poem that I wrote in English, and here are some of the resources I've been using.

Quenya Wordlists -- from Ardalambion. Both English-to-Quenya and Quenya-to-English wordlists can be downloaded.

New Words -- If you can't find an attested form of the word you're looking for, the next best thing to go with is a "reconstructed" form.

And now, a grammar question: for my poem, I want to say "much longer". There are different forms of "much" for whether it is an adjective or an adverb. In my case, what would it be? Adjective, I think.

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out... and I was wrong. It's an adverb.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Joy

Is it pronounced in any way like Quenya?

You can pronounce it exactly like Quenya but the stress is always on the first syllable of a word. I just noticed that I wrote it wrong yesterday. The correct translation is: my cruel mead so rancid. Anyway, maybe that's enough about that subject.

Enca, I couldn't even dream about saying "much longer" in Quenya yet.

[the guy who be short]

Joy: Welcome to the club. I hope this thread services all your Quenyan needs... Oh, and it would please me better if you didn't remember me. I seem to recall being a bit of a prat back then, really...

Originally Posted by spawn

Ladies and gentlemen, I have just written my very first poem in Quenya!

Congratulations!

The bad news is that it's probably full of mistakes and I have to learn a few more lessons before I can really finish it. I wrote it first in English but I noticed pretty quickly that I have to make it much more simple so it corresponds with my Q. skills even a little better. It was hard to write without past tense, prepositions (except "nu") personal pronouns and whatnot. But I'm getting there!

Not to worry, you can always go back afterwards and fiddle with it. If you really need to use something like a pronoun, you can get a basic understanding from the English-Quenya wordlist.
Yes, the language is beautiful, and I must roll off my chair and writhe on the floor in laughter for a few seconds at that Finnish sentence. Maybe he intended it to be like that... And yeah, explains the whole cup thing.

I just had a thought: What type of poetry do you think Quenya is suited to? Before I started, I imagined I'd be writing about summer and trees and blossoming flowers, and Quenya would probably work very well with that. At the moment, though, I'm writing an "epic" poem on the Fall of the Noldor - and the Quenya really seems to fit the epic mood of the poem.

Originally Posted by spawn

Enca, I couldn't even dream about saying "much longer" in Quenya yet.

Me neither!

Originally Posted by Enca

New Words -- If you can't find an attested form of the word you're looking for, the next best thing to go with is a "reconstructed" form.

Careful, Enca. Both the Barrow Wight and I would like to stick to "pure" Tolkien Quenya, though of course a little extrapolation is required. Nilp also declared an interest in creating new words from stems. This is different.
Obviously, we don't want Grelvish on BD, but I'm also wary of creating new words from know "Qenya" or Primitive Elvish roots. The site you gave a link to states

This list cannot be taken as a wordlist of Quenya words devised by J.R.R. Tolkien himself, and people therefore should not take and freely use them as if they were 'real'. It is very possible that they are non-sense or completely wrong, but until we have Tolkien's own words, we must, if we want to use Quenya, help ourselves and such words may be used as our temporary solution.

That said, a lot of the words seem to be derived logically enough for use by mixing two or more old words / suffixs etc. together. I'd support using these. I'm against creating new words from Primitive Elvish stems - we can't have any idea whether Tolkien would still use them in the same way, or if he'd make them irregular, or if he wouldn't want them used at all. I'd advise against using these.

[Encaitare]

As you said, the words on that site seem to be logically derived, based on known words. In my opinion, they are to be used as a last resort, when no other related word or synonym can be found.

With this in mind, I have a couple of questions.

1. What are your opinions on combining words to make compound words? The poem I'm translating has a nautical sort of theme, and one word I had to scrounge around in order to translate was 'figurehead'. I settled for lango-nís = 'prow-woman'.

2. Is it okay to 'logically derive' a noun from a verb? Again, as a last resort. I need a word for 'sail' (the noun), but I can only find the verb: wili-. Could I somehow follow the pattern linda- (verb, sing) --> lindë (noun, song)? Willë would not be an option because it's the past tense form of the noun, but maybe there's some way, wilë, perhaps, though it doesn't look as nice... Or, I could try another compound word, rúmëa-cirya (moves-ship) or something similar.

[the guy who be short]

Originally Posted by Encataire

What are your opinions on combining words to make compound words? The poem I'm translating has a nautical sort of theme, and one word I had to scrounge around in order to translate was 'figurehead'. I settled for lango-nís = 'prow-woman'.

I think it works, as long as it makes sense. I don't do it at the moment as I'm not exactly sure how to do so - whether endings change somehow or something weird like that, which is almost bound to happen with Quenya. "Prow" + "woman" makes middlish sense to me, you could get away with using it and people would probably realise what you mean. An extreme that wouldn't make sense would be "cup" + "board" for "cupboard". Yes, it was a stupid example, but you get what I mean (or I hope you do). Sometimes it won't work translating individual components.

Originally Posted by enca

Is it okay to 'logically derive' a noun from a verb? Again, as a last resort. I need a word for 'sail' (the noun), but I can only find the verb: wili-. Could I somehow follow the pattern linda- (verb, sing) --> lindë (noun, song)? Willë would not be an option because it's the past tense form of the noun, but maybe there's some way, wilë, perhaps, though it doesn't look as nice... Or, I could try another compound word, rúmëa-cirya (moves-ship) or something similar.

Again, as long as it makes sense. "Sing" into "Song" makes sense to me. "Sail (vb)" into "sail (n)" doesn't. The verb and noun are connected in English, but in other languages a sail could be called a "fluttercloth" or anything else - we don't know what. A song is almost always going to be derived from the verb "to sing" though. Also, "moves-ship" makes no sense to me. Nor would "wind-cloth" or "shipsheet" - you can't really look at either and think "that's a sail" and it's also unlikely that they would be Quenya words for sail. This is just English-speaking people trying to get Quenya to do what they want.

The problem with trying to translate a poem from English into Quenya is that you have to change it - Quenya doesn't have a very extensive vocabulary. You'd probably end up with something reasonably different. That's why I think of what I want to say in English, then try it in Quenya. If it doesn't work, I think of something else or look for synonyms. It's easier that way - you can make sense and say what you want.

Tell me if I'm not making sense. The above looks extremely unelegant, and I wish I could express it with less unseemly words...

By the way, Enca, is your name in Quenya?

[Encaitare]

No, you're making sense. With the 'moves-ship' thing, I had some Spanish words in mind, like limpiaparabrisas, which refers to windshield wipers, literally meaning "cleans windshield". As you said, Quenya probably has different rules. I'll knock out the word 'sail' and think of something different, then.

And yes, my name is indeed Quenya.

[the guy who be short]

What does it mean? I know a few Downers names' translations by heart. Wilwarin means Butterfly, Formendacil means North-Victor. I think I tried to investigate your name and failed, though.

[Encaitare]

It's a translation of my real name, Jamie; it means "one who supplants or replaces". I found it at Quenya Lapseparma.

[the guy who be short]

Something really annoying happened.

I was going through my poem when I noticed the name "Morgoth" and remembered it was Sindarin! So I looked it up, and the Quenya form is Moringotto. Which presents a problem because now I need to alter the lines to rhyme. Grrr. Moral: Always check proper names.

Yes. Ahem.

Anyway, my poem is now 30 odd lines long and hasn't even reached Alqualonde (which is what it's meant to be about!) yet. Brace yourselves for an epic. It's not that bad actually - most of the lines are about two or three words long. I might cut it short a little and stop just before Alqualonde though.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

my poem is now 30 odd lines long and hasn't even reached Alqualonde (which is what it's meant to be about!) yet

And I felt proud of the seven lines of my poem... Well, congratulations.

Moringotto sounds strange. It reminds me of spaghetti or some other Italian food (not sure why).

Anyway, now I can write more flexible since we just finished lesson 6 with Lhuna and I can use past tense. Hooray.

[the guy who be short]

Originally Posted by Spawn

And I felt proud of the seven lines of my poem... Well, congratulations.

Hehe, thanks, but like I said, my lines are ridiculously short. Two of my verses, for example, have only ten words in each - each verse being four lines long! So, nothing remarkable.

Originally Posted by Spawn

Anyway, now I can write more flexible since we just finished lesson 6 with Lhuna and I can use past tense. Hooray.

Am I the only one who has to look ahead to find out how to say things in Quenya? I've already peaked at parts of lessons as far ahead as 16 just to make little phrases work...

Oh, this may be a little premature, but I think it's fair to say that Shelob and Alcarillo will almost certainly be forming a new pair.

[Alcarillo]

Aye, Shelob and I have indeed formed a pair.

TGWBS, where did you find the form Moringotto? I have a few Sindarin names I need Quenyarized for a poem: Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, Nan Elmoth, and Ëol. Possibly Idril Celebrindal, too, but I recall a Quenya form of her name somewhere.

EDIT: Peoples of Middle-Earth gives both Itarillë and Itarildë as forms of Idril. I like the former better.

And kudos to anybody who can guess the theme of my poem.

[the guy who be short]

Alcarillo - The Quenya wordlists gave me the form Moringotto. There are links to them in the first post, I think. If not, they're not far under it.

Kath is back! Huzzah! We'll be resuming learning on Monday.

[Kath]

Yes hello all and greetings to those who joined up in my absence. It's nice to see some new people! Quick question, when is this poetry competition occurring as it seems that most people are well through their poems and I haven't even started!

[the guy who be short]

Worry not Kath - the scheduled date is 10th October for the last entries. You have more than a month.

[Alcarillo]

Well, my poem is 40 lines now (yipee!), and I've been using the Quenya translations of "The White Lady" and "The Dark Elf" for Aredhel and Ëol.

I have, however, encountered a problem. I need to say: The warriors found him. I know it would begin with I ohtari, but the verb is confusing me. There is a plural subject, so The warriors found would be I ohtari hirner. But how do I add the -s (meaning him, or her, or it) to this? Would it become hirneres? Should I leave off the plural ending of the verb (even if the subject is not a pronoun) and just add -s, to get hirnes? Or is this explained in a later lesson? Could I just use hirners, even if it looks weird in Quenya?

[the guy who be short]

We-ell...

Quenya consonants can be a little annoying. There's a list of allowed Quenya consonant clusters here, and it does include rs.

However, it also says:

Normally there are no final clusters either; words end either in one of the single consonants t, s, n, l, r or in a vowel

So that means some meddling is required.

I'm not really sure. I've only got to lesson 8 though... perhaps somebody further along knows what to do?

EDIT: You could always use I ohtari se hirner. I believe that would emphasise the word him somewhat, but that's the best I can think of at the moment.

[the guy who be short]

Sorry to double post but...

I ohtari se hirner

This isn't definite Tolkien, it's derived from other pronouns. I wouldn't use it unless you can't find anything else.

I think hirneres might work. Possibly hirneras - a being the most common vowel?

If all else fails, you could email the course writer.

[Dimcollowen]

I really wish I could speak Quenya....I once read somewher that there was this group of Tolkien fans where all the members could speak it....every single one! It seemed very cool but it was alittle scary because you could only join if you could already speak Quenya...and you had to be fluent. So needless to say I couldn't join....

[Encaitare]

I really wish I could speak Quenya....

So learn. It's fun.

(I want to write a college essay about how I'm teaching it to myself but my mom refuses to let me... bummer.)

[the guy who be short]

I know we all know how stress works, but it's hard to think about it when reading texts if you're used to English (or other languages for that matter) stress systems. When posting poems, I'm going to emphsise the stressed vowel by underlining it so it's easier to read. It won't be compulsary but it would be handy.

[the guy who be short]

Competition deadline getting closer (and mine isn't finished! Eek!) so I thought I'd sort a few things out:

The last possible date for entering a poem is 10th October.

Poems are not compulsory from students.

As far as I know, only Alcarillo, Kath, spawn, Enca and I will be submitting poems, but everybody will be encouraged to vote on them.

That is all...

[Encaitare]

The last possible date for entering a poem is 10th October.

Oh, good. I thought it was October first, and I was wondering whether I'd have any time to finish.

[Thinlómien]

I'd like to start learning quenya here, and I've even got a permission from TGWBS So does anyone need a pair? I have studied the lessons 1-6 by myself about a year ago, so with some revision I can continue everywhere between lessons one and six. (Of course I can also study by myself, but it's always funnier to do the excersises with someone...)

[the guy who be short]

Permission...? You don't need permission. You don't even need approval. Lemme know, and you're in. In fact, even if you don't let me know, I tend to pick up that you're learning Quenya and add you to the list of Quenyans.

In light of the rather lacklustre response to the last poetry contest, I think we should maybe tweak the frequency. People do have lives to live, I realise. Once every six months sound good to everybody? Bad? Perfect compromise?

[Encaitare]

Six months is a little too long, I think. Maybe every three or four months?

[Encaitare]

Hey, you crazy Quenya kids, you. Let's get this going again, huh? Or else I'm switching to Klingon.

[Lhunardawen]

Originally Posted by Encaitare

Hey, you crazy Quenya kids, you. Let's get this going again, huh? Or else I'm switching to Klingon.

Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Did everyone else stop, uh, take an indefinite break as well?

[Thinlómien]

I intended to start but didn't, then I studied in the Christmas Holiday but I have been now having a break of some three weeks and so...

I think I need a pair so that I can keep studying...

[the guy who be short]

Kath and I sorta stumbled, unfortunately, due to my exams. And then didn't start up again.

What say you Kath? Shall we force me to star up again?

[Lhunardawen]

dancing spawn and I agreed to an indefinite break since we're both quite busy with school and stuff...not sure when we'll start again, though.

[Encaitare]

I was lucky enough to find a RL Quenya partner, so we should hopefully be starting up again in a week or two once our schedules clear up a bit. *is excited*

Hello there
i'm French and I feel I'll need a hand learning Quenya. I'm afraid to say that Ardalambion's equivalent in French is rather a pity so I'm settling myself to learning Quenya on my own, unless some charitable soul takes pity on me and comes to my help!
Good luck to you all in this incredible task.
Alcarnarmo