Let's learn Quenya on the Downs

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Alassë Estel

Lertë was in the aorist form.

I think the aorist of an a-stem still ends in -a.

Originally Posted by Alassë Estel

I found the translation rather difficult, hopefully it is at least close.

"The letters of the Eldar, belonging to a former manner, against the tongue of Mordor that which in this place will forbid me to speak".

It's close, in that you've got all the nouns right; now it's just a matter of making sense out of it.

One thing Tolkien frequently did (especially in Sindarin, but also Quenya) was to leave out forms of "to be" unless they were emphasised. So a sentence like "the apples are red" would be written as "the apples red" - the word order would create an implicit verb in the middle (standard order would be "the red apples"). I think I do this twice, though one is debatable.

There are three possible meanings of "apa"; you need a different one. There are also two meanings of "i", though to be honest they're pretty close.

"Váquet-" is an interesting compound used by Tolkien; "va" is a form of "ava", a negative prefix like la-. "Váquet-" is literally "to not say", but I think the meaning is more "I say I will not". I'm not positive I've used it right, but I couldnt' figure out how to directly negate my verb. (Also, there's a pronoun in "váquetuvan".)

... and the whole thing is a quote.

hS