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Nerdmeister
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Post An introduction and a translation
on: January 29, 2015 03:52
Hello this entry is also my initiation into these forums; long time quenya enthusiast, part time lurker and first time poster.
A little background on my journey thus far, learning quenya:
By long time quenya enthusiast, I mean that I have been interested in elven for a good number of years (unfurtunately I cannot pinpoint when it started). After having revisited the course a few times over the span of as many years (it is a bit daunting when you have an idea what you are getting into) I finally took the definitive leap about 8 months ago to do the self-teaching course of Helge Fauskanger. as I understand it there are quite differing opinions on it but those are not what I am here to discuss today; this is merely background information so, those who are interested, know were I come from. Thus far I have been studying by myself; the fact that noone I know has the same commitment and that I am usually comftable enough to go solo in most things, were both contributing factors to this.
Have had a desire of sorts to try and share the things I have learned and get some feedback but without it being something like "i coa ná carnë" and while I love quenya and the poetry that can come from it, I have not felt inspired to compose something I would deem worthwhile. Then a little while back, as such things sometimes happen, I met a girl. And she actually does like to write poetry that has a Tolkenian feel to it. So this is my attempt at translating her poem into a comprehensible quenya text.

A few words on the translation itself:
*My dictionary is the Ambar Eldaron v. 1.0; dated april 2009

*As a supplement to the dictionary, I use Helge Fauskangers eng-que/que-eng; dated july 5th 2008

*This poem is originally written in danish and though I have provided an english version, not all things translate as well and I have tried to keep the spirit of the quenya translation as close to the danish version as possible.

*Another thing is that I have tried to cut out the article and the conjunction (ná/nar) unless necessary to get a more pleasant feel and overall look; this is something suggested in the course by Helge Fauskanger because "it can be omitted and understood". If there is a consensus that this is not the case, I would like to know but promise nothing in regards to future translations

*Finally I had no luck finding a word for "window" so I constructed my own using the words "calca"(glass) and "ramba"(wall) to produce "calcamba"(glaswall?!), but what´s a guy to do?

And that brings us at long last to the poem, translated by myself but written in danish by a very special girl, who is dear to my heart:

-------------------------------------------------------------------

On the bed in the pale light of the late moon,
which through the window gently caresses my body,
I think of the twinkling of the stars, and wish that you are here.

The silent whisper of the trees... Silently humming a song.
The story of a girl, the story of a boy.
The story of the journey of two hearts and their silent need.

Soft is the grass and the pale light of the moon.
Soft are the leaves from the whispering trees,
but softer are you, whom I hold so dear

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I caimassë mi iscala Isilwa,
ter i calcamba moicavë appala hroanya,
óla nin tingilindion ar merin sa ëa tye sinomë.

Quildëa hlussë aldaron... quildëavë lírala lírë,
quenta wendo, quenta seldo.
Quenta lendo óretwa ar quildëa maurenta.

Mussi nar i salquë ar iscala Isilwa.
Mussi nar i lassi hlussala aldallon,
mal amba mussë elyë, i melda nin.

the end

[Edited on 01/29/2015 by Nerdmeister]
Elhath
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on: January 30, 2015 05:29
Nice translation. For a situation where an even lower syllable count would be better, the Qenya form quilda would probably still be permissible, given e.g. the post-1950's 'pair' ruina (adjective) - ruinë (abstract noun).

*calcamba as a synonym of "window" is an interesting neologism — what is its makeup?
LotR-era Sindarin subject pronouns (with verbs) ❖ On translating "until" ❖ Old /-ch/ of /man agorech/ discussed
Nerdmeister
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on: January 30, 2015 05:42
Thank you for your kind words
I´m afraid I have not looked much at Qenya and while I would like to peruse Vinyar Tengwar, which I understand contain a wealth of goodies, I have not obtained them as of yet.
For the word window I used "calca"(glass) and "ramba"(wall) to produce "calcamba"(glaswall?!)

[Edited on 01/30/2015 by Nerdmeister]
Elhath
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on: January 30, 2015 08:26
Alas... I was multitasking and did not eye properly through all your notes, it seems.

Anyway, I think the latter element would survive intact, giving simply *calcaramba. If going for a three-syllable word, one's choices would still be many and depend on individual preference; e.g. *cal-assa/-latya/-terron ("light-aperture" — *terron being an augmentative of terra "a fine pierced hole" ).

Parma Penyanë Quettaron contains Boris Shapiro's newword *henet (based on S henneth, the Q cognate of which could also be reconstructed differently).

[Edited on 01/30/2015 by Elhath]
LotR-era Sindarin subject pronouns (with verbs) ❖ On translating "until" ❖ Old /-ch/ of /man agorech/ discussed
Nerdmeister
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on: January 30, 2015 10:08
Thank you for pointing me towards that site.
It does beget the question of how widely acknowledged this wordlist is?
I would be quite surprised if it is recognised by the Tolkien estate but what of the Quenya-studying environment?
Elhath
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on: January 31, 2015 02:57
That is hard for an individual student to determine, though it was probably better known back during the first movie trilogy & when Elfling was still a mailing list at Yahoogroups (Good to note: Mr. Derdzinski doesn't update elvish.org/gwaith/ any longer but now operates at elendilion.pl). Certainly PPQ still shows up on the first page if you do a Google search with quenya wordlist.

[Edited on 01/31/2015 by Elhath]
LotR-era Sindarin subject pronouns (with verbs) ❖ On translating "until" ❖ Old /-ch/ of /man agorech/ discussed
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