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NagaSlicer
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Post Translation help wanted
on: April 11, 2015 10:12
Hello! I've been trying to translate the following quote: "And the plants said 'We will fight the stone with stem and root and seed... We are patient; we will win'"

Here's what I have so far- a ingelais pent maethatham ondh ah telch a solch a eredh: Nam úgele. natham tureb:

Galas has been pluralized to gelais and has undergone nasal mutation for the plural the(i) in front of it. gond has undergone soft mutation due to it being the subject of the verb maethatham. There was no word for "patient" that I could find, so I tried out "not hasty" by adding ú- to celeg and having it undergo soft mutation due to the ú- prefix. And finally there was also no word for "win", so I changed "we will win." to "we will be victorious" and added the -eb suffix to tur "victory".

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Seriously, ANY feedback would be so lovely.
Elhath
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on: April 11, 2015 06:47
Plural "(they) said" would be *ebenn-ir/-er or *ebenth-ir/-er if one followed the lead of adhanc "he slew" (< DAK) and ed-agant "he shaped" (< KAT) from Parma Eldalamberon #17 / c. 1960. (Applied to "I, you, they" : E.g. Renk's Pedin Edhellen PDF/p. 63)

As maetha- also means —or has meant— "handle, treat, manage" (PE17 p. 161), it may be prudent to use dan "against" before gond (which would show Nasal Mutation unless you simply have i 'ond "the stone" ). "To fight" + a direct (prepositionless) object is a typically Modern English construction anyway, I think.

Also in a situation like this I think one should use a word meaning "with" (or a construction meaning "with the help/use of" ) which doesn't resemble the word "and", so that the Sindarin can't be read as "we will fight stone and stem and root..". Na "with, by" (Etym. p. 374) is typically taken to be the preposition used to announce the instrument. (Renk: Same as nan #2 & causes Nasal Mutation.)

At first glance *úgele looks to me like it contains a word #cele (should read úgeleg?). Other acceptable adjective formations meaning "patient, having patience" might be *andreth-(i)on, -ren (compare brithon, gwathren).

[Edited on 04/12/2015 by Elhath]
Varyalener
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on: April 12, 2015 01:26
For "victorious", though of course tureb would do (tyrib, since it needs to be in the plural: natham tyrib "we will be victorious" = "we will win" ), I would rather prefer gellui "triumphant", which is attested (in Noldorin – just like tûr "mastery, victory" ) and translates "victorious" quite precisely (plural the same as singular: gellui).

[Edited on 04/12/2015 by Varyalener]
Lindanen lassis, laurië lassis. Ar tás altaner laurië lassi.
NagaSlicer
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on: April 15, 2015 08:23
Thank you both for the feedback! Elhath, I'm confused about something though. Is *ebenn-ir/-er a modified form of the verb pent or an insertion meaning they preceding pent?

And for the record, yes that was supposed to be from the root celeg, it's just the chart of mutations I was going off of stated that g soft mutates into deletion, which I found odd. Is there a chart or something of the like that is more reliable and you would recommend?

Varyalener, in the case of it translating more precisely, I think I will go with your suggestion, so thank you.

Finally, sorry for replying so late, I realize this is rude. But it's finals week and time has become scarce of late.
Elhath
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on: April 16, 2015 08:06
NagaSlicer said:Thank you both for the feedback! Elhath, I'm confused about something though. Is *ebenn-ir/-er a modified form of the verb pent or an insertion meaning they preceding pent?


It's a 3rd plural past tense of ped-, corresponding to *pennir in the pre-2007 Sindarin verb conjugation theory.


And for the record, yes that was supposed to be from the root celeg, it's just the chart of mutations I was going off of stated that g soft mutates into deletion, which I found odd. Is there a chart or something of the like that is more reliable and you would recommend?


Mutations don't occur in word-final consonants when there's nothing coming after them — the latter element in a compound might merely contract (imlad + rist > imladris). When you make a compound by combining two elements, it is the consonants at the contact border that change similar to mutations, or 'fuse together' (as in maeg + heneb > maecheneb "sharp-eyed" ). I've occasionally looked around the internet for free charts on these changes but haven't yet found anything as useful as the "Compound Words and Names" chapter in David Salo's book A Gateway to Sindarin (where the conformities are given with attested compound noun/name examples from Tolkien). Info on the mutations caused by the prefixes such as ú- can at least be found at Sindarin resource sites on par with CoE (see link #1 in my previous reply).

[Edited on 04/17/2015 by Elhath]
NagaSlicer
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on: April 17, 2015 04:27
Oh, okay, that makes significantly more sense now on both fronts. So would an acceptably translated sentence then read in Sindarin as "a ingelais ebennir maethatham dan iond na telch a solch a eredh: nam úgeleg. natham gellui:"?
Varyalener
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on: April 19, 2015 10:10
I was said that Tolkien stated that a "and, with (together with)" always causes the following word to undergo soft mutation (see the 9th post here: http://www.councilofelrond.com/forum/thread/32875/page/20/); thus, instead of a solch, it should be a holch. That clashes with the information found in lesson 05 of CoE's sindarin workbook – where, regarding the lenition of adjectives, it is said that a or any other (non-adjectival) word placed between a noun and a following adjective would probably prevent this adjective from undergoing lenition (of course, solch is a noun, not an adjective, but the question here is a triggering/not triggereing lenition). However, if Tolkien himself stated that a causes lenition, I think that is something to consider, at least.

Nonetheless, mutation should be applied to telch. Which mutation, it's a question, though my guess wold be the soft mutation.
The preposition na "to, towards, at, of, with, by" triggers soft mutation on the next word, according to CoE's sindarin mutations chart (www.councilofelrond.com/languages/123MC.htm). Thus, telch would be lenited (na delch). However, from what I undersood when I read Elhath's first reply, according to Thorsten Renk na causes nasal mutation on the next word (not soft mutation), as it is the "same as nan #2" – this nan, I believe, being na + article, meaning "to the" (both singular and plural). But, yet, in CoE's mutation chart nan "to the" is said to trigger the so-called mixed mutation, which produces the same effect that soft mutation does on a word that starts with t-, changing this initial sound to d- (telchnan delch). That's why I'm not sure of which mutation should be applied with na (soft or nasal mutation?). The same with nan (mixed or nasal mutation?). I would really appreciate a clarification on the matter.

[Edited on 04/20/2015 by Varyalener]
Lindanen lassis, laurië lassis. Ar tás altaner laurië lassi.
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