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Last updated: 22/02/2026

Neo Sindarin - Example of a translation

Example of a full translation

Original text

Let's take this quote from Homer, The Odyssey, Book IX:

I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships.

Translation process

To translate that, we shall take it sentence by sentence. I suggest taking it in chunks divided by the punctuation, so every full stop, comma, colon, dashes, they should all split the text nicely.

Then, we translate sentence by sentence and stitch all back together. In this case we have 5 parts. Here is the breakdown:

Part 1 of 5

The first part reads: 

  I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the sea,

Let's get some words translated first. Don't worry if some words don't seem to make sense, I'll explain the choices in the sequence.

  1. "to urge on, speed" = hortha-
  2. "there" = ennas
  3. "wind" = gwae
  4. "abominable, horrible" = thaur
  5. "length" = annas
  6. "day" = aur
  7. "nine" = neder
  8. "sea" = gaear

"I was driven" is a past tense and passive construction. It is also transitive because there's a complement. As a passive construction, we put it into the 3rd person plural. Literally "they drove me", with an impersonal "they" meaning "something": horthanner. Then we use the olique nin for "me": horthanner nin.

"Thence" means "from a particular place." We have no words for "thence". But we have an adverb for "there": ennas. We can simply say od ennas meaning "from there."

"Foul winds" is very simple. The plural of gwae is also gwae, and the adjective needs to agree in number, therefore thaur becomes thoer. This word starts with a th for the phoneme [θ] which mutates into itself.

The word "by" can be translated to the preposition mo meaning "by (agent of), with", because Homer was taken by agency of the winds. Since winds here are indefinite, we use mo + soft mutation. 

  Horthanner nin od ennas mo 'wae thoer = "‹they drove› me from there by winds abominable"

"For a space of x days" is a temporal expression. I think the word for "length", annas would be adequate here. We can also use the preposition mi to situate Homer "inside" the length of time. A "day" is an aur, plural oer. We can use partitive na(n) to describe the length of time made of days.

"Upon the sea" can be translated as "in the sea". The preposition mi can absorb the article, becoming min + mixed mutation. "Sea" in Sindarin is gaear. 

  mi annas nan oer neder miñ gaear = "in length of days nine ‹in [the]› sea"

The complete line reads: 

  Horthanner nin od ennas mo 'wae thoer mi annas nan oer neder miñ gaear,

Part 2 of 5

The second part is tricky: 

  but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters,

"But" is a conjunction that causes soft mutation. We already came across the word for "day" and we can use the verb "to approach" as an equivalent of "to reach". There is a neologism for the word "lotus" that we can use: glorchadhu.

The "eater" part is complicated. Primitive Elvish has a root √MAT that means "eat". Many Sindarin words that have a food-related meaning start on mat- or mad-. There is an agental suffix -(r)on that can be used to construe madron "eater".

A "lotus-eater" can be simply a madron glorchadhu, in the plural medryn glorchadhu.

So our list of words goes:

  1. "approach" = anglenna-
  2. "land" = dôr (nd-)
  3. "eater" = madron
  4. "lotus" = glorchadhu

Note how the genitive here causes the chain to be indefinite. 

  ach vin aur baenui anglennannef ndor medryn glorchadhu = "and ‹in the› day tenth ‹we approached› [a] land [of] eaters [of] lotus"

Part 3 of 5

Part 3 says: 

  who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower.

There is no word for "kind." Looking at different languages, this term seem to come from rather varied etymologies. In many European languages it seems to be related to "family" and the idea of "beget." There is a root √NŌ/ONO meaning "beget" that can be used, and J.R.R. Tolkien seemed to lean in favour of the same root in Quenya nostalë. So the best idea so far is to extend the meaning of nûr ("race") to mean "type" or "kind".

We can use the preposition o (origin) here, or the preposition ed "out, out of" to describe a "kind of flower".

  1. "to live" = cuia-
  2. "food" = math
  3. "kind" = nûr
  4. "flower" = elloth

We need a relative pronoun here, i, which is equivalent to "who" in the original. Remember that i can cause mutation depending on restrictiveness. I think that this sentence is non-restrictive, because the "lotus eaters" is a specific group of people and unambiguous. Explaining why they are called that doesn't make the sentence restrictive, therefore it should not mutate.

Here is the result: 

  i cuiar vo vath i garnen ed nûr elloth

Part 4 of 5

The last bit starts with: 

  Here we landed to take in fresh water,

"Here" is not the place where the speaker is, so we will change to "there."

There is no verb for "to land." In this example, we will create one.

A neologism from Neo-Quenya was created a while ago for "to land, to dock": andorya-. The composing elements of that word are these:

The same pieces of this word can be used for a cognate Sindarin verb, we just need to step back into Common Eldarin:

These same words result in Sindarin's preposition an and noun dôr.

To obtain a verb, we add an ancient formative suffix for verbs ✶-yă. This suffix introduces an i-affection into the compound word.

Back to our sentence, we now have:

  1. "there" = ennas
  2. "to land" = enderia-
  3. "to take, lay hold of" = nab-
  4. "water" = nen
  5. "fresh" = laew

The full sentence: 

  ennas enderiassef an nabed nen laew,

Part 5 of 5

The last bit is a bit longer: 

  and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships.

There is a neologism for "crew": hoth. "Mid-day meal" has a (neologism) word of its own: nedhwad.

  1. "crew" = hoth
  2. "to get, obtain" = ged- (nd-)
  3. "lunch" = nedhwad
  4. "shore" = falas
  5. "ship" = cair

Pay attention to the mutations used by the prepositions: 

  ah i·chyth vín engenner i·nedhwaid dín bo falas h'i·chîr

Translated text

This is the result:

Horthanner nin od ennas mo 'wae thoer mi annas nan oer neder miñ gaear, ach vin aur baenui anglennannef ndor medryn glorchadhu, i cuiar vo vath i garnen ed nûr elloth. Ennas enderiassef an nabed nen laew, ah i·chyth vín engenner i·nedhwaid dín bo falas h'i·chîr.

Tengwar

Now, let's go one step further and use tengwar.

The first few words are easy: 

  horthaner = 
  nin = 
  od = 

Here we have a double n and a lenited g: 

  ennas = 
  mo = 
  'wae = 

Let's skip ahead to the mixed mutation bit: 

  miñ gaear =  

Most of the rest of the text is very straight-forward, but I will put a few other bits here for the reader to pay close attention. Look at the final "w", the "y" and the lenited "g": 

  laew = 
  i·chyth = 
  h'i·chîr = 

In the final version, I also put dots above the "a" tengwar that look slightly hard to identify. These have no phonetic value, they are merely for readability.

Voilá, a small translation from Homer:

                            ჻               ჻

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