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. Thus: gwae thoer "winds horrible."

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. ...mo 'wae thoer "by winds horrible."

  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. ...mi annas "in length." A "day" is an aur, plural oer. We can use partitive na(n) to describe the length of time made of days. The numeral "nine" follows the noun it refers to. ...mi annas nan oer neder "in length of days nine."

"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. ... miñ gaear "in the sea."

  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". ... ach vin aur baenui "... but in day tenth"

"To approach" in the past tense, first person plural becomes anglennannef. Note that there is a genitive construction in the next part, so definiteness should be considered later. ... anglennannef ndor... "‹we approached› [a] land..."

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

The genitive construction here is: "land [of] eaters [of] lotus". The Lotus-eaters could be considered definite if it were a single word, but because it's two words, we enter a genitive chain and the last item is indefinite. So the genitive chain here is indefinite by default: "a land" is indefinite and "eaters" is also indefinite, because "lotus" is 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.

Let's start with a list of words first. We'll discuss some of the choices below.

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. ... i cuiar ... "... who live ..."

We can use the preposition mo (by agent of) here again: ... mo vath ... "by [a] food"

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". Remember that "kind of flower" is genitive. ... i garnen ed nûr elloth ... "... which comes from [a] kind [of] flower ..."

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:

• Q. an(a) = preposition meaning "to, towards, to a point near, alongside"
• Q. nór = noun meaning "land"

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

• √NA/ANA = "to, towards; at side of, alongside, besides; moreover, in addition, plus"
• √NDOR = "land; hard, firm"

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.

• Now we have these components: AN + NDOR + yă
• Roots are bases of words even in Primitive Elvish, and in that language, the medial nasal plus stop after another consonant became a simple nasal.
  So anndorya has the "d" dropped and becomes annorja.
• Next, in Sindarin, medial [j] became [i]. "j" is the same as "y" in this context.
  So we go from annorja to annoria.
• Next, short [a], [o], [u] became [e], [œ], [y] preceding [i]. This is a case of i-affection:
  annoria becomes ennœria.
• In Sindarin, nasals vanished before morpheme boundaries. If the nasal is followed by another nasal, they are assimilated. Therefore:
  ennœria ("en" + "nœr" + "ia") becomes enœria ("e" + "nœr" + "ia").
• Finally, [œ] became [e]:
  enœria becomes eneria.
• eneria-, "to dock" or "to land".

Back to our sentence, we now have:

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

The past tense, first person plural of our new verb "to land" would be eneriassef. So ... ennas eneriassef "... there ‹we landed›"

"To take in", in this case meaning to take, lay hold, in this case it's a verbal noun, nabed. Fresh water would be nen laew.

The full sentence:

  ennas eneriassef 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

This time, I will not walk the reader through the translation. Try and figure out how the words fit together. 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 eneriassef 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:

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

Related Topics

• Prepositions
• Mutations
• Tengwar
• Basic pronouns
• Pronouns paradigm
• Nouns
• Numerals