Henneth Annûn Story Archive

Well, in my throes of insanity, I've begun trying to translate things into Sindarin. My frist project was perhaps a bit too ambitious for my own good; Prospero's speech from the last act of The Tempest. After much gnashing of teeth and use of a thesaurus, I've managed a fair translation of most of it, but the last couplet is giving me problems. Namely, I'm convinced the words do not exist in Sindarin. This is what I still need to translate: "As you from your crimes would pardon’d be Let your indulgence set me free" I can't seem to find anything that can be used as a synonym and still mean the same thing. So, if anyone out there can do some mental gymnastics that I can't and come up with an equivilant using Sindarin words that do exist, I would be most grateful. Bado na sídh. Berz.

 

Hi Berz, I don’t know if I’m just retracing ground you’ve already covered (and rejected), but here’s one attempt: Sui anirach dihenad in úgerth lín As you desire forgiving the bad deeds yours Vi faelas lín, leitho nin. In mercy yours, free me. Several words here come from the Sindarin Lord’s Prayer (VT 44). _sui_ ‘as’; _úgerth_ ‘sins, bad deeds, wrong-doings’; _vi_ ‘in’; _diheno_ ‘forgive (a matter)’ – here in reconstructed form as _dihenad_ ger. ‘forgiving’ I’m not sure _dihenad_ carries the right meaning – perhaps the past participle, _dihennen_, would work better? But I’m not quite certain of how to use the p.p. in Sindarin… Ideas anyone? I use _le_ and _ lín_ for you/your. This is in some opinions only the ‘respectful’ form, but there is no ‘familiar’ form attested (unless I’m mistaken) so, I choose to use only the attested forms. I haven’t been convinced by anybody’s list of ‘reconstructed’ pronouns so far. Use whatever pronouns you are comfortable with. _Faelas_ n. is a reconstructed Neo-Sindarin word for ‘generosity, mercy’ from this site: http://members.cox.net/taramiluiel/sindarin.htm While nobody’s Neo-Sindarin is perfect, Tara’s is pretty sound. _Leitho_ imper. of _leitha-_ ‘set free’ - the imperative form can carry the meaning of ‘may’ so you could turn it around and use Leitho nin vi faelas lín. (You) may free me in mercy yours. Hope it helps, Ithildin *(

 

That helps very very much! Le hannon! Thenid, le hannon! I knew the Lord's Prayer was out there and for some reason I didn't think of looking at it. ^_^; Thanks especially for the link. I'm sure it'll be helpful with any other insane ventures I undertake. I was thinking of a passage from Cymbelline next... Wish I could help with the Past Participle, but the only notes I have on it are morphological rather than syntactical. I can conjugate it, but I don't know where to put it, which is making me crazy, truth be told. But here's what I have; "The past participle of Sindarin is formed by adding the suffix '-en', plural '-in', to the 3rd singular past; the final consonents change before the vowel of the suffix. The plurals also show internal vowel change." Don't know if that'll help at all, but there you have it. Bado na sídh. Berz.

 

Glad I could help a little. Do you have Dragon Flame? It includes the Sindarin Lord's Prayer in its corpus section. Here's the link. It is one of the most useful tools I've found. It's pretty accurate and well documented too. http://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/df20.html From what discussion I've seen the participles are not used with the helping verb like they are in English - so they mostly take the adjectival role. I'm still looking for more exampe of their use. The more I learn the more complicated it all seems. Very interesting stuff though. Ithildin *(

 

Well, since we lack a satisfactorily conjugable linking verb (Ilúvatar save me, did I really just write that?), I would proceed in the same way that I do whenever I'd like to insert an "is," "was," etc. -- just pretend it's there! So in the same way that you could say, for instance, Aragorn maethor vaed, "Aragorn [is] a skilled warrior," you could also say, Aragorn gruithannen -- "Aragorn [is] terrified" (not that he ever would be, of course ).

 

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