The Elven-speaking thread

[morvaltur]

tarikaral, I have a question. In the last line, could "tye-mela" be replaced with "mela tye"? I was under the impression that in Quenya the object of the verb could come before or after the verb.

I am also still wondering about the circumflexes. Why are there so many? Many of the words that they are on, such as tye, are words that would usually have an umlaut instead of a circumflex.

 

[Wormie]

Aranya,meldanya,Aragorn'nya;
Tyê nâ alca ammoma lômenyannar
Tyê nâ ûrê arringa lômenyannar
Orênya palpêa râ lê
Tyê nâ ilquanya,Aragorn'nya
İnyê tyê-mela ar meluva!

my king, my dear, my Aragorn;
you are light of my darkest nights
you are heat of my coldest nights
my heart beats for you
you are my everything,my Aragorn
i love you and will love

*** this is my friend's own work!

Thanks for that... that's really nice; I agree with jochanaan!!
jochanaan, the whole Aragorn/ Arwen epic is reserved for fan-fictions now .

 

[morvaltur]

The Arwen/Aragorn epic could go on forever. There is only one question: Did the two of them ever leave and go to the Undying Lands?

 

[Lubiana]

i have been learning Quenya aboute 2 months. but before starting learning i had searched Elvish and i collected all believable sources. now i am going on to learning and i have finished all tenses today. the quenya course that i have it is total 20 lessons. i have finished 8 lesson.


i am peresently going to teach Quenya i and my girl friend,we meeted with a well-known English Course in our city for teaching Quenya. and the course mannager agree with us. i will teach Quenya grammar and my friend will get practice lessons)

Oh that is so AWESOME! Could you include us in your lessons? I'd love a refresher course! I've forgotten most of my Quenya.

 

[jochanaan]

The Arwen/Aragorn epic could go on forever. There is only one question: Did the two of them ever leave and go to the Undying Lands?

No. In "A Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen," as told in Tolkien's Appendix to The Return of the King, it is told that at the end, Aragorn voluntarily laid down his kingship and his life. Queen Arwen then left Minas Tirith, "and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a star." Her last journey was to Lothlorien. "There at last she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and elanor and niphredil bloom no more east of the Sea."

The Tale of Years in Appendix B tells us that Aragorn had ruled Gondor, and also the lands around the Shire and Rivendell, for 120 years. He made the Shire a protectorate of Gondor and decreed that no Men were to enter it. His royal name was Elessar Telcontar. (Perhaps some of you know what telcontar means; I only know because The Return of the King explains it.)

 

[tarikaral]

tarikaral, I have a question. In the last line, could "tye-mela" be replaced with "mela tye"? I was under the impression that in Quenya the object of the verb could come before or after the verb.

I am also still wondering about the circumflexes. Why are there so many? Many of the words that they are on, such as tye, are words that would usually have an umlaut instead of a circumflex.

tye-mela is not correct gramatical but Tolkien used so: inye tye-mela. so i prefer to use so,too. may be this form is more pratic. i said again; gramatically tye-mela not corrcet form. corrcet form must be so:
melanyel: i love you=> mela+nye+l

aboute circumflexes i cant say more thing. the word meaning you is "tyê", not tye. because word is so. this not my prefer. you can know alphabet of Quenya. also i can say this: if the word is ending "e", e must be "Ê" not E. ending e is everytime is "ê". alsothe word haveing circumuflex is have a stem.

quenya alphabet have 5 short vowels and 5 long vovels. short vowels are: a, e, i, o, u and longs are â, ê, î, û, ô. so the words may includes long or shorts vowels.

** cu: dove
cú : arch, crescent

this two words are different.

 

[tarikaral]

Oh that is so AWESOME! Could you include us in your lessons? I'd love a refresher course! I've forgotten most of my Quenya.

of corse i includes you all. come to Turkey/Diyarbakır i can to hava a seminnar aboute Quenya in my university. my be i can it

 

[Wormie]

[Aragorn's] royal name was Elessar Telcontar. (Perhaps some of you know what telcontar means; I only know because The Return of the King explains it.)

I can't remember what Telcontar means... I haven't read ROTK but I'm sure I've been told what Telcontar means... I just can't remember...

 

[Eponine]

I can't remember what Telcontar means... I haven't read ROTK but I'm sure I've been told what Telcontar means... I just can't remember...

IIRC, it's a translation of Strider.

 

[jochanaan]

IIRC, it's a translation of Strider.

Bingo! You get the gold star!

 

[morvaltur]

of corse i includes you all. come to Turkey/Diyarbakır i can to hava a seminnar aboute Quenya in my university. my be i can it

Turkey is quite a ways away for me.

What is the title of the course you are taking and who is the author?

 

[morvaltur]

tye-mela is not correct gramatical but Tolkien used so: inye tye-mela. so i prefer to use so,too. may be this form is more pratic. i said again; gramatically tye-mela not corrcet form. corrcet form must be so:
melanyel: i love you=> mela+nye+l

aboute circumflexes i cant say more thing. the word meaning you is "tyê", not tye. because word is so. this not my prefer. you can know alphabet of Quenya. also i can say this: if the word is ending "e", e must be "Ê" not E. ending e is everytime is "ê". alsothe word haveing circumuflex is have a stem.

quenya alphabet have 5 short vowels and 5 long vovels. short vowels are: a, e, i, o, u and longs are â, ê, î, û, ô. so the words may includes long or shorts vowels.

** cu: dove
cú : arch, crescent

this two words are different.

Here are the things that my Quenya course says about this:
The Quenya alphabet does have 5 short vowels and 5 long vowels. The short vowels are: a, e, i, o, u; however, the long vowels are á, é, í, ó, ú .

The Quenya word for "you", according to my source, is tyë (formal) and lyë (informal). The "e" on the end is not pronounced as a long vowel or a short vowel, but, since it has an umlaut over it, is pronounced like a long "a". (I think). That, at least, is the closest sound.

 

[tarikaral]

Here are the things that my Quenya course says about this:
The Quenya alphabet does have 5 short vowels and 5 long vowels. The short vowels are: a, e, i, o, u; however, the long vowels are á, é, í, ó, ú .

The Quenya word for "you", according to my source, is tyë (formal) and lyë (informal). The "e" on the end is not pronounced as a long vowel or a short vowel, but, since it has an umlaut over it, is pronounced like a long "a". (I think). That, at least, is the closest sound.

morvaltur,thank you very much for good discribtion i wanten to discribe so,too. your english is more good then mine

 

[tarikaral]

Turkey is quite a ways away for me.

What is the title of the course you are taking and who is the author?[/quotthe course title is THE LANGUAGE OF THE ELFS:QUENYA. the author is an english teacher and also boss of the course.

 

[morvaltur]

morvaltur,thank you very much for good discribtion i wanten to discribe so,too. your english is more good then mine

No problem.
And thank you for the information.

 

[morvaltur]

tarikaral, is this the link to the course you are taking?
http://www.xs4all.nl/~xelag/quenya.html

 

[tarikaral]

http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/qcourse.htm

the course which i have been working is above

 

[morvaltur]

I see. Thank you. That is most helpful.

 

[morvaltur]

This is an excellent article that I found on Quenya vowel pronunciation. It helps alot to differentiate between the sounds of accented vowels and unaccented.


Quenya presents few problems in pronunciation; for native English speakers, the main point to watch is the vowels.
Vowels

The vowels of Quenya will be pronounced more or less correctly by a native speaker of practically any mainland European language (well, OK, not Danish!). For English and American speakers, a little care is required: pronounce the vowels as you would in, say, Spanish. They are all pure sounds, rather than the diphthongs frequent in English. Quenya (and the other languages) distinguish short and long vowels (traditionally marked by an acute accent). Unlike in English, where so-called short and long vowels have distinct sounds as well as distinct lengths, in Quenya the length is the only distinction between i and í, a and á, u and ú. (e and o do have some difference in quality.) The short vowels are pronounced thus:

• a is pronounced by most people as in Spanish or French, although for all we know it could be as in Dutch or English. So pronounce as in French patte, or German man. (This sound doesn't exist in Received Pronunciation English, but is roughly the a of northern English dialects in words such as bath.)
• e is pronounced as English pet, French fait, or German denn.
• i is pronounced with the same sound as English peat, but shorter; French lit; German vital.
• o is roughly English (but not American!) pot; French comme; German Topf.
• u is the sound of boot, but shorter; French ou; German Uran.

Examples: a, e, i, o, u.
alta, elen, Isil, osto, undu.

The long vowels are pronounced thus:

• á, í, ú: just like the short vowels, but longer! (About twice as long, if you want a guide figure, but just do whatever your own language does.)
• é is pronounced a little `closer' than e. The first part of the diphthong in English may; a long version of French é; or german Tee.
• ó is similarly pronounced closer than o. English paw (but closer); French hôte; German Sohn.

Examples: á, é, í, ó, ú.
fána, nése, hísie, onóne, untúpa.

Quenya also has a set of six diphthongs (note that all other pairs of vowels should be pronounced separately). They are ai, oi, ui, au, eu, iu. In each case, pronounce the first vowel strongly, and glide into the second (except for iu, where is it also acceptable to glide from a weak i to a strong u -- that is a Third Age pronunciation).
Examples: ai, oi, ui, au, eu, iu (old), iu (3rd Age)
Ainu, coimas, cuivie, Laurelin, leuca, miule Finally, a note on the diaeresis. Tolkien used this sign in order to remind English speakers that e should be pronounced at the end of words, and that combinations such as ea are two sounds, not a diphthong, as in Aldëa, Atalantë, hísië. Since this is completely unnecessary, it's usual not to use it in articles on Tolkienian linguistics.

 

[morvaltur]

And here is a lesson on Consonant pronunciation:


Consonants

The consonants of Quenya are also fairly unproblematic (unless you get into some advanced questions), provided you pronounce them as in Latin.

In describing the consonants of Quenya, I'll follow approximately the organization of the tengwar. Quenya had five series of consonants: the four columns of the tengwar chart, plus the first column with two dots below. The first column, or tincotéma, are dental (or perhaps alveolar) consonants, such as French t (or English t). The first column plus dots, the tyelpetéma, are palatalized versions of the tincotéma. Actually, there is room for quite a lot of debate on the exact nature of these, but for the purposes of this guide, they are like (British) English tune. The second column, the parmatéma, are the labials, as English pat. The third, calmatéma, are velars, as English cat. The fourth, quessetéma, are labio-velars, as English quick.
The rows of the tengwar correspond (in theory) to different manners of articulation, such as stop or fricative, voiced or voiceless. However, Quenya didn't follow the theory exactly, so I'll now discuss individual sounds according to their manner, rather than according to exact place in the tengwar.

• The voiceless stops t, ty, p, c/k, qu are simple. (Note that c and k are both sometimes used in writing Quenya; there is no difference, so in particular c is always a hard sound.) We don't know whether they were pronounced as in English, with aspiration (puff of breath), or as in French, with no aspiration. On general principles, a French accent is probably better...
  Examples: tinco, tyelpe, parma, calma, quesse
• Quenya doesn't have voiced stops d, dy, b, g, gw on their own, but only after nasals (and liquids, in the case of d). In late Quenya, ng always means the combination of the back nasal (which Tolkien sometimes wrote ñ) and a g sound (always hard, even before i, e). . Thus the second row of tengwar is:
  ando, indyo, umbar, anga, ungwe
• The corresponding voiceless fricatives introduce some complexities, as they changed quite a bit.
  • th, as in English thin, and written with the tengwa thúle/súle, existed in early Quenya, but turned into s. It therefore doesn't appear in the Quenya we see. s also existed independently (tengwa silme). (Actually, this is a very complicated story---see "The Shibboleth of Feanor" in HoM-e 12.) In all cases, s is the voiceless sound of English see, French si, German bis.
  • (The palatized version of súle has a name istyar, but it's not clear that it would ever be used -- it shouldn't, according to the pattern, have the sound sty.)
  • f is English fee, French fait, German von.
  • h is a bit of a problem, since Appendix F of LotR is a little inconsistent. My interpretation is: in late Quenya, h should be pronounced as English or German h when it's at the beginning of a word. In other positions, it should be pronounced like German ch as in Bach (next to a, o, u) or Ich (next to e, i). However, between vowels it is probably harmless to reduce it to a simple h sound.
  • hy is pronounced as English huge, German Ich.
  • hw is pronounced like Scottish white.
  Examples: thúle (archaic), silme, formen, halla, aha, Mahtan, tehta, hyarmen, hwesta
• Most of the voiced fricatives disappeared from Quenya one way or another. Only v remains, as in English voice, French vous, and German wo. (Archaic Quenya also had z, but this had turned into r by the Third Age.)
  Examples: vala, áze (archaic)
  (Since they had disappeared, the tengwar that would have represented them were in Quenya used for the common combinations of nasal + voiceless stop: anto, intya, ampa, anca, unque.)
• Late Quenya has just the three nasals n, ny, m. However, earlier it also had the back nasal ñ, and ñw, which appear in many of the HoM-e volumes. Confusingly, these are occasionally written ng -- if you see ng at the beginning of a word, it certainly means ñ. In late Quenya, these became n and nw.
  Examples: (late Quenya) númen, nyelle, malta, noldo, nwalme
  (early Quenya) númen, nyelle, malta, ñoldo, ñwalme
• Quenya had a fair assortment of rhotics. The rhotics (r-sounds) are another of those problematic issues. There was certainly a trilled r, as in Italian r or Spanish rr. At some stage there was also a `weak' r. This may have been a tap, like the Spanish r, or the West Coast American later, or it may have been a continuant like the British English r. In either case, it's not clear whether it still existed in Third Age Quenya -- and you would have to know the etymology of words to work out whether r is weak or strong. So the simplest solution is to assume it was always strong -- or if, like me, you have a mental block about trills, to do whatever you can! (So these examples are not too good.)
  In addition, there was a voiceless hr, a palatalized ry, and the combination rd.
  Examples: rómen, óre (weak), hríve, arya, arda
• The laterals are less problematic. There was l (English speakers should avoid the English `dark' l after e, i--compare English elder with Quenya elda), voiceless hl, palatalized ly, and the combination ld.
  Examples: lambe, hlápa, alya, alda
• Finally, there are the semi-vowels, w as English will, and y as English yes or German ja. w was rare in Third Age Quenya, having become v initially. (At least, according to LotR.) Examples: wilya (archaic), yanta.

It should also be noted that consonants written double are pronounced long: atta, ekko, anna, telluma, esse Stress

Quenya put stresses on its words, like English and German (but unlike French). However, the syllable on which the stress falls is predictable, as in Latin---and the rule is the same as in Latin. (I'm skating over some possible problems here.) A syllable is long if it contains a long vowel, or if it ends in a consonant; otherwise it's short. The stressed syllable is then the penultimate syllable if that is long, otherwise the antepenultimate. So we have
AlquaLONde, ElENna, ELdamar, HísiLÓme, LótESSe