Everything Quenya

Rosalía - Orontaure (Berghain)

Fire by Jorge Rivera-Herrans

"Just A Man" from Epic the Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans

Hello! I use a Lamy pen that a friend recommended to me when we visited a Lamy store. I really don't know as much as I should about these pens, but it has a 19 on it, so I'm assuming that's the strength of the nib? Hope that helps and thanks for asking! 💕

“Nauvarimme illume as elye. Alaquen na oi naitie vanwa. Húme nosse cuitea imi elye sí.”

“We’ll always be with you. No one’s ever really gone. A thousand generations live in you now.”

I was translating a sentence that contained the word generations and couldn’t find an Elvish word for it. It really made me start thinking about how the Elves though.

Quenya is the language of the Elves that went to Valinor. The first ones to emerge in the world and they had no parent besides Illúvatar. They settle the lands of the Valar, basking in the lights of the Two Trees and give birth to their children. Their children age and give birth to their own children and so on. The Vanyar, Teleri and Noldor have words for their parents and grandparents and for kindred and family, but none for generations.

Why would they?

Humans have the concept of generations because we have the idea of the beginning of a generation and the end of a generation. Where the era of one generation ends, another begins. Humans are mortal and have a finite time on Middle-Earth.

The eldar are timeless. They are born and unless killed they spend eternity in their prime. There is no end or beginning of a generation. A man could have a son and a grandson and after enough time they could be mistaken for brothers because they don’t age like humans. The very eldest could grow beards (thank you Círdan, love you bro) and one could sense greater wisdom or power among the elder eldars, but from a distance a family gathering would probably look very odd by our human standards.

“Á cara cea mehtari nem me tuxa.”

“Make ten men feel like a hundred.”

Yoooo wow tumblr thank you for never showing me this ask! I hate this hellsite sometimes.

Sorry it took me so long to respond! 🥲

So, according to my books when you have a word with two syllables, then the focus is on the first syllable. E.g. Anor ['a.nor], parma ['par.ma]

With three syllable words there are two options.

A. The second to last syllable is long

In this case the second to last syllable is the main focus. A long syllable contains either a long vowel (á, é, í, o´, ú), a diphtong (ai, oi, ui, au, eu, iu) or multiple consonants after a vowel.

Examples:

Olórin (long vowel: ó)

Úlairi (Diphtong: ai)

Isildur (two consonants after the vowel: ld)

Menelya (the y counts as a consonant: ly)

B. The second to last syllable is short

If the second to last syllable is short, the third to last syllable is emphasized. A short syllable contains a short vowel or one or no consonants.

Examples:

Orome (second to last syllable is -ro: short vowel followed by a consonant)

Anárion (second to last syllable is -ri: short vowel, not followed by a consonant)

By adding endings such as -ndil, -rdur, -rdil, ldur the emphasis can be shifted. Such as the word "isil" (moon, a noun) and "Isildur" (servant of the moon, a name). In "isil" the emphasis is on the first vowel. In "Isildur" the emphasis is on "sil".

Concerning the fun dots, in tengwar the dots and dashes indicate vowels. It's very similar to Arabic in that regard. The larger letters are generally consonants while the dots and dashes are vowels.

I don't have a recording of myself reading the Ainulindale, but I've been speaking it from what I've heard from the movies and listened from songs. There's a German singer/songwriter called Oonagh and a lot of her songs have Quenya in them! Since German pronunciation is very similar to Quenya, that helps quite a bit with pronunciation. Here are three songs of hers that feature quite a bit of Quenya. Song 1. Song 2. Song 3. (You’ll usually have to wait for the chorus, sorry. 😅)

Another thing I would point out is that the elves are very lyrical. They will forgive emphasis if it works better for the song. (At least that's what I remember reading somewhere) I don't think you need to worry to much about emphasis. My personal pet peeve would be pronunciation more than emphasis of the correct syllable.

I know that translation is very rarely about literal one to one translations and instead about translating the idea or the feel of a thing. Idioms and insults and all of that. In that mind, what would the Quenya equivalent of the insult "Bitchboy" be? I need something petty and diminutive to call Melkor in a fic I'm prepping notes for. In the context of an elder being that's hanging around and annoying him and stuff.

Also relevant to the fic, would Avakúmaien be grammatically correct as a name given to a (womanish) entity that had its origins in the Abyss? If not, what would be most appropriate?

Thanks for the help! If/when you get to this ask.

Oooooh this is fun to figure out!

So, after looking up a few definitions of "bitchboy" I think the definition of some who is annoying and whines/cries a lot was fitting for this context. I tried finding a good word for whining or crying and found "mawa" from early primitive Elvish. It can mean cry or bleat which I thought was fitting. I'd tack "mo" at the end there from primitive Elvish to denote person. End result would be "mawamo" which I like because it remind me of someone going 'waaaawaaa' and crying about something in an annoying way. Plus the added insult of bleating like a sheep, which can symbolize blindly following a shepard or the herd.

As for Avakúmaien, I'm assuming yo're using "ava" - "outer/beyond" and "kúma" - "void/empty" while "ien" would translate to "daughter of". So, Daughter of the Outer Void or Beyond the Void. This would be a good Ataresse or Father-Name. This is usually a childhood name and like a surname or as close to as the elves can get.

I think this is a really neat name, but at the same time makes me wonder. Melkor later gets cast into the Void from which he can't return until the end of all things, but the Ataresse you created makes it sound like your character is from beyond even that Void? Wouldn't that be where Ilúvatar would be? I still think it works fine though.

There are quenya words for abyss or hell though. "Undume" and "fatanyu" respectively. Those can be turned into Undumiel/-ien or Fatanyiel/-ien to mean Daughter of the Abyss or Daughter of Hell.

Cé rie lerteanye

Au cárinye vanda as Ilúvatar

Ar óra se ahya elva nómi