translation

[Fox]

hello people...i'd like to get a tattoo and i was thinking of "choose your destiny" in Quenya...can someone translate it pls?

[Galin]

There is a noun (in the late 1930s text Etymologies) maranwe 'destiny', and using tielyanna 'upon your path' from Unfinished Tales, we might get Neo-Quenya *maranwelya 'your destiny'.

As for 'choose', all I can think of at the moment is essecilme 'Name-choosing', but one would have to guess at a verb in the imperative here, as it seems to me at least, that 'choose your destiny' should be rendered in the imperative.

Unless someone has another option for 'choose', or wants to extrapolate using essecilme, it would seem easier to write this in English using an Elvish writing system. If you want help with any transcription into the tengwar I can only describe them however, referencing the chart in Return of the King. I don't mind doing that but some who are less familiar with the tengwar names or shapes of the tehtar seem to find this confusing.

For Quenya versus Neo-Quenya see Elvish as She Is Spoke, here:

http://www.elvish.org/articles/

[Fox]

well it does seem pretty confusing...how about the elvish writing system?where can i find the fonts?

[Galin]

Try:

http://at.mansbjorkman.net/

Click on 'Tengwar Modes' there and check out the section for English.

[Galin]

By the way, here's what the editors of Vinyar Tengwar had to say on essecilme (in a linguistic review of the Elvish published in Morgoth's Ring):

'The second element cilme 'choosing' might derive from the base KIL- 'divide' (LR: 365), in the sense that 'choosing' involves separating what one wants from a large number of possibilities. The verb stem kil- 'see' as in kiluva 'shall see' (MC: 213) could also be related.'

From the Tolkien linguistic journal Vinyar Tengwar, number 34, entry for essecilme

Not that this helps put a possible verb derived from essecilme into the imperative, but these are the experts compared to me, in any event.

Had you just wanted 'fox' that might have been easier (I'm pretty sure there's an attested word for this).

;)