Ainulindale in Latin
 

I've decided to put my (rather inexpert) Latin translation of the Ainulindale on my web space. If there are any Latin scholars out there who'd like to point out my grammatical mistakes, I'd certainly appreciate it.

Well...I do wonder how you're declining "Ainur"-third declension neuter, as in "mare"?

Sweet, sweet, sweet. :D

I love Latin, I love the Silm. Beautiful!

Another reason to try and actually learn more of the language... :rolleyes:

Mmmm.... it looks so beautifully Catholic in Latin. :p

Well, since the Quenya singular is "Ainu", I decided to treat it as a fourth declension neuter like "cornu". I know, fourth declension neuter is extremely rare; but "Ainu" does rather look like "cornu" and "genu" to me.

Love it. What better way to learn a language? Cheers Aiwendil!

It's sad, but I've bookmarked that as a resource. Far more incentive is given here than in those Cambridge textbooks. Thank you.

That is amazing! How long did that take you?

I wish I could still read most of it... it seems like years since I took Latin, even though it's only been one.

Heh... it would be fun if it were written like Roman script (no spaces or punctuation). :)

Or 'u's. :p

(That would be a bit much for me.)

How wonderful! For the past two years I've been studying Latin on and off. I've finally found a study method that works for me, and now I have inspiration to really study hard. Several other members of my family will be delighted as well.

Excellent work. I can only image how challenging and time-consuming it must be, but it is well-appreciated.

Wow! This is just beautiful! It must have been quite a lot of work. Only I must say, the declination of "Ainu" in plural looks quite... strange. But that's normal, of course, adopting words from other languages leads to transform them, and especially Latin had its share of it... but plural "Ainua" must've sounded terrible in Elves' ears :)

Anyway... great work!
(it occured to me that I might attempt to rewrite Ainulindalë in ancient greek, but who'd bother to read it? :p )

Just great! I do love this text!

And it reminds me of my days at the university as well... :confused:

But to make a semi-critical point also: you seem to have adopted a systematic way of cutting the sentences with a comma before every "and". That was the first thing that I noticed. Then I started seeing more rhytmical punctuations that made me think of the style and sounding of the sentences written there. And they were getting increasingly familiar...

I don't know if that's a conscious decision, but for what I know that's the Vulgata Latin and not the classical or "archaic" or the "later" one.

Using Vulgata's Biblical dicta might be well grounded in regards to Tolkien's text (he himself seems to be somewhat happy with a similar kind of solution but the English version feels not as underlinedly Biblical as this Latin translation). I do not wish to challenge your choice if it's a deliberate one anyhow.

But to my ears it sounds more like the Vulgata (very humanly mistranslated as all the historians know and as such more than a child of it's time) than the Ur-Myth from the distant past I myself see Tolkien's Ainulindalë to "come from" or where I would see Tolkien to reach out.

But that's a minor point and anyway your version is just splendid!

I'm glad you like it.

Legate: Yes, some of the declensions of proper names look strange, partly because Quenya is itself a language that declines nouns. It's particularly striking in cases where the form we usually encounter in Quenya is the plural, since I based all decisions as to how to decline names on the nominative singular. So for example instead of starting with "Ainur" (the form we see most often) and trying to decide how to decline it, I started with "Ainu". I also made the somewhat dubious decision to treat "Ainu" as a (very rare) 4th declension neuter, since it resembles "cornu" and "genu". A lot of proper nouns were troublesome, actually - for instance, "Elf" - I vacillated between translating this as "nympha" (or something along those lines) and (what I eventually chose) just rendering it "Alfus".

Nogrod: The somewhat vulgate style was not really a conscious decision on my part, though I agree that the finished product looks more like late Imperial Latin than like Cicero. I think it's a result of my attempt to preserve the style of the English, which has a lot of ". . ., and . . ., and . . ." sort of stuff. But now that I think about it, I suppose I did also have the Vulgate Bible in the back of my mind - or rather the little of the Vulgate that I've actually read (about half of Genesis).

I have been working, rather haltingly, on the Valaquenta as well, and when (and if) I finish it, I'll put it up also.

Edit: Actually, I've just remembered it was not the Vulgata that I read parts of; it was the older Vetus Latina - though that's still "Late Latin" and differs significantly from the Classical style.

Which English? :rolleyes:

Sorry. No offence or anything like that. I do admire your work.

Just couldn't resist this one in relation to the nicely detailed differences of Latin we're speaking here about... :)

(Nicely detailed? The real cognoscenti would give us a much more detailed analysis of styles... :D )

I have my Latin Language 1 GCSE exam tomorrow. This is a great resource! Gratias ago.

I finished and added the Valaquenta. Again, be warned that my Latin skills are not all that great and that the text is far from guaranteed to be grammatically correct. If anyone finds mistakes, I'd be much obbliged if they would point them out to me.

Did you write it in church-Latin or Classical Latin?:D

My aim was Classical Latin, though I didn't hesitate to use a few ecclesiastical words when appropriate (like 'daemon'). But I think the style tends toward later imperial Latin rather than that of Caesar or Cicero.

How far are you with translating the next bit? :rolleyes: I really can't wait for it :D....

Although it is quit troublesome I can understand most of it with aid of a dictionairy and my school book ;).

Not far, I'm afraid. Though I am working on it.

Well, after more than three years I've put revised versions of the Ainulindale and the Valaquenta, as well as what I've done so far of the Quenta Silmarillion up here. I've decided to base my translations not on the '77 published Silmarillion but rather on what one might consider the 'veritable' documents from Middle-earth. The upshot of this for these early chapters is that some material found in 'Of the Beginning of Days' in the published book is here placed in the Ainulindale, Tolkien's original chapter titles have been used, and the text concerning the Ents and Eagles has been broken off as a separate chapter from 'Of Aule and the Dwarves'.

Any comments, criticisms, or (especially) suggestions or corrections would be greatly appreciated!

Whoa! Zoetermeer? If you're still haunting these parts, Wanderer, then you'll have to know that there are a couple of Downers who have visited your town. :D

Great stuff, Aiwendil. I will check that out when I have some time.

Flamma Immortale !!! :D

The other chapters are pretty cool to have - must have been quite a job. I have to read them when I have a piece of free time :)

This makes me wish I had continued studying Latin at Uni!

I've finished translating chapter 3 of the Quenta Silmarillion and have put it at my (new) web space. I've also made a number of corrections to the earlier chapters. Of course, the standard warnings about my non-expertise in Latin still apply.

I think that next I'll switch things up a little bit and translate some stuff from later in the Legendarium, instead of plodding ahead with QS chapter 4. Maybe I'll start on some of the Turin or Tuor material.