Let's learn Quenya on the Downs

[Huinesoron]

Here we go:

Ar lendes lá, ar tassë né malina cala, ar ruinë mi; ar i undóma mat férima, ar nésë horina.

hS

[Alassë Estel]

First is Ar lendes lá. That sounds beautiful. But I am not immediately sure what it means as there are some conflicting definitions, so I'll have to rely on context.

Ar tassë né malina cala is "and there was yellow light".

Ar ruinë mi; ar i undóma mat férima seems to be "and fire within; and the twilight eats all available"

It ends with ar nésa horina. "and a sister compelled" All my sources agree that nésa means "sister", and compelled/impelled is the only definition I can find for horina

So, after all that I think the answer is something like: And she came not, and there was yellow light, and fire within, and the twilight ate all available, and a sister compelled.

It doesn't quite make sense, nor does it resemble any quote I am familiar with, but I am sure that I've missed something or another.

[Huinesoron]

Not quite; you've got a big chunk in the middle exactly right, but went a bit wrong at the ends.

-s: the third person pronoun; it can be he, she, or it.

lá: you want a different meaning here. This word doesn't quite fit the quote, but it was the best I could find.

mat: decent guess with "eats", but as a basic verb mat- would always take an ending of some sort, even in the aorist tense. (A-stem verbs don't, but if it ends in a consonant, it needs something.) That indicates that this mat isn't a verb; it could be a dual noun (ma+t = "a pair of things"), but in this case it's just a noun.

nésë: nésa would be sister, but I said nésë. This is an attested form, but I could equally have used nés, or apparently nánes(ë).

horina: I think you might have correctly identified this as a passive participle, but gotten the wrong verb; this is hora-, not horya-

hS

[Alassë Estel]

Right then.

After taking into account everything you noted, my second answer is:

"And he went beyond, and there was yellow light, and fire within, and the evening meal ready, and a youth waited."

It certainly makes more sense now, though I still find that I cannot place the quote. Perhaps it is from Frodo and Sam's stay at Henneth Annûn? Or maybe it is from Pippin's experience in Minas Tirith, the youth being Bergil. At any rate, I feel that the translation is closer.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Alassë Estel

Right then.

After taking into account everything you noted, my second answer is:

"And he went beyond, and there was yellow light, and fire within, and the evening meal ready, and a youth waited."

It certainly makes more sense now, though I still find that I cannot place the quote. Perhaps it is from Frodo and Sam's stay at Henneth Annûn? Or maybe it is from Pippin's experience in Minas Tirith, the youth being Bergil. At any rate, I feel that the translation is closer.

Pretty close! Here's the actual quote:

Originally Posted by RotK

But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.

He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.

(Yet another instance of Rosie's prophetic talent, by the way; she knew when he was coming back from the Quest, too.)

I couldn't find a good word for "onwards"; as he's travelling past the point last described, I settled on "beyond". And the "was" is pretty optional, so I skipped it.

That last clause was a real problem though, wasn't it?

ar nésë horina

ar is obvious, it's just an "and".

nésë was a bad choice on my part: it's an attested form for "he was" (see here, about halfway down the table) but it collides with too many other words. I could have used náne+s, but it would have been simpler just to use the emphatic pronoun isse and leave the "was" out entirely.

horina is the passive participle of hora-, to wait for (yes, a middle Quenya form). The participles give me a bit of a headache, but I think the difference is that an active participle is the state you're in when you're doing the verb ("A waiting wife"), while the passive participle is the state you're in when it's being done to you ("an awaited husband"). It's difficult in English, because the active participle looks and often acts identically to the present tense: "an eating man" is just a man who is eating, right? But no, that's a completely different grammatical form that just happens to look the same.

Anyway, that's my rant on participles. Over to you!

hS

[Alassë Estel]

That was a bit hard. But it was educational too, so I won't feel too bad about not getting it correct.

Here is my sentence for you: Áva lala se cuita ango.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Alassë Estel

That was a bit hard. But it was educational too, so I won't feel too bad about not getting it correct.

Here is my sentence for you: Áva lala se cuita ango.

It's been a while, but I'll give this a stab.

First thought: "Do not [verb] this [noun] of iron," with lala being related to Lalaith, Turin's sister (something to do with singing?).

Now checking: lala- is "to laugh". Se is not... whatever sort of word "this" would be, but is either a pronoun (he/she/it) or a word "at, in". Hmmm... an idea occurs. Cuita is from the verb "to live", so I'm pretty confident, but let's check... there we go, ango is an outdated word for a dragon.

"Never laugh at live dragons (Bilbo, you fool)!"

Pretty good! Your first three words look spot on. Eldamo prefers coita- to cuita- for "to live". In either case, this time we need the active participle "living", which we can get by adding -ila. I would also probably prefer the later word föalócë for "dragon", so I end up with:

Áva lala se coitaila föalócë!

hS