Let's learn Quenya on the Downs

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Alassë Estel

My second answer is: "And now, spake Denethor, her first command to me: speak and do not be silent!"

I'll say close enough.

‘And now,’ said Denethor, ‘my first command to you: speak and be not silent! Tell me your full tale, and see that you recall all that you can of Boromir, my son. Sit now and begin!’

You're still getting caught out by those pronouns. There's (uh... obviously) two of them in that clause:

minya axanya len

-nya is the possessive version of -n or -nye. Where -nye would need to be attached to a verb (Canyanye, "I command"), -nya attaches to a noun. Axan-nya is "my command". It's a bit complicated by the double N collapsing into one; my model for this was onya, onna-nya. It may be that *axannya would have been better.

Le- is... well, it's wrong is what it is. ^_^ I took it directly from an example of the dative, but didn't bothered to check if it was singular or plural "you". The correct word would by lyen, the polite version of "you", with a dative suffix - ie, "to you" or "for you". (We know Denethor would have used the polite form, because Tolkien wrote a whole thing about how Pippin didn't, and how that affected the Gondorian perception of him.)

Back to you!

hS

[Alassë Estel]

The pronouns are confusing. But as Gandalf might say "It is a comfort not to be mistaken at all points."

Now for the next one: "I cuvoitë oio ú estelinqua."

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Alassë Estel

"I cuvoitë oio ú estelinqua."

I translated this quickly for sense a few days ago as "The faithless/treacherous are ever unfaithful/hopeless," which sounds close to a Tolkien quote, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe something from Gandalf? Maybe about Gollum? I haven't gotten any further than that.

hS

[Alassë Estel]

That is almost right.

The answer is: "The treacherous are ever distrustful." Said by Gandalf of Saruman in The Two Towers.

I found it a bit more difficult because there is not a word that means simply "trust".

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Alassë Estel

That is almost right.

The answer is: "The treacherous are ever distrustful." Said by Gandalf of Saruman in The Two Towers.

I found it a bit more difficult because there is not a word that means simply "trust".

I cuvoitë: This is an adjective being used as a noun. Apparently you can do that (just like in English: "Ming the Merciless"); it seems the way you can tell it's happened is that they switch from adjective-plural to noun-plural forms, and are often plurals. This one should be too, so becomes I cuvoiti. If we were being particularly bitter about The Treacherous, we could call them I cuvoitelië, The Treacherous Folk, but that might be a bit unforgiving.

After that I'm not sure. It depends on how we read "distrustful" - is that a noun, "distrustful ones", or an adjective, "the distrustful treacherous"? I think you've structured the sentence the second way, so we'll go with that. You've correctly dropped "to be" and moved the adjective "ever distrustful" to the end to get that meaning.

oio: Absolutely the right word. There is an attested word Oiencarmë, where oi- is used as a prefix before a vowel, but given how stacked the rest of the sentence is it's probably best to keep it separate.

ú estelinqua: I think you're right that estel is the best word for trust we have; it's probably best translated "faith", which ultimately is what Gandalf means. (amdir might be better, but is only known in Sindarin.) -inqua looks pretty good too; the attested examples use it to turn "one" into "alone", and "glory" into "glorious", so "trust" to "trusting" works. I think ú as an independent particle would imply "without trustworthiness"; there are examples ú+ópa = úpa, ú+Amanyar = Úmanyar, so I think you'd want ústelinqua as the final adjective

My final version of your quote would then be: I cuvoiti oio ústelinqua, which is only two vowels and a sapce off from what you had. Nice!

I'll try and come up with something in the next few days, unless someone else wants a go.

hS

[Alassë Estel]

Alright.

Thank you for the nice, clear explaintions!

[Huinesoron]

Here we go:

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

hS