Narn I Chîn Húrin 1: Túrins Fostering - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Aiwendil · 03-04-2009, 09:34 PM

Your translation of 'Minlamad thent/estent' agrees with that proposed by Patrick Wynne and Carl Hostetter in their essay 'Three Elvish Verse Modes'.

As I think more about it, it seems clearer to me that 'thent/estent' indicates two possible versions of the name ('minlamad thent' or 'minlamad estent'), as Aran argues, rather than the name being 'minlamad thent/estent'. Wynne and Hofstetter do argue that the latter is a possibility and that 'thent/estent' means something like 'short/short' (other possible verse modes, presumably, being 'short/long', 'long/long', etc.) But if this were the case, I can't understand why two different forms of the word for 'short' would be used. (Unless maybe the difference has to do with lenition? That whole phenomenon is rather obscure to me).

Findegil, I believe you earlier expressed the opinion that the name was intended to be 'minlamad thent/estent' and that these are not variants. Can you offer an argument for this?

03-04-2009, 09:34 PM	#23
Aiwendil Late Istar Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 2,224	Your translation of 'Minlamad thent/estent' agrees with that proposed by Patrick Wynne and Carl Hostetter in their essay 'Three Elvish Verse Modes'. As I think more about it, it seems clearer to me that 'thent/estent' indicates two possible versions of the name ('minlamad thent' or 'minlamad estent'), as Aran argues, rather than the name being 'minlamad thent/estent'. Wynne and Hofstetter do argue that the latter is a possibility and that 'thent/estent' means something like 'short/short' (other possible verse modes, presumably, being 'short/long', 'long/long', etc.) But if this were the case, I can't understand why two different forms of the word for 'short' would be used. (Unless maybe the difference has to do with lenition? That whole phenomenon is rather obscure to me). Findegil, I believe you earlier expressed the opinion that the name was intended to be 'minlamad thent/estent' and that these are not variants. Can you offer an argument for this? Last edited by Aiwendil; 03-09-2009 at 11:29 PM.