Where Have All the Translators Gone?

This is my first post. Pretty nice place you got here. But I'll get to the point...

Back a few months ago, finding an English to Elvish or English to Drow (and vice versa) was a rather simple thing. Google it, right? Right. Good times.

Not anymore. Well, not for me, anyway.

It seems like any Elvish or Drow translators have gone off the radar. But if there were any credible ones out there, I'm sure you might know of them.

See, I've stumbled across a few, but I'm really not sure how well they work, and they definitely aren't the ones I used to use.

Got anything for me? It'd be of great help.

Thanks in advance.

[Groin Redbeard]

I'm not an expert on the Elvish language, but I do know quite a few phrases in Sindarin. I took all the Elvish words I could find and began to memorize and jumble them up to make different sentences.

I'm kind of an odd studier, but the website that helped me the most was
http://www.grey-company.org/Circle/language/phrase.htm, an excellent source for phrases. Then you take the words you know and jumble them to make different sentences. It may not always be correct, but it's a start.

[Aiwendil]

You should be aware that the Grey Company's "Elvish" is not Tolkien's Elvish; it's primarily the invention of the site's creators, though it does include a fairly random hodge-podge of Quenya and Sindarin.

The best site on Tolkien's Elvish languages (particularly Quenya) is probably Ardalambion. A decent English-Quenya wordlist is the Quettaparma Quenyanna, though it does contain a few inaccuracies.

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

First off, welcome to the 'Downs, Zeno. I hope you decide to stick around even after your question has been answered!

Actually, as Aiwendil has just beaten me to saying, The Grey Company is actually the site of a roleplaying group. Their Elvish (Occassionally referred to as "Grelvish") isn't accurate to either strain of Tolkein's. While it's very interesting, even cool, in its own right, it's not actually Quenya or Sindarin.

There was an Elvish glossary-thing published in The Lost Road volume of HOME, so that's a primary source of information on the languages.

I don't know too much about online translators, as the ones I played with seem to not be around either, but if you're interested in delving deeper into the study of the Elvish languages, here are a couple websites I can recommend, from the days when I actually had time to study fabricated languages. I used to be able to write fluently in Tengwar characters, and I was in the process of learning Sindarin...*sigh* Those were the days. Now I have a bunch of journal entries I can't even read sitting around back home. My "secret code" of Tengwar has proved to be a little too secret. ANYWAY...

Back then, http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/ (EDIT:which Aiwendil has beaten me to) was (and probably still is) considered to be the leading authority on all things Elvish. I never actually used it, since most of the information is in download format, and at the time, I didn't have my own laptop, and my parents were overcautious about downloading stuff.

The Council of Elrond http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Content&file=index&act ion=ViewContent&cid=31 page offers tools for learning Sindarin or Quenya (though to use the workbooks, you'll have to be a registered member. No big deal.), translations of Elvish in the books and movies, links to more resources, and a couple forums for language discussion, it looks like. I only ever used the workbooks, and they seemed from my very unprofessional opinion to be very well thought out and put together.

I hope this helps you in some way, though it may be more than you were really looking for...and thanks for mentioning Elvish! I still think about it wistfully from time to time. Now that you've re-awakened my curiosity, I might just start studying again this winter once school calms down. Yay!

[Groin Redbeard]

Well blow me down! All this time I've been learning fake Elvish?! Oh well, I guess I'll have to start from scratch. Thanks for the website Aiwendil, I think I'll learn Kuhzdul, I've always wanted to speek Dwarvish.

[Nerwen]

Ai! Grelvish!

Cheer up, Groin, you're among many who have been fooled– Grelvish is infamous!

And rightly so– it's a sort of pidgin version of Tolkien's Elvish. Mind you, the Grey Company only made it up for their own use, and they have a disclaimer on the site, saying that their language is not one of Tolkien's. Hardly anybody reads it, for some reason.

How to spot Grelvish: repeated letters. It's that simple. Le, for instance, becomes lle.

[Galin]

A famous example of Grelvish, often enough found on Tolkien boards, is 'vedui' said to mean 'greetings'.

This is lifted out of the books from a greeting however (Glorfindel's greeting), and actually means 'last' (note also Arvedui) -- and the Sindarin word is actually medui with the initial consonant mutated by a preposition (in Glorfindel's example anyway).

Thus the confusion, simplification, distortion, and this is but one word lifted directly out of the book! Of course if one doesn't claim anything is supposed to be based on Tolkien's inventions, then OK, it's for role-players anyway, as noted... but this is just an example as I say.

I recommend starting at Elvish.org