It is wonderful to see how many here are quite fluent in the Elvish language. I, alas, am not. It would be greatly beneficial to those of us not so well-versed in the language if those who are would post translations to Common Speech along with the Elvish phrases they use. In this way, we may learn something of this beautiful language, in addition to better understanding the posts.
This is a very good point Var!
I need to brush up on my Elvish language too! Translations please!
I sorta cheated...when I stared reading the posts in this section...I had NO idea what the language (SHOULD have figured it was elven :D ) was, so I typed a phrase into Google and found this very interesting website...
http://www.grey-company.org/Circle/language/phrase.htm#compliments (http://www.grey-company.org/Circle/language/phrase.htm#compliments)
Just thought I'd pass this along...
Lissenen ar' maska'lalaith tenna' lye omentuva
Sweet water and light laughter till next we meet
Thanks, Tammy...that Gery Company page makes for an outstanding set of flash cards...and the entire site will tell you great detail about the language.
There are several different Elvish languages. Sindarin is one of the more popular. Quenya is also fairly common. Both of them were preserved for modern times by Tolkien. There are a few other languages out there as well, but I don't speak them, so I have no more information on them.
More resources, for learning Sindarin:
http://khallandra.tripod.com/sindarin/index.htm - didn't look through the entire thing, but this looks pretty good, despite the author's somewhat shakey grasp of English.
http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie_news.htm - has all the Elvish, Dwarvish, and (*shudder*) Blackspeech from The Lord of the Rings movies translated, as well as links to more resources.
http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/ - another excellent site, for several different languages
I also have floating around somewhere at home a course in leaning Sindarin. My husband found it somewhere and emailed it to me. I think it can be found at the last item on the first page of a google search for Sindarin, starts "www.phy.duke.edu" I'm not going to post the full link because right now I'm not sure it's the right thing and I don't want to put a link to a virus. It's a pdf download, not a website, so I can't really check (due to being at work right now).
As a sside note, Quenyan is actually fully finished, while Sindarin has a few holes in the original language. I think, though, that others have filled them in during recent years.
I used to be pretty fluent in Quenyan, at least from a written standpoint (used it a lot when I played an old MUD). Spoken though, definitely not. I've been thinking about relearning the written, and learning the spoken, for when I eventually do an elven character for any of the fantasy weekends of whatever faires I'm going to.
As far as online resources go, though, Quenyan has a LOT. Just do a search on it, you'll find hundreds of links, easily. Most of the top ones are good. And like Sindarin, it has a home learning course you can get.
Its something I have to eventually get around to learning as well. Even dark elves know Elvish and should understand what to utter when asked to "speak, friend, and enter".
I used to know several phrases. It goes away without using it often.
Yay, people are back in the Elf forums! :)
Just wanted to throw this note in here, since it's something I've learned since this was first posted.
The Grey Company site, while an excellent resourse for learning an elvish language, is NOT the same thing as Tolkien's languages. Some people took Sindarin as a starting point and made up their own stuff to use in their role playing game.
NOTHING wrong with it, just wanted to make sure that people were aware that if they learned from that site and then tried to converse w/a speaker of Sindarin it wouldn't go so well as they are actually different languages despite sounding similar.
That said, have fun learning whatever Elven language strikes your fancy! :)
I don't mean to draw the focus away from the tongue of the woodland folk, but do any of you know of sources for other languages? I'm fond of language and would enjoy some new challenges!
Quote from: sonofslaanesh on February 26, 2010, 08:22:44 PM
I don't mean to draw the focus away from the tongue of the woodland folk, but do any of you know of sources for other languages? I'm fond of language and would enjoy some new challenges!
Other languages such as...? Real ones? Fantasy ones?
Former, Rosetta Stone. Seriously, best resource. Find used on Ebay.
Latter, depends on the language. And often times with fantasy languages, they aren't made to be complete languages (apart from Tolkien Elvish languages, or various ones from Star Trek and Star Wars). Often they're just a few words and phrases that are made to sound nice and exotic. The dwarvish language from Tolkien's world was never even close to complete.
Quote from: sonofslaanesh on February 26, 2010, 08:22:44 PM
I don't mean to draw the focus away from the tongue of the woodland folk, but do any of you know of sources for other languages? I'm fond of language and would enjoy some new challenges!
If you're looking for other Tolkien languages, Ardalambion http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/ (http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/) is a good source for what info exists on them. Only the elven dialects are "complete" but there is some interesting stuff there. Other than that, I have nothing to offer.
I've always felt close to the elven keen,for what ever reason, maybe it's all the time i spend in the the woods who knows? What i would like to know from my Elven friends is the translation of the word PATHFINDER , Please help this silly human out, best regards ... Darkranger
Do you know which language you want it in? Tolkien has 2 elven languages, there are a couple based on his floating around the net, and Wizards of the Coast has a fairly comprehensive name-making guide in Drow...and those are just what I know of. I'm sure there are other languages too.
If you let me know what you want, I'll see what I can find. Apologies if it takes a little bit, I've got a new a baby, so my internet time is a bit more limited than it was.
thank you my friends, peace
I find myself more in the Token realm if that helps. ;D
I'm thinking Tolkien, seems to be the closest to what i know. ;D
Here's what I've been able to come up with:
Hirtie in quenya.
Other options could be londthir, thirbad, or athradthir, in Sindarin.
Note, I haven't checked that these are combined correctly yet. If I have time to do so, I will, and will supply the updated translations.
Here's the elements I used, if you're curious or want to do some looking into the proper way to combine them yourself:
Path: tie (quenya) lond (sindarin)
Find: hir (quenya)
Pathway: bad (sindarin)
Way: athrad (sindarin)
Look: thir (sindarin)
awesome, my kind friend, thank you for your help ;D