Talk:Sindarin/Archive 1

Glossary

I think we should include a glossary (in table form) of Sindarin roots commonly seen in geographic names, i.e. mor, duin, etc. I don't have time to do it today, but I think it would be a good idea.

I agree. A lot of the naming elements in Lord Of The Rings appear a number of times, so the more common ones should probably be characterised. Here's a short list (I don't have the skill yet for a full HTML table):

    Sindarin     English       Example
    amon         hill             Amon Sûl "Hill of Wind", Emyn Beraid "Tower Hills"
    ang          iron             Angband "Iron Prison"
    angren       of iron          Angrenost "Fortress of Iron", Ered Engrin "Mountains of Iron"
    annon        door, gate       Morannon "Black Gate"
    barad        tower            Barad-dûr "Dark Tower"
    celeb        silver           Celeborn "Silvertree"
    dôr          land             Gondor "Stone Land", Mordor "Black Land"
    duin         river            Anduin "Long River"
    dûr          dark             Durthang "Dark Oppression"
    iâ           void, abyss      Moria "Black Abyss"
    mith         grey             Mithrandir "Grey Pilgrim"
    mor          black            Morannon "Black Gate"
    orn          tree             Celeborn "Silvertree", Fangorn "Treebeard"
    orod         mountain         Orodruin "Red Flame Mountain"
    ril          brilliance       mithril "grey brilliance"

There's a big glossary of the more common terms in the back of the Silmarillion.

It would be nice to some examples in the 'Language Codes' section. The quenya article includes text examples in both Tengwar and Latin alphabets. I don't know enough about the language to do it myself... Jmejia 09:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I might suggest putting such a 'glossary' on Wikibooks. --CBDunkerson 23:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree I agree if the table also contains IPA transcriptions also. – Dyolf87 (talk) 09:50, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

The list in the back of The Silmarillion is much too long for this article (and if there are really 25,000 words available, too long for a list article), though as suggested some kind of dictionary could work well in Wikibooks, if that's not steering rather too close to a copyvio. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:59, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Babel

Is anyone interested in creating Babel templates for Sindarin/Quenya? UrbaneLegend 23:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

See Category:User_que for a start on that. --CBDunkerson 23:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Uses in LOTR #1

On the Caradhras, Sindarin was the language Gandalf chanted back after hearing Sauruman's spell in Quenya. --66.218.11.78 04:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

How to write in Elvish?

I am a big fan of the Tolkein universe. I believe that we need a subarticle showing how to write it Sindarin, Quenya, and Feonorian (sp?). If nessecary I can aid in this. 72.188.250.182 01:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested in the article on the Tengwar (and possibly Cirth). — The Storm Surfer 23:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Everything2 link

I removed the "Reference" section that contained this:

• The original version of this article was written for Everything2.

Besides being a self-reference, this goes against the whole point of the GFDL. I'm frankly shocked that this has remained in this article, without comment, since the first edit — and that some editors have actually updated it! If I'm missing something here and this is not only allowed but somehow appropriate, by all means add it back, but please provide an explanation. --Sapphic 00:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

German diphthongs

"German-speakers would have an advantage, as ae and oe are pronounced like German ei/ai and eu/äu."

This isn't quite correct. Those German digraphs are pronounced [aɪ] and [ɔʏ], not [aɛ] and [ɔɛ] - German doesn't have any diphthongs like that. Unless someone objects, I'm just going to change it.

Also, somehow the fact that Sindarin possesses /y/ was overlooked.

The Dropper 22:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do remove the information if it is inaccurate. — The Storm Surfer 23:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Pedo mellon a minno

I think there should be a discussion about Pedo mellon a minno - there is an obscure (for the readers, not for the characters) grammatical error in Gandalf's rendering of this expression as "Speak, friend, and enter!". Albmont (talk) 19:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

How do you know it's an error? What would be the correct Sindarin for "Speak, friend, and enter"? —Tamfang (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not an error, it's just ambiguous. [1] Double sharp (talk) 14:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Which is the whole point of the 'riddle'! – Dyolf87 (talk) 09:54, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative

The note on the ortography of the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative should include <ll> when comming from older <lt>, as described in The Two Phonetic Values of ll in Elvish Sindarin in The Lord of the Rings. It should also be noted that <lh> only has that sound initially, as medially it is pronounced separately (alveolar lateral approximant + voiceless glottal transition). Rjaroszewski (talk) 16:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Are Sindarin C/P/T Aspirated?

• Just out of curiosity, are Sindarin c/p/t aspirated as in English cap/pop/top? Any evidence or statement by Tolkien himself? Bellenion (talk) 06:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
  • If I remember correctly, there isn't much information about this, but they were most likely not, although I'm too tired to cite the reasons, although it was about old ph th ch becoming fricatives from being aspirated plosives.--89.233.224.13 (talk) 21:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK in LotR era Sindarin (and Quenya) c/p/t are unaspirated in standard language, but aspiration doesn't convey any meaning, so saying c/p/t as aspirated just means you have a strange accent. --Jhattara ^{(Talk · Contrib)} 22:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• • • Thanks all, I already got the answer from Elfling!--Bellenion (talk) 07:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Umlaut plural "clearly shows the influence of the Germanic languages"?

I put a {{fact}} tag on the claim that the umlaut plural of Sindarin "clearly shows the influence of the Germanic languages", because it's actually much more like the umlaut plural of Welsh. In particular, in Welsh and Sindarin, but not Germanic, vowels can be affected in two syllables rather than just one: Sindarin has galadh/gelaidh, just like Welsh alarch/elairch ("swan/swans") or dafad/defaid ("sheep (sg.)/sheep (pl.)"). Is there evidence Tolkien was inspired by Germanic rather than Welsh for this, because it seems to me to be the other way around. +Angr 18:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Tolkien was generally inspired by Welsh while inventing Sindarin so I can't see a connection to Germanic languages either. One could compare the pronounciation of some diphtongs to modern German umlauts but I think that's all. Going to look for some odd reference for the Germanic claim though. De728631 (talk) 18:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Did I already link affection (linguistics)? —Tamfang (talk) 06:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The Germanic inspiration comes in the form of the ⟨au⟩ diphthong in the singular becoming ⟨oe⟩ in the plural – naug 'dwarf' / noeg 'dwarves'. – Dyolf87 (talk) 20:35, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Salo-bashing

As it now stands, the article gets overexcited in rejecting the efforts of David Salo and others to extrapolate Sindarin grammar. Perhaps someone more informed than me could tone it down some. —Tamfang (talk) 06:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

choices of words

I am rarely as tempted to edit-war as I am today.

“ Tolkien was struggling, hopping to give to his Elvish languages the feel and taste of natural languages. ”

I changed this to "Tolkien struggled to ..." and 93.16.231.240 reverted. I'd like to know why 93.16.231.240 considers the progressive aspect, and the jumping on one foot, so essential.

“ Instead, "Elvish codes" and "Elvish pseudo-languages" are made on the spur of the moment, they are usually named: "name of the post-Tolkien author + Neo-Sindarin". ”

I questioned this a couple of weeks ago and no one defended it, but .240 reverted my deletion. Who needs it?

“ There are three main different types of mutations in "early conceptual Noldorin": (a) soft mutation (or lenition), (b) hard mutation, and (c) nasal mutation. ”

The (abc) are unnecessary clutter, so naturally my deletion of them was reverted. —Tamfang (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the (abc) again, let's see how long it lasts. De728631 (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Neo

When the Neo- stuff was removed from the body text, I didn't notice these in the External Links:

• Renkian Neo-Sindarin course.
• Ardalambion With Fauskangerian Neo-Sindarin course.

... which are now cryptic. Perhaps the section could instead say something like "Note that the lessons linked here are based on different interpretations of Sindarin grammar." —Tamfang (talk) 18:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Use of Sindarin

In relation to the above topic "choices of words" there is a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth#"neo-language" regarding that paragraph and the use of "Neo-languages" in general. Please join us there and wait for the outcome before you edit that paragraph. De728631 (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Speakers

The template on the top right says "none, after the death of Tolkien," but I seriously doubt that. As there are many interested in learning it, some should be fluent enough to speak it. Yel D'ohan (talk) 09:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure there are enough words known to let anyone achieve fluency... Double sharp (talk) 14:47, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. There are many many people who are extremely interested in Sindarin - some are scholars! but they are not fluent in Sindarin. There may be people fluent in some form of Neo-Sindarin. – Dyolf87 (talk) 20:39, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Plural of êl

Elin as plural of êl is listed as one of the few words that form the plural with a suffix. This is actually false. As Helge Kåre Fauskanger explains (http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/sindarin.htm#expanded), it's a case of the plural evolving in a different way than the singular, thus making it irregular. That is, the -in part is not a suffix appended to the singular, it's a result of the different development of the primitive regular plural. 84.127.61.138 (talk) 20:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

This may be true, but if this were an isolated case in Sindarin it is likely, as it would be in natural languages, for its speakers to reanalyse it as a plural suffix. – Dyolf87 (talk) 20:41, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Old Sindarin consonant and vowel chart

From [2]:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			plain	lateral
Plosive	p b	t d				k ɡ	(ʔ)
Nasal	m (ṽ)		n			ŋ
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s	ɬ		x (ɣ)	h
Trill			r̥ r
Approximant				l	j	ʍ w

Vowels	Front	Back
Close	i y	u
Open-mid	ɛ (œ)	ɔ
Open		ɑ (ɔː)

Except [ɔː] (written ǭ by Tolkien, online mostly å due to character limitations), all vowels may be short, long, or overlong (not sure about [œ]).

Diphthongs: [ɑi], [ɛi], ([œi]), [ui], [ɑɛ], [ɒɛ], [ɑu]. Double sharp (talk) 10:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, but what point are you making? – Dyolf87 (talk) 20:44, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Numerals

1 êr, min; 2 tad; 3 neleð; 4 canad; 5 leben; 6 eneg; 7 odo, odog; 8 toloð; 9 neder; 10 pae; 11 minib; 12 ýneg. As for higher numbers, we have the example 30 nelchaen from the King's Letter, but that uses the old root KAYAN, KAYAR for 10: perhaps it would be updated to *nelfaen? (I don't know Þindarin anywhere near as well as Quenya, so I'm just guessing.) The distinction between êr and min seems to be "single" vs. just "one", "first": so perhaps something like the difference between Greek μόνος and εἷς? We also have ordinals: 1 mein, main, minui; 2 taid, tadui; 3 neil, nail, nelui; 4 canthui; 5 levnui; 6 enchui, enecthui; 7 othui, odothui; 8 tollui; 9 nedrui; 10 paenui. Double sharp (talk) 08:56, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe I've read that min is related to minas 'tower', with a semantic step from 'prominent' to 'unique'; or perhaps 'first'? Contrast ereb 'lonely'. —Tamfang (talk) 21:48, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't minas mean 'city'? – Dyolf87 (talk) 20:42, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Tolkien also gives CE forms for 13 and 14 nelekwe and kanakwe, which allows us to reconstruct the Sindarin forms. Since minikwe "11" yields S minib, I'd expect *neleb and *canab. Double sharp (talk) 08:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Chronology of publications of Elvish texts

As this section includes examples of Quenya, is there any reason to have it here rather than in Elvish languages (Middle-earth)? —Tamfang (talk) 10:14, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Quenya or Qenya?

Which is it? Kortoso (talk) 02:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Qenya in earliest writings, Quenya later. —Tamfang (talk) 05:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Short vs. Long Vowel Quality

In "The Road Goes Ever On," 3rd. ed., p. 71, Professor Tolkien uses the following words to describe the quality of the short vowels in Sindarin: "sick, bed, hot, foot." This indicates a difference in vowel quality between the short and long i, and short and long u (Appendix E having indicated that a, e, and o have the same quality regardless of length). The word "sick" likely indicates ɪ, and the word "foot" likely indicates ʊ.

Audio sample

I think this article is need of an example of spoken language (and audio file), perhaps the Declaration of Human Rights, as it is customary with other language articles.--80.187.97.65 (talk) 14:00, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Archive 1

All discussions to which nothing or little has been added before 2019 has been archived at Talk:Sindarin/Archive 1. This will hopefully stimulate new discussions on how to improve the article. — Dyolf87 (talk) 00:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

major revision of Corpus section needed

Many of the publications cited in the Posthumous section refer to Quenya, NOT Sindarin. This is especially true of articles from Vinyar Tengwar, which I do not have access to.

Also, a few of the Welsh comparisons vary from literary to colloquial forms, though this is a minor issue.

Msjmsj (talk) 23:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Why don't you go ahead and fix it? Steinbach (talk) 17:56, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

"Internal" and "external" history

These labels are somewhat confusing. They read like the words of a fan who doesn't want to be reminded that Middle-Earth is not real and therefore gives its tropes euphemistic names. Could we replace these headers by "In-universe history" and "Development"? Steinbach (talk) 17:55, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

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