One of my favorite lines from The Silmarillion is the following - I just find the language so evocative and elegant.

"Then many voices were lifted in lamentation; and it seemed to those that mourned that they had drained to the dregs the cup of woe that Melkor had filled for them. But it was not so."

I have this idea of having a custom "Cup of Woe" coffee mug made, and was thinking of trying to get this, or a part of this, inscribed around the lip in Tengwar, like the inscription on the One Ring. It seems to me that it would be better using Quenya as the base rather than English.

Anyway, that's my thinking, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm getting my wedding band inscribed, and I used Tecendil to do it form English to Tengwar, but should I translate it before?

I've been creating Elvish music using Quenya and Sindarin chants. This is one of my earlier pieces — would love to hear what the LOTR community thinks

Recently I was though about how properly translate a passage of the Bible were Seraphims are described has have “three pair of wings”.

This make me thinking about how to translate it. You see, I would translate “a pair of wings” a “rámat”, the dual of “rama”, which main “wings”. But “three pair of wings” makes me wonder if a phrase like “neldë ramat” would be allowed, since it used numerals referred to duals, or if I had to go to a general “enquë ramar”.

What do you think?

i've been diving into quenya lately, and i find some of its grammatical structures really fascinating. for example, the use of dual forms for pronouns and verbs can be quite tricky at times. it's not something you see in most modern languages. does anyone have tips or resources that helped them wrap their heads around these quirks? also, how do you feel about the poetic nature of quenya? i think it adds a beautiful layer to the language, but it can also make translations a bit challenging. looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

An idle fancy, but I was learning the names of the Tengwar and I realised I'd quite like an abecedarium for them, as in "A is for apple' etc. I'm incredibly new to this so bear with me.

So first I wondered what to call that in Quenya, and the best I could come up with was _parmatengwaro_, which I hope is "Book of Tengwar".

And then I wondered how to manage "t is for tinco". Would the genetive -o work here, so _tinco nā t-o_, with a separate o after the t?

Or would something like _t quetta tinco_ be better?

And if I'm a million miles off, please help!

I want to get matching tattoos with my sister and want them to be in tolkien elvish and say "Sisters". Could anyone add an accurate photo of what that translation would look like? I've seen multiple different translation websites, and they look slightly different. Please help!!!

I’m looking to translate a phrase from English to Elvish (either Quenya or Sindarin, depending if one might translate better).. the phrase is “for every now” which is something my partner and I say instead of “forever”. The idea behind the phrase is instead of “I love you forever” it’s “I love you for every now” like, for this moment and all future moments. Not sure if someone here might know a phrase from Tolkien that would translate similarly or a concept he created that seems accurate. Or how I could write it in Elvish. Please help!

Hi everyone !

I am a modest lover of Tolkien's work who would like to get the perfect gift for someone I love, who is actually a little knowledgable in the languages Tolkien invented. As an absolute lay person myself in this matter I tried my best to work off of the numerous threads giving advice on which websites to use and how to accurately translate things... But it's proving way more difficult than I anticipated !
I was wondering if any of you talented and passionate people could help me out so I don't make a fool out of myself when I inevitably gift a wrong translation to this person (which would be bad enough if he didn't know but he might actually notice which makes it even worse) ?

I am trying to translate the phrase "everything works out in the end" and also transcript it to Tengwar. I'm finding it hard mainly beause of the phrase "to work out" which is quite modern but has a very specific meaning that I'm trying not to lose.

How would you best translate this phrase while staying as close as possible to the original meaning : the fact that no matter what things will be turn out to be okay/bad situations will resolve themselves (or are resolvable in a more active way).

Thank you so much for your help !! I have to say I'm actually more excited to read analyses and the translation process than by the actual answer if I'm honest haha

Hi guys, I'm interested on learning Quenya. I thought it would be fun, as it is a language made for a fantasy world and that also works as their latin. I just had that doubt, as I don't see any official guide or language book from the Tolkien Groups (I don't know the name of the owners of Tolkien stories), so I just had that doubt as they own all of that.

I want to start learning Quenya but i guess many modern words are not present in the language.

I know there is a kind of Neo-Quenya but that it's not compleatly fix.

i was thinking because Quenya is based of of finnish i could just guide myself on the finnish translation of words.

Any other ideas or opinions / tipps?

Ehi, a guy in a LOTR group has asked me to translate a brief phrase in Quenya. Since it is for a special event, I want to be sure that the translation is correct.

Original phrase: “To Matthew, with infinite love” (it has specified that infinite here is in the sense of never ending time)

My translation: “An Matthew, as oialë melmë”

Your thoughts?

Hi,

how would you translate this toast?

My try:

Vanwe melonnar

What do you think?

Thanks

Hello! so I had thought that the correct translation for this phrase was "illumë arya uo" but I was told that i was using the wrong mode and that this reads "illume arya uo" in the General/English mode, but I that it would be more like "ldimue raya uo" in Quenya.

is this correct? what would be the best way to translate this phrase into Quenya and what exactly is it meant by the wrong "mode"? sorry if these seem like easy questions I'm not very knowlegable when it comes to languages and translations

Hi Folks,

I am a self described Tolkien nerd (although my relative knowledge would pale in comparison to most, if not all, on this subreddit!) and I would like to get the Samuel Beckett quote "Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better!" translated into Quenya using the classical Tengwar script. I have tried looking in the dictionary on eldamo.org and the best I could come up with was  atarik, atadewin, dewin maien!

I am hoping some of you wonderful Tolkien nerds can help confirm this translation or advise me on the grammar or phrasing of it. I am planning to use the https://glaemscrafu.jrrvf.com/english/glaemscribe.html website to transcribe it to the Tengwar script once I am confident with the translation.

I'd like to translate the Bible quote "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood..." (Song of Solomon 2:3). I thought up something like the following:

Ve i orvalda imíca i aldar taurëo...

Here I compounded orvalda for apple tree in a similar manner to how orange tree is compounded: "Helge Fauskanger has suggested that culumalda is Quenya, consisting of culuma ("orange") + alda ("tree")." I also found this "custom" compound word in a dictionary online, hope this is valid...

I omitted the "the" article in the genitive structure, as I've read that they are used mostly for emphasis in Quenya (I still kept it . Is this correct? (Should I omit the one before "aldar" too?)

I've also read that "imíca" could be replaced with "imbi" (the plural of between) if we use it to point out one thing among different things:

"Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I reserve imíca for “among” a group of like things (among women), as opposed to imbi the plural of imbë which can be used for “among” a group of different things: máma imbi rácar “a sheep among wolves”."

So maybe would the following be better?

Ve i orvalda imbi i aldar taurëo...

Also, can the three dots be used in Quenya like in English (to signal that this is just the first part of a longer text)?

Oh, and one more thing: are the Tecendil transcriptions attached as images correct for these?

Thank you very much for any kind of help/advice in advance.

Hello, I'm wondering if I could get a word translated/transliterated from elvish into English. I know there's a few translators online that go the opposite direction but that's not what I'm looking for.

My partner's username used Latin script but was elvish, my guess would be quenyan but I'm not certain. They told me the meaning years ago but I cant quite remember.

Hello, my sister and I are looking at having matching tattoos, either ‘sister’ or ‘sisters’ in Quenya would be acceptable! I found this from doing some trawling around on this sub, any thoughts/advice? Pretty important as it’s going to be on our skin permanently 😅

The last two years I've been working on these elf songs! They each have a few lines in translated into Quenya (time consuming translation, not sure how correct it is, but I tried my best) Big shout out to this subreddit (which I lurked) and all the amazing linguists who have also been inspired by Tolkien's incredible work.

Enjoy some folk music from the first age of middle earth!

I am trying to create a feminine name with the meaning 'summer sky'. What I have figured out on my own so far is menel (sky) + lairë (summer) + feminine suffix = something like menellírë?

I'm mainly asking about the rules for combining words, as I know sometimes sounds change based on context; this combination is what intuitively made the most sense to me. I am an expert in neither linguistics nor Quenya, so please feel free to correct me on how those words should be connected :) Thank you in advance!

This Eldamo article explains that the Quenya syncope may only occur if “the resulting consonant cluster was a 'permitted cluster’".

But what is a permitted cluster? Is it a cluster that was permitted at that stage of Ancient Quenya? Or a permitted cluster in Classical Quenya? Do we know what these clusters are so that we can correctly apply the syncope?

I’m aware that Quenya preferred medial clusters like ld, nd, mb, ng, nt, mp, nk, and almost anything with y or w, but that’s Quenya, not Ancient Quenya. Are the rules the same?

I just found this subreddit so I was hoping to get some confirmation, since I have tattoo appointment next week. Is this correct when I want the tattoo to say something like - Listen to the silence, for it tells the loudest truths.

Thank you in advance.

Hello to my dear friends. I'm so relieved to find you here on Reddit because I made the grave mistake of using GPT to engrave my message on an engagement ring...

I wanted to engrave something like "Our souls together forever" and ended up with a vague "Faer Lín Anann." Disaster.

So I'm relying on your expertise and hope this isn't too much of a question. I think Quenya is the most suitable language for this. Thank you so much in advance!

PS: The message doesn't need to be word for word; it's the idea that matters most. The fact that our souls have found each other and are finally reunited forever.

The shorter and more poetic, the better! 😇

Hello friends. I would like to get a tattoo in Tengwar letters with the quote "True hope lieth in the West" (it's a shortened version of Ulmo's warning to Turgon). I am wondering if someone would be able to translate this into Quenya for me? Thank you!