(If this is too much off topic, I won't be offended if it's kept from
going out to Elfling. :) )

I most often just lurk, but once in a while I can't resist tossing in a
comment. This time concerning the 'ampersand'. The *word* 'ampersand' is
actually English, with a stock Latin phrase included: it is from "
'and', per se, 'and' ", i.e., a symbol that 'by itself' is 'and'.
*Andperseand became ampersand. As for the symbol called ampersand, &
(which I think most software will recognize; for those who get garbage I
apologize; it's like a cursive capital E with a cross line over the
bottom, extended, curve of the E), it is a ligature (a written or
printed combination of two letters into one) of 'e' and 't', the Latin
word 'et', which is the most common of several Latin words for 'and.'

A totally useless post I guess, but interestly fun, imo anyway. :)

Jerry Caveney

From "Helge K. Fauskanger":

>Carl F. Hostetter wrote on TolkLang:
>
> > _Vinyar Tengwar_ 41 has been published.
>
>Well, well, well...it seems that I shall finally have to renew my VT
>subscription. Last time I did was in 1994. Six years, six issues: How
>time flies!
>
>Issue #41, appearing after a fifteen-month hiatus, contains both Tolkien
>and non-Tolkien material. To briefly deal with the latter first, we have
>a letter from Ivan Derzhanski commenting on a letter from yours truly in
>issue #38, about the Quenya pronominal endings -lle and -lye. Editor Carl
>F. Hostetter has been working in the Marquette archives and "must now
>again" revise his description of the relevant manuscript.

I wonder how  _vanimelda_ fits into this picture if at all?  At Ardalambion
(<http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/qlist.htm>, keyword _-lda_ you, Helge, say
that  _-lda_ may be used in vocatives only.  I assume this is
hypothetical?  IMHO your other hypothesis that Tolkien simply changed his
mind _-lda_ => _-lya_ seems more plausible (and agreable).


["can" in Quenya]
>there are at least three ways to say "can" in Quenya (p. 6):
>
>* If "can" means "be physically able" (as opposed to being physically
>obstructed), the verb used is _pol-_. The example _polin quete_ is
>translated "I can speak (because mouth and tongue are free)". This short
>sentence is also interesting because it confirms that an aorist stem like
>_quete_ can be used in an "infinitival" sense.
>
>* If "can" means "know how to", one uses the well-known verb _ista-_
>"know". Tolkien gave the example _istan pole_, but as the editor points
>out, he surely intended _istan quete_ instead. This is translated "I can
>speak (because I have learned (a) language)".
>
>* If "can" means "be able to (because no particular restraint or
>obligation dictates otherwise)", the verb used is _lerta-_. Tolkien gave
>the example _lerta quete_, which should certainly read _lertan quete_
>(the author seems to have been very tired when he wrote this). _Lertan
>quete_ means "I can speak" in the sense "I can speak because I am free to
>so, there being no obstacle of promise, secrecy, duty." (But the verbs
>_pol-_ and _lerta-_ were to some extent interchangeable.)

This seems to correspond to the state of affairs in Latin: _pol-_ would
translate as _ualere_ "to be strong", _ista-_ (not surprising!) as _scire_
`know`, and _lerta-_ as _posse_ `be able to`.

>Other useful vocabulary items from this list include _menta-_ "send,
>cause to go (in a desired direction)",

Hmm, what about using _mentane_ `sending` for `message` and for `letter,
epistle` (not that I expect "Vinyar Tengwar" to be renamed anytime soon!),
and _mentano_ for `messenger`?

[snip]

  From Andreas Johansson:

> >Linguistically, the most interesting part here is the phrase "my heart
> >tells me..." translated into three languages: Quenya _oorenya quete
> >nin_, Telerin _oore nia pete nin_, and Sindarin _guren be^d enni
>
>Is that space in _oore nia_ really supposed to be there? The element
>_nia_ is obviously related to the Q ending _-nya_, and _cavaria_ "his/her
>house" from QaE gives the Telerin possessive element directly suffixed.
>So if trying to write T, we'd better write _oorenia_, shouldn't we?

It might very well have been optional, might it not?



/BP 8^)>

--
   B.Philip Jonsson mailto:bpX@... mailto:melrochX@... (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__
                A h-ammen ledin i phith!                \ \
     __  ____ ____    _____________ ____ __   __ __     / /
     \ \/___ \\__ \  /___  _____/\ \\__ \\ \  \ \\ \   / /
     / /   / /  /  \    / /Melroch\ \_/ // /  / // /  / /
    / /___/ /_ / /\ \  / /Melarocco\_  // /__/ // /__/ /
   /_________//_/  \_\/ /Eowine__   / / \___/\_\\___/\_\
Gwaedhvenn Angelmiel\ \_____/ / a/ /_adar Merthol naun
~~~~~~~~~Cuinondil~~~\_______/~~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~
|| Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda cuivie aiya! ||
"A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)

Matt wrote:

> You people have inspired me to start my own
> language ( or at least try, I have 350+/- words in my lexicon and I have
> started working on roots and I worked on all the case endings, if ya'll
> care :-)

Well, join CONLANG and send all the info you have on your conlang there
for god's sake! :)

www.egroups.com/group/conlang

Daniel Andreasson

>Well, since we should stick to Tolkien related stuff ( well, whatever ), I
>have a question with two parts: what is _aorist_ mean

"Aorist" is a name of a tense of a verb. The word itself means "unlimited" or
"undetermined" or such (greek "alfa privativum" + "horos"="limit") and in Greek
it means a past tense without any further qualifications - for Greek has got an
imperfect, too, which signifies an past action that was beeing done for some
time, or the finish of what is not expressed. There is a slight similarity
between German "Praeteritum" and greek "aorist", or between latin "perfectum"
and greek "aorist", but latin perfect means always that the action is finished -
the greek aorist not always so, though, thanks to the contrast with the
imperfect, quite often it is so used. But the aorist itself bears no other
signification, than the past time - that's why it is called "a-horistos" -
"undetermined".

The meaning of the greek word "aoristos" rather than its aplication to a greek
past tense was presumably the reason why the Quenya aorist was so called. For it
is not a PAST tense in Quenya, but a PRESENT or something like "gnomic
present" - a tense that does not really express ANY time (therefore "aoristos"),
as I understand it, and is mostly used in such cases as general statements,
eternal truths etc . E.g. "Murder is evil" - you do not mean that NOW in the
present murder is evil, but simly that it is so regardless to any time. (But in
Namaarie: Laurie LANTAR lassi - the form "lantar" is an aorist (present would be
?lantear?), although the poet is certainly describing a PRESENT situation - it
seems that the aorist is so "aoristos" that it can express almost everything.
What's the experts' opinion?) In English the distinction between Quenya aorist
and present (called sometimes "continuative") at least roughly corresponds, as
has been suggested, to the distinction between present simple and present
continuous tense (in E.: "Like gold fal the leaves...", not "are falling").

Lukas

>  (Hmmmm....  What's Q. for "sit"?)

You can try _hara!_ or _hama!_ Or perhaps it should be _a hare!_ or _a
hame!_ Well, the dog probably won't get it anyway...

- HF

At 7/30/00 1:55:00 PM, you wrote:
..
>linguistics.  I've yet to figure out how to teach Quenya to a Deutsche
>Dogge.  (Hmmmm....  What's Q. for "sit"?)

verbs in the imperative:

sit = haara
stay = mara (abide - as close as I can get.)
fetch = neta

plural noun:

walkies = vantalli (a bit dubious, but I couldn't resist it :)

can't think of anything even remotely approaching "heel" I'm afraid,

	 regards,


	      Sardo Ciryallo



mailto:carnivor@...://www.flytrap.demon.co.uk/cchome.htm
Cambrian Carnivores,17,Wimmerfield Cr.,SWANSEA,SA27BU - tel:+44(0)1792 205214
Carnivorous Plants,Seeds & Tissue Culture Kits - mailorder,export & wholesale

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000, Lukas Novak wrote:

> The meaning of the greek word "aoristos" rather than its aplication to a
> greek past tense was presumably the reason why the Quenya aorist was so
> called. For it is not a PAST tense in Quenya, but a PRESENT or something
> like "gnomic present"

We should define "gnomic" for the original enquirer, who is very young and has
stated that he knows very little grammatical or other linguistic terminology.

The word "gnomic" is taken from the Greek _gnoomee_ "opinion", often in the
sense of a proverbial opinion.  Thus, Lukas' examples of _gnomic_ presents in
English:

	 Murder is evil
	 Leaves fall down

One of the reasons for calling the Quenya tense in question the _aorist_ is
that in Greek, _gnomic_ statements like the above are stated in the _aorist_
tense, that is, as if in English we said

	 Murder was evil
	 Leaves fell down

to mean the same thing as Lukas' examples.

I hope that helps.

								 Rich
-------

>This seems to correspond to the state of affairs in Latin: _pol-_ would
>translate as _ualere_ "to be strong", _ista-_ (not surprising!) as _scire_
>`know`, and _lerta-_ as _posse_ `be able to`.


I rather dobt this. "posse" is very wide in its meaning, although its primary
meaning is just "be able to" (potis="able" + esse="to be"), regardless to what
kind of ability is meant - whether physical or other (so it is the best word for
"pol-" - to have a physical ability, I think, but can be (more or less) used for
ALL of the three verbs). On the other side, "lerta", as I understand it, means
not "to be able to", but rather "to be permitted to", "not to be obliged not to"
in the sense of german "duerfen" or english "may" in one of its rare meanings.
I do not know, but I rather doubt if "valere" could be used in the suggested
meaning at all..."



To conclude - I would translate:

lertan quete - "licet mihi loqui" OR  "ius est mihi loqui" OR possum loqui OR
some phrase with like "tacere non debeo "
polin quete - possum loqui (Czech "mohu")
istan quete - scio loqui (Czech "umím")

Leaving in several minutes for a few days, bye

Lukas

Mike Adams wrote:

> Contractions, I was more going for words that have a meaning, but seem
> to be not based on anything, unless you compare them to other words in
> Quenya, and can figure out the meaning, or how they came about.. Sort of
> like
>
> Don't, comes from Do Not, but I am looking for something even more less
> obvious.

**Maybe _mii_ (_mí_) "in the". It is assumed that it is _mi_ "in" +
_i_ "the".

We have the phrase _utuulie'n aure_. It seems to be a contradiction,
but it is not certain what it is.

Often the final vowel in a word is elited if preceding a word beginning
with vowel. E.g. _elen siila luumenn' omentielvo_ (_luumenna_).

Also augments of perfect tenses are sometimes elited, Tolkien states
that it is not uncommon in verse. E.g. _vaanie_ or _fiirie_ (_avaanie_,
*_ifiirie_).


Ales Bican

At 16:15 30.7.2000 -0800, Mike Adams wrote:

>Maybe someone could use their knowledge of Arabic and like, and based on
>the limited knowledge of Khazad to recreate it? Or would it be just to
>difficult, I know it is for me.. Yes, it does answer my question.

Not really.  The similarity is AFAWK limited to sharing one major
structural trait (triconsonantal roots and vocalic infixes).  Beyond that
-- other structural traits, phonology, vocabulary &c. &c. Akkadian, Hebrew,
Arabic, Egyptian, Berber, Somali or any other AfroAsiatic language may be
as similar or different to K`uzdul as English.  Our best bet for an
external comparative source for K`uzdul is probably Adunaic!



/BP 8^)>
--
   B.Philip Jonsson mailto:bpX@... mailto:melrochX@... (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no more milk,
and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                                     -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)

>Such as
>
>I am/Ich Bin
>You are/Du Bist
>We Are/Sehr Sind

Should be "Wir sind"

>They Are/Der Bist(?)

Should be "Sie sind"

                                           Andreas
>
>Mike aka Morgoth
>
>
>
>
>
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BP wrote:
> > >Linguistically, the most interesting part here is the phrase "my heart
> > >tells me..." translated into three languages: Quenya _oorenya quete
> > >nin_, Telerin _oore nia pete nin_, and Sindarin _guren be^d enni
> >
> >Is that space in _oore nia_ really supposed to be there? The element
> >_nia_ is obviously related to the Q ending _-nya_, and _cavaria_ "his/her
> >house" from QaE gives the Telerin possessive element directly suffixed.
> >So if trying to write T, we'd better write _oorenia_, shouldn't we?
>
>It might very well have been optional, might it not?
>

I was, like, assuming that Amanya Telerin have the same rules for stress as
Q and S. When I think about it, I don't think I've ever read ANYTHING on
stress in AT. However, if it DO have the same rules as Q, which seems likely
given the large similarities in other areas, it certainly matter. "OO-re
ni-a" (or "OO-re NI-a" if the possessive is also stressed) sounds a bit
different from "oo-RE-ni-a".

                                                        Andreas
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Lukas Novak wrote:
>And finally: How would you form the perfect of the verb "mauya"? I reluctantly
>suggest "am·wiÎ" - but that "w" between vowels looks suspicious and the
>diphtong
>is lost... I cannot make up anything better. What is the augment, if there is
>diphtong in the verb stem?

    It seems reasonable that the perfect could be formed directly from the
root and not from the present stem, when the suffixed variant used in the
present was the primary verb formed from the root: meaning that there is,
for instance, no *uli- next to ulya- "rain".  If so, then the perfect of
mauya could be formed directly from the root MBAW and would, I guess, be
_amávië_ (amaavie).  I think you have written amaawie, but because of some
electronic scrambling of your characters I can't be sure; the only change I
would make is the change of w to v, since, as you say, the preservation of
intervocalic w is not usual.
    For the augment I would use the primary vowel of the diphthong.  The
normal root structures are CVC and CVCVC; when the last C is a semivowel (w
or y) dipthongs can be formed secondarily from the vocalization of the
semivowel after a vowel and before a consonant.

/\     WISTR LAG WIGS RAIHTS
\/            WRAIQS NU IST                               <> David Salo
<dsalo@...> <>

Ack! Two posts in three days, and this one is even a bit relevant. :)

I write not to criticize the post I'm replying to, but to dig a little
deeper into the topic of just what the 'aorist' is. Properly speaking,
the 'aorist' is not a tense at all, it is an 'aspect' of a verb. Aspects
of a verb denote different types of action rather than different times
of action, as tenses do. Other aspects are inchoative (I start to walk,
started to walk, will start to walk), progressive (I am walking, was
walking, will be walking, will have been walking, etc.), complexive (I
start to walk and walk and finish walking), etc.

Interestingly, since in Western culture the main language that uses the
aorist is Classical Greek, and CG uses it as the simple past tense, most
sources will define the aorist as a tense: not only dictionaries, but
even Smyth's revered (as far as English sources go) Greek Grammar
(excellent for most grammatical definitions; and totally available
online as was pointed out to me earlier on Elfling:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=smyth+30048&vers=english
). In fact, among the numerous sources available in my personal library,
the only one I could find that properly noted that the aorist is really
an aspect, not a tense, is Chantraine's Grammaire Homerique, a beloved
work among most students of Homer. Chantraine explains that in Greek,
what we call the 'stems' of the different tenses of verbs were
inherently stems of different aspects, with tense more properly being
indicated by the 'augment' for the past (a prefixed 'e' before past
stems starting with a consonant, a lengthening of the vowel for past
stems starting with a vowel). (Chantraine, GH, tome II, p. 183; he
references for a more thorough discussion Schwyzer-Debrunner,
Griechische Grammatik (pp. 246ff), which I alas don't have a copy of.)

In addition, a comparative grammar of Greek and Latin I have (Buck)
notes that the aorist was used as the past tense in Sanskrit as well
(but I personally know nothing of that language). So perhaps the use of
the aorist, and perhaps its use as aspect for tense, goes back to
proto-IndoEuropean. Others more knowledgeable might comment on that. ...

Anyway, the aorist is 'properly' an aspect, namely the aspect of simple
or undefined action, not beginning, continuing, completed, or anything
else. Thus it's name, meaning, as Lukas Novak noted, 'unlimited' (in the
sense of 'not specialized'). That the speakers and writers of classical
Greek actually 'understood' the aorist as more an aspect than a tense
(though I give this subject very superficial attention here, being
rather overlong for a post anyway), we can see, for example, from one
common Greek grammatical idiom, the 'gnomic aorist'. The aorist was used
by them, in addition to serving as the simple past tense, as the form
for proverbs or adages (gnomai), as indicating general truths, a sense
of the action being 'unlimited' in time or space. Thus, sayings like "A
stitch in time saves nine" or "Too many chefs spoil the soup" would
often use a verb in the aorist "tense", rather than the present tense as
English does. And when such statement had dependent clauses included,
the gnomic aorist was treated as a primary (present) tense, not
secondary (past) tense, for determining what mood of verb would be used
in the dependent clause. Obviously, they could not have used the aorist
in such a way if they thought of it as only a 'past tense'.

Before applying this to Tolkien, one further note on how recognizing
aspects of verbs can be confusing. Most (I presume without researching
it) non-copulative verbs (to be, to seem, etc.) denote a simple action.
But when they denote an action that is inherently continuative, the use
of the aorist may have a special meaning (in Greek at least). Thus, for
example, the verb 'to rule' denotes an ongoing activity. So in Greek,
'he ruled' is normally put into the imperfect tense, since that tense
(tense/aspect) in Greek signifies a (past) continuing action. When a
classical Greek author wrote 'eerksa', the aorist of archo, I rule,
instead of the normal eerchen, the imperfect, s/he was saying 'became
ruler' rather than 'ruled'. :)

In any case, as a linguist, Tolkien was quite aware of what the aorist
really was. In what seems to me typical of his creativeness and 'fun' in
creating languages, he took the idea of of the aorist aspect, and said,
in effect, 'What if a language used the aorist to contrast *present*
general (unlimited) actions to present continuative actions instead of
using it to contrast past general actions to present continuative?' The
result is Tolkien's 'present aorist'. :)  He thus created a language
that could distinguish continuative from general present actions simply,
something classical Greek could not readily do, and which modern English
and French, for example, can only do with extra words (I walk, I am
walking; je marche, je suis en train de marcher). I suspect Tolkien
enjoyed the elegance of this basic grammatical distinction, which I am
not aware that any 'living' language has. Of course, I know very few of
the thousands of languages of human speech. If anyone knows of a
language that has different simple verb forms for the present general
and continuative, I'd be fascinated to learn of them (and to see if
Tolkien might have been familiar with them). I rather suspect though
that Tolkien felt he was creating something 'new' with the present
aorist form.

Comments, criticisms, and corrections on my ramblings would be enjoyed.

Jerry Caveney

On Wed,  2 August 2000 at  2:51:24 +0800, Peter Cole wrote:
> At 7/30/00 1:55:00 PM, you wrote:
> ..
> >linguistics.  I've yet to figure out how to teach Quenya to a Deutsche
> >Dogge.  (Hmmmm....  What's Q. for "sit"?)
>
> verbs in the imperative:
>
> sit = haara
> stay = mara (abide - as close as I can get.)
> fetch = neta
>
> plural noun:
>
> walkies = vantalli (a bit dubious, but I couldn't resist it :)

Thanks.  I wasn't really expecting such a response, but it is
interesting.

> can't think of anything even remotely approaching "heel" I'm afraid,

Hmmmm....  What would be Q. for "follow"?  Another common command is
"down".


--
Jerry Dunham                     FreeBSD                (512)335-0674 (H)
jdunham@...                                           jerry@...

   To vacillate, or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?

In a message dated 8/1/00 8:06:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
profesorr@... writes:

<< "Aorist" is a name of a tense of a verb. The word itself means "unlimited"
or
  "undetermined" or such (greek "alfa privativum" + "horos"="limit") and in
Greek
  it means a past tense without any further qualifications - for Greek has got
an
  imperfect, too, which signifies an past action that was beeing done for some
  time, or the finish of what is not expressed. There is a slight similarity
  between German "Praeteritum" and greek "aorist", or between latin "perfectum"
  and greek "aorist", but latin perfect means always that the action is
finished -
  the greek aorist not always so, though, thanks to the contrast with the
  imperfect, quite often it is so used. But the aorist itself bears no other
  signification, than the past time - that's why it is called "a-horistos" -
  "undetermined".

  The meaning of the greek word "aoristos" rather than its aplication to a
greek
  past tense was presumably the reason why the Quenya aorist was so called.
For it
  is not a PAST tense in Quenya, but a PRESENT or something like "gnomic
  present" - a tense that does not really express ANY time (therefore
"aoristos"),
  as I understand it, and is mostly used in such cases as general statements,
  eternal truths etc . E.g. "Murder is evil" - you do not mean that NOW in the
  present murder is evil, but simly that it is so regardless to any time. (But
in
  Namaarie: Laurie LANTAR lassi - the form "lantar" is an aorist (present
would be
  ?lantear?), although the poet is certainly describing a PRESENT situation -
it
  seems that the aorist is so "aoristos" that it can express almost everything.
  What's the experts' opinion?) In English the distinction between Quenya
aorist
  and present (called sometimes "continuative") at least roughly corresponds,
as
  has been suggested, to the distinction between present simple and present
  continuous tense (in E.: "Like gold fal the leaves...", not "are falling").

  Lukas >>

     Are you positive of the use of the greek aorist??? I speak moderne greek
fairly well, and olde attic fairly, but just to make sure, I questioned my
father (a native greek speaker, who was obligated to, and enjoyed, learning
olde greek as well). He gave me a different use for the aorist than you have
suggested. (If you are right, I apologize sincerely for any misunderstanding
on my part that might have lead me to this conclusion, and/or for my father's
temporary insanity). He told me (and oddly enough, used an example with
'leaves', as in the Namaarie) that the aorist was like denoting actions that
are always ocurring, always true. He said the aorist would be used in a
sentance like 'leaves blow in the wind'. Could I get the oppinion of a few
others to set me, and any others who might be confused straight, please? NDK

> Hmmmm....  What would be Q. for "follow"?  Another common command is
> "down".
  follow = hilya
  down = undu

  Angasule

Andreas wrote:

>>It might very well have been optional, might it not?
>>
>I was, like, assuming that Amanya Telerin have the same rules for stress as
>Q and S. When I think about it, I don't think I've ever read ANYTHING on
>stress in AT. However, if it DO have the same rules as Q, which seems likely
>given the large similarities in other areas, it certainly matter. "OO-re
>ni-a" (or "OO-re NI-a" if the possessive is also stressed) sounds a bit
>different from "oo-RE-ni-a".

It looks to me like the possessive suffixes are enclitics rather inflections.
If this is true, then it really doesn't matter if the space is included or not
-- that is up to the asthetics of the person who designed the orthography.
Real world languages take both tactics.

Chickasaw (the language I study) has only recently been written with its
grammatical enclitics attached to the word: what is now written as _hattakat_
"man (nom.)" used to be written _hattak at_ (ignoring other orthographic
changes).  Phonologically they are one word: the last syllable of the word
takes high pitch [hattaKAT].  They are separatable though _hattak sipoknat_
"old man (nom)".  The pitch of these words falls out as [hatTAK sipokNAT].
The
quality of vowels can change depending on whether they carry the high
pitch, so
these transcriptions are very broad.

Japanese (another language I have studied), on the other hand, always writes
grammatical particles as separate words (at least in romanized form --
traditional orthography does not separate words at all) even though they too
are phonologically part of the word.  _haSHI WA_ 'edge (topic) and _haSHI wa_
'bridge (topic)' are a minimal pair showing the phonological importance.
However, these two are also separatable: _haSHI ookii wa_ either 'big edge
(topic)' or 'big bridge (topic)'.

The point being, that the phonological behavior of a word actually is not a
sufficient way to determine if the the possessive suffixes should be written
attached to the word or separate.  Both work equally well, and the difference
is merely a matter of personal preference.  We'll have to wait to see what
Tolkien's typical practice was before making a non-arbitrary decision.

It would be interesting to see what Quenya and Telerin does with a possessive
phrase that includes an adjective after the noun.

Marcus

Another simple question... that was appointed from a lamendil in
Lambenor, a couple of days ago:

If we employ to say "to kiss" _miqu-_... Which would be its
future?? *_Miquuva_?? *_Micuuva_?

Eleder
Bosque Verde

I believe their is a dictionary of known Khazad words, where?

Looking for ideas on how to expand it and like..

It is a wide open subject, and less defined than the Elven lingos.

Mike


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>From: BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
> -- other structural traits, phonology, vocabulary &c. &c. Akkadian, Hebrew,
> Arabic, Egyptian, Berber, Somali or any other AfroAsiatic language may be
> as similar or different to K`uzdul as English.  Our best bet for an
> external comparative source for K`uzdul is probably Adunaic!

He stated in a radio interview that his model for the dwarven culture was
the ancient Hebrews, so it's more likely that Hebrew was his model rather
than Arabic (since we know he knew some Hebrew and so far as I know have no
evidence that he knew Arabic).

‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹
"Elves are . . . an expression of certain not wholly legitimate desires the
human race has about itself."‹J.R.R.Tolkien, 1964

I thank all of you very much, for the time, effort, and patience for such a
young, foolish, and inquisitive person ( thats me :-) ).

So in fact, Murder IS evil, at all times, which is an aorist statement,
meaning it is true ALL times, not any particular time :-)  I think I have
this ( but I am prepared to be wrong yet again, lol ).

But my other question was this: how do you pronounce _3_ in Q or S or
whatever else?  EX: _3ar_ is a root in The Lost Road, and it appears after
the _g_ section, so in conclusion, I could guess that it would be pronounced
_h_.

I have two new questions now ( goody goody, lol ).  1) How would you take a
simple root and make it into a viable word?  Such as NUT...
One particular is the Noldorin word _lhu^th_ ( meaning spell, charm, etc )
from the root LUK.  Where does the K become TH?
And 2) how about probunciation and enunciation?  Are there any particular
rules concerning these?

Thanks again!
Namárië,
Eruanno
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On Wed, 02 Aug 2000, Jerry Caveney wrote:

> Properly speaking, the 'aorist' is not a tense at all, it is an 'aspect' of a
> verb. Aspects of a verb denote different types of action rather than
> different times of action, as tenses do.  Other aspects are inchoative (I
> start to walk, started to walk, will start to walk), progressive (I am
> walking, was walking, will be walking, will have been walking, etc.),
> complexive (I start to walk and walk and finish walking), etc.

There is a little bit of confusion here.

The (Greek) aorist properly speaking is a past tense with punctual aspect (that
is, the action is taken as a complete whole, a point in time, rather than as
having any duration:  "she walked" vs. "she was walking").  Because the Greek
aorist is the best known example of punctual aspect to many speakers of western
European languages, punctual aspect is sometimes referred to as "aoristic", but
the two should not be confused.

As has been stated, Tolkien called one of his tenses "aorist"; he did not by
this refer to punctual aspect, however, but rather to the use of the Greek
aorist tense in proverbial statements (the "gnomic aorist").

> In addition, a comparative grammar of Greek and Latin I have (Buck) notes
> that the aorist was used as the past tense in Sanskrit as well (but I
> personally know nothing of that language). So perhaps the use of the aorist,
> and perhaps its use as aspect for tense, goes back to proto-IndoEuropean.
> Others more knowledgeable might comment on that. ...

I hope I may qualify as someone more knowledgeable on this topic.

There is a past tense in Sanskrit whose formations are cognate with those of
the Greek aorist, and which is therefore called "aorist" in Western grammars.
However, its usage is very different from the Greek aorist.  Those who wish to
hear some of the details can look up the discussions (search for "aorist") on
the archives of the Indo-European mailing list at

	 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/indo-european.html

(NB:  I am the list owner and moderator for the IE and Nostratic lists.)

Aspect, also called _Aktionsart_, was introduced to Indo-European linguistics
from Slavic studies, where punctual and durative aspect are basics of verb
formation onto which tense is layered.  Punctual verbs in Slavic languages have
both a past tense and a present (which is translated into non-Slavic languages
as a *future* tense).  For several decades, it has been fashionable to see the
equivalent of Slavic aspect in the Proto-Indo-European verb; however, a growing
number of Indo-Europeanists have grown uncomfortable with this Procrustean bed.
It seems more likely that the Slavic and Greek aspectual usages independently
grew out of a PIE system that was *not* the same as either.

For further introductory reading on tense and aspect, I recommend two books by
Bernard Comrie, cleverly entitled _Tense_ and _Aspect_, both in the Cambridge
Textbooks in Linguistics series.  Both are readily available from Amazon.com.

> Of course, I know very few of the thousands of languages of human speech. If
> anyone knows of a language that has different simple verb forms for the
> present general and continuative, I'd be fascinated to learn of them (and to
> see if Tolkien might have been familiar with them). I rather suspect though
> that Tolkien felt he was creating something 'new' with the present aorist
> form.

As noted above, much of the notion of aspect in linguistics grew out of the
study of the Slavic languages, in which it rather than tense is the primary
notion associated with verbs.  I'm sure that Tolkien was familiar with the
notion of aspect, since it was the New Idea on the Block (TM) in linguistics in
the 20's and 30's; I believe he even studied some Russian at one point, but I
am ready to be corrected in that belief.

								 Rich Alderson
-------

>If anyone knows of a
language that has
> different simple verb forms for the present general
and continuative,

Not exactly the distincion between "aorist" and "continuative", but in general
the distinction between "perfect" and "imperfect" action is inherent to Czech,
and I think to most of the slavonic languages. There are "perfect" and
"imperfect" verbs in Czech; the "perfect" ones expressing by their present forms
FUTURE tense (finished) However, In Czech there are many ways how to express
many different aspect - e.g. "popojít" (the basic verb "jít" "to go") means "to
go a little farther and stop", so that the simple "imperfect" verb may be
treated as "aorist". Czech however does not have means to express "continuative"
- it is circumsribed by adverbs.

Lukas

We have the phrase _utuulie'n aure_. It seems to be a
> contradiction,
but it is not certain what it is.

Could possibly be "utuulien in aure" ?
Lukas

> then the perfect of
mauya could be formed directly from the root MBAW
> and would, I guess, be
_amávië_ (amaavie).  I think you have written
> amaawie,

Yes. Thak you for the answer and explanation!

Lukas

Dan Jones wrote:

> Nér anwava nánye,
> man truth-ass[1] be-pres-I

**_Anwa_ is adj. "true", not n. "truth". What about
_neer anwa naanye_ "true man I am"?

> merin line i nyárei hónenyava.
> want-aor-I[2] sing-aor the tales-acc soul-my-ass

**You mean _lire_.
Acc. of "the tales" would be _i nyaarii_, but in M-e Quenya
the accusative was not distinguished from the nominative,
thus _nyaari_.
"Of my heart" (_hoon_ is "physical heart", "inner mind,
spirit" is _oore_; "soul" is _fea_) - _honinyava_ or
contracted _hoonyava_.

> Nyárenyar ea aire ar laique,
> tales-nom-my (copula) red and green

**_Naa_ is rather the copula then _ea_ ("is, exists").

> laiqua taureva, aire yérwa.
> green forest-ass, red blood-ass

**Maybe _taureeva_ (we have _huineeva_ rather than
_huineva_).
You mean _yarwa_ (Note that SA gives _serce_.)

> Aiquen laste nyárenyain,
> whoever listen-aor tales-my-dat

**Aor. of _lasta_ is just _lasta_.

> suciro manunyava,
> drink-aor-he soul-my-ass

**_Manu_ "departed spirit"?

> ar aliro hónenyasse.
> and rejoice-aor-he[3] soul-my-loc

**_Honinyasse_ or _hoonyasse_.

> Merin harye umbarenyá
> want-aor-I have-aor fate-my-acc

**Aor. of _harya_ is simply _harya_. A-stem verbs and derived
verbs (such as _harya-_ or _lasta-_) do not have aorist ending
with _-e_, but _-a_.

> i lie ya laste lindelen tundion,
> the people (relative) listen-aor music-dat hills-gen

**_Lasta_ instead of _laste_.
"Of hills" - _tundoron_, the final _-o_ does not drop; such
words are inflected as _cirya_.

> I lindele anlinda nin tundion ea
> the music superlative-fair I-dat hills-gen (copula)

**"The fairest" - _allinda_, _nl_ assimilates to _ll_.
_Tundoron_ again.
_Naa_ again.

> ya ñandi earion.
> (relative)[5] harps seas-gen

**Note that _~n_ (_ñ_) becames simple _n_ in Third Age Quenya.

> [3] I could find no word meaning rejoice, so I sed the stem of alasse "joy"
> as a verb.

**_Alasse_ is derived from vb. _al-_ "thrive".

> [4] Likewise, I could find no word meaning "with", so I used the
> instrumental case instead, since in Sanskrit etc it can have a comitative
> sense.

**"with, together with" - _yo_.

> [5] There is no word as far as I know for "than", so I followed French
> practice and used the relative particle (as in "je suis plus beau que toi")

**We do not know how to form comparatives.


Ales Bican

Peter Cole wrote:

> I'm having particular trouble with the pronouns - I started out using
> Jim Allan's forms, and have tried to "upgrade" them using Helge
> Fausganger's excellent Ardalambion articles, but the 3rd person is
> still problematic.

**It is.
Writers usually use *_-re_ for "she", *_-ro_ for "he". Also there is _-s_
probably covering all "he", "she" and "it".
*_meliro_ "he loves"
*_melire_ "she loves"
*_melis_ "it loves", also "(s)he loves"
Maybe (maybe not) _-re_ and _-ro_ lengthens a preceding vowel.
As for the plural _-nte_ is used.
_melinte_ "they love"

>  The verb "to be" also seems sparsely recorded in
> the corpus, etymologies and Qenya Lexicon.

**There are _naa_ and _ea_ for "is". The former seems to
be mere copula (as _Anar naa malina_ "the Sun is yellow"),
the latter deals with existence (_Anar ea vilyasse_ "the Sun
is/exists on the sky").
Pl. of _naa_ is _nar_. Pl. of _ea_ is assumed to be *_ear_ (not
attested).
For pa.t. writers usually use *_nee_, pl. *_ner_; *_eane_, *eaner_.
The future tense is obscure. Some use _yeeva_ "will be", given
by Tolkien in an early source, though there are some hints that
it is probably not valid, but we do not have any better word.

> I also don't have much idea how to translate "which".  "Man" perhaps,
> but I'm not sure this can apply to inanimate objects/concepts.

**_Man_ is used as an interrogative pronoun, we do not know
whether it can be used as relative one as well. However we
have _ya_ "which" or _i_ "which, who".

> The very hardest line by my reckoning is in v.4 - "from him which is,
> and which was, and which is to come", which rolls all my bugbears into
> one! Any suggested improvements on "eryallo man nas, ar man nes, ar
> man nuva" would be extremely welcome.

**What about _sollo i ea, ar i eane, ar i tuluva_ "from him which is,
ar which was, ar which will come"? (*_So_ "he".)

>            QL - word and meaning as recorded in Qenya Lexicon

**Using words from QL could be dangerous, but it happens
that we do not have any better solution.

> 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show
> 1. I Velupantie      Yesa Cristo,  ????? Eru ante eryenna apantien
>        QL              *    *                           dat."in order to"

**The cluster _cr_ is probably not possible in Q, I think. I am not
sure what 'chr' would have producted in Q, maybe _hr_, the unvoiced
_r_.
Hm, _ante_ as pa.t. of _anta_, well, *maybe* it is possible, but
we maybe should use *_antane_ or in QL attested _aane_.
"To him" _son_ (*_so_ "he"), _sonna_; maybe ?_eryo_, but
not _erye_.
_Apantie_ does not look like familiar to me; for "show" we
have _tana-_ (an a-stem verb), thus "in order to show" will
probably be _tanien_.

> unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass;  and
>   virteryannar    natti        ???? ???????   martuva;     ar
>      QL all.pl.                              lit:"happen"

**_Virt_ from QL seems hardly to be valid in the mature Q.
Pl. of _nat_ is rather _nati_ than _natti_, though neither is attested.
We have no word for "must", unfortunately. I sometimes use
_naa mauyaina_ "is compeled".
"Shortly" could be *_sintave_ - _sinta_ adj. "short"; the ending
_-ve_ transforms adjectives to adverbs, at least it is believed so
(according to our only example _andave_ adv. "long").

> he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.
> lengeros ar  teheros        Valannen      Yohanna virteryanna.
>    QL      lit:"marked"      inst.          *        QL all.
>                                not quite sure if J or S should be allative

**_Lengeros_ is highly douptful. Maybe you could use _tultane_
"summoned".
_Teheros_ - you mean _teke-_? Rather _tenceero_.
Perchance for "angel" _ainu_ would be better. And _Valanen_ (or
Ainunen), not _Valannen_.

> 2. Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus
> 2. Man  tiriero        Eruo quenta,     ar  Yesa Cristo quotta,
>       QL:"preserve,observe"                   *    *      *
>
> Christ, and of all things that he saw.
>           ar  ilya  nattiva   sehtero.
>                     poss.pl     QL
>    I'm sure possessive is wrong, "about things", not "belonging to things"
>      must be the meaning, but how to indicate that? Respective perhaps?

**I would write "of the word of God" as _i quetto Eruva_, the genitive
seems to cover meaning "of, about".
"Of the testimony of Jesus Christ" - _i quetto Yesa Hristova_?
"Of all thing that he saw" - _ilye nation i cennero_. For "see" we have
_cen-_.

> 3. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of
>    Almarea nerye man  nolaro,  ar  ente tunquante i  qentar
>              ?          QL          ?    QL

**"He is" could be _naaro_. For "read" we have now a word
finally, sc. _kenda-_.
"Hear" - _hlar-_. "Words" _quettar_ (_quenta_ is "tale").
What about: _Almaarea ná quén i cenda, ar queni i hlarir
i quettar..._; _quén_ "one, somebody", pl. _queni_ "people, they".

> this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein:
> tama  quonto,   ar mantya tamar natti  imi    tecine:
>  QL    * gen.               *        QL:"in"  past.part.pl.

**"This" is _sina_, "that" _tana_, pl. _sine_, _tane_.
I saw *_apacen_ "after-sight" used for "prophecy".
For "keep, hold" *_hep-_ could be used (Q cognate of S word
found in the phrase _uu-chebin..._).

> for the time is at hand
> ???  i lú nas penanwa.
>               QL:"near"

**For "for" as "because, since" some use _an_, but it is not
certain whether it is correct. Eventually you could use _ten_.
(_An_ is found in Namaarie, _ten_ in Fiiriel's Song.)

> 4. John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you,
>    Yohannallo otso  evandalcarinnar     Asiesse: Listelyen nai,
>      QL abl.     *QL:"evandl" + "carina" * loc.   QL dat.  subj.
>               "temple of Christian missionaries"

**_Evandl_ is surely not valid in LotR-Quenya, because in M-e
there were no christian missionaries. What about simple to use
_otso kordannar_ "to seven temples_?
_Asia_ would become _Arya_ in Quenya.
What about _almie_ or _almare_ for "bliss, blessedness, blessings"?
The imperative _be_ could be here omitted, I think. _Almie len_
"blessings to you!".

> and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come;
> ar  sere,   eryallo man nas,   ar man nes,      ar man nuva
>              abl.      (naro?)       (nero?)          (nuvaro?)

**See above.

> and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
> ar   Valarello otso           nalte   novo  sorinderyesse
>         abl.              "they are" QL:"ahead of"  QL loc.
>                           or "man"

**"From the seven spirits": _otso Valallon_.
_Novo_ looks very doubtful. We have no good word
for the preposition "before, in front of" unluckily. Maybe
you could use _ara_ "beside".
For "throne" we have better word: _mahalma_.
_ar otso Valallon i ear ara mahalmarya_, _ear_ pl. of
_ea_ "is, exists"; _mahalmarya_ "his throne".


Ales Bican

--- "Ice Pick" <icepick3000@...>
> wrote:
>But my other question was this: how do you pronounce _3_ in Q or S or
>whatever else?  EX: _3ar_ is a root in The Lost Road, and it appears after
>the _g_ section, so in conclusion, I could guess that it would be pronounced
>_h_.
>

Well '3' is not used in the transscription of either Quenya or Sindarin (only PQ
"Primitive Quenderin").  In the essay "Quendi and Eldar" Tolkien used 'H'
instead when refering to roots also known from the Etymologies, so it's use may
even have been scrapped.  It is used to represent an Arabic character, I
believe, bu others will have to recall which one.

>I have two new questions now ( goody goody, lol ).  1) How would you take a
>simple root and make it into a viable word?  Such as NUT...
>One particular is the Noldorin word _lhu^th_ ( meaning spell, charm, etc )
>from the root LUK.  Where does the K become TH?

This question is both symple and complicated.  The short answer is: You add an
ending.  There are a great many with various uses.  -ja(-ya) for instace form
mostly adjectives.  The resulting word however is in PQ or CE, "Common Eldarin"
form not Sindarin or Quenya to get an S or Q word one has to follow all the
sound changes that those languages underwent from there roots.  This process can
be fairly straight forward in Quenya but is, at least for me, almost always
tortuous in Sindarin.  See Helge Fauskanger's sites
http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/primelv.htm
http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/affix~1.htm
for some information and examples or read "Quendi and Eldar" by Tolkien which is
found in HoME XI, The War of the Jewels.  It contains the derivation of Quendi,
Eldar, and related words and cognates from roots, and is, AFAIK, our best
authentic text on the subject.


>And 2) how about probunciation and enunciation?  Are there any particular
>rules concerning these?
>

There are definately rules.  See the pronounciation guide in LotR or the
Silmarillion.  For specific information on Quenya there is a website at
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/misc/local/TolkLang/pronguide.html  I hope that some of
this is a help.

Namarie,
Cirk R. Bejnar
Eluchil

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Well, the subject pretty much says it. Nothing seemed particularly obvious,
so I thought I'd ask here. This is part of my first try at writing anything
in Quenya. Someone on one of the newsgroups I frequent would like to
translate "Welcome to the love shack" into as many languages as possible,
and he never specified they had to be real ones. My attempt so far stands
at:
<Welcome> karenna melmeeva
Welcome house-into love-of

Did I use the right cases (and correctly), and is there a better word for
"shack" than "house"? I'm not even sure if _melme_ "love" in the Etymologies
is a verb or a noun, but I assumed the stem MEL- was intended as the verb,
and thought that would mean _melme_ would be the noun. Would _maile_ "lust"
(same problem for me as with _melme_) be more appropriate, given his
intention of putting it on a sign over the door to his room?
I know, it's a silly waste of time, and probably trivial to all the more
skilled among you, but I thought that if I didn't start somewhere I'd never
start at all.

Nicholas Taylor
---------------
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