[Su-tehp]

If anyone is interested in learning how to speak Quenya (High-Elvish) or Sindarin (common Elvish spoken in the LOTR movies), then I suggest you start here:

http://www.ardalambion.com/

This site absolutely rocks if you're trying to learn ANYTHING about Tolkein's languages. It even has a downloadable teaching course on how to learn Quenya, lessons and all!

It has buttloads of links to other useful sites.

Here's another site that has wave files of Sindarin spoken in the Fellowship of the Ring movie, with english translations!

http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie.htm

It's reccomended that you learn Quenya before you learn Sindarin (Quenya is supposed to be easier to learn, according to the Ardalambion site).

Ok, I've rambled on long enough. How many people here are interested in learning Elvish? (I mean, as a purely scholarly matter, of course! )

[Martinus]

In that case try and find out what 'maeglamor' means...

[Su-tehp]

Just one question: is "maeglamor" Quenya or Sindarin? I can give you a traslation, but I need to know which language it is.

EDIT: ok, NM, I figured it out; it's Sindarin. "Maeglamor" literally means "well echo."

mae adv. well (LotR/I:XII, Letters/308MS *mai (MAJ) ) (This means "well" as in "good", NOT "well" as in "water from the well.")

glamor n. echo (Ety/358MS *glamr, OS *glambr- (G-LAM) )

Thank God for the Sindarin dictionary!

[Martinus]

Hmmm, you're slightly off the mark there.

Try splitting it into Maegla and mor, although you might not find maegla easily.

BTW it's quenyan (mor)and sindarin (maeg) but it's interesting to know what the sindarin interpretation is.

[Su-tehp]

OK, "mor" is misspelled; it should be "môr" with the long o and the accent. This threw me off. "Môr" means "dark"

As for "maegla," the closest thing I found was "maegl" meaning "sharp".

So if I've translated it correctly, your name means "Sharp-Dark" but this doesn't make much sense.

I also found "magol" (I think the archaic form is "magl") which means "sword." So maybe you misspelled it, but I think you were aiming for "Dark Sword."

Am I right?

EDIT: Oh, crap! IS THIS QUENYA???? I THOUGHT IT WAS SINDARIN!!! NO WONDER I WAS THROWN OFF!!!

2nd EDIT: Oh, ok, this was Sindarin and the spelling was right; it was my interpretation that was wrong.

[Martinus]

Yeah you got it. It literally means dark and pointing or sharp. I don't use the circumflex or whatever it is above the 'o' for convienience.

It's not mean't to be taken literally though, it's sort of my way of saying 'pierce the darkness' or 'understanding'. It's somewhat abstract.

I'm sorry to have confused you, I need to double check the actual dialect myself because it's been a long time since I read any elvish.

[Su-tehp]

"Pierce the Darkness," I like that.

Yeah, I still have to work on conjugation and word forms and all that, and, as just illustrated above, I still have to figure out the differences between Quenya and Sindarin. I gotta learn both before i can tell them apart.

I think I can come up with a literal translation of "Pierce the Darkness," if you like, Maeglamor. All the same, I don't want to see you change your name; you've always been Maeglamor to me.

Oh, something else for all the HLP forum-surfers. I found a link to a sort of name-list in Quenya. Here it is:

http://www.elvish.org/elm/names.html

If your Real Life (TM) name is not too exotic, you should be able to find a Quenya translation of it here. Enjoy!

[an0n]

Hmmm. Klingon pisses people off no end. Think how annoying I'd be if I could master Elvish.

*goes to learn Elvish and brush up on Klingon*

[Su-tehp]

LOL! IMHO, Elvish is a much more beautiful sounding language. Klingon is filled with harsh-sounding consonants. It's not hard to see that Klingon would be more annoying to most people than Elvish.

Then again, anon, it could just be you that people find annoying, no matter what language you speak! J/K

[aldo_14]

I always thought 'Elvish' was Shaun Connery playing the king of Rock 'n roll.......

[Stealth]

I heare that it's based on Finnish.

[Shrike]

Elves?  We don't need no steenkeen elves!

[Stryke 9]

You people scare me...

[an0n]

Originally posted by Shrike
Elves?  We don't need no steenkeen elves!

Yeah, we need Orcs. Then I could build my army of darkness a LOT quicker.

[Stryke 9]

How about trolls? Seem to be enough here...

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by Stealth
I hear that it's based on Finnish.

The Elvish languages actually were influenced by many languages, not just Finnish. But you're right, Finnish did have a big early influence on them. Spanish did too, as I recall.

[Stealth]

nooo i don't think Spanish.  I'd say it sounds a bit like French, but Spanish it definately doesn't sound like

[Shrike]

I'm going to have to fumigate this forum.  I hate the smell of elves.

[Kellan]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
You people scare me...

So it's not just me?

[Stryke 9]

You know what I hate? Those damn Christmas Santa's-sweatshop elves. You know, the ones who get all slimy if you feed them at midnight and start trying to kill and eat you?

Oh, wait, that's gremlins. Pretty much the same thing, I guess.