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Quenya
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Paragraphs & Analysis
§1
Eru engë, i estaina ná Ilúvatar Ardassë; ar ónes
minyavë Ainur, i ner i híni sanweryo,
ar nentë ósë nó ilúvë ontaina né. Ar quentes
ten, antië lindi lindalëo ten; ar epë se lindanentë,
ar neryë alassëa. Mal an anda lú er lindanentë ilya eressëa
hya uo Ainuli, talumë i exer hlarner; pan ilya er hanyanë
asta sámo Ilúvatarwa yallo túles,
ar handessë onóronto alálanentë lencavë. Er
illumë hlarnentë, tumna hanyanentë, ar alálanentë
vanessë a’rainessë.
And below I’ll give the exact translation, word by word, with all adaptations and synonyms in place, in order to enhance your understanding of how people manage to translate things to Quenya, even though it’s a vocabulary limited artificial language. So, 1st paragraph reads:
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§1
God there was, who called is Ilúvatar in Arda; and he created
firstly the Ainur, who were the children of his thought,
and they were with him before all created was. And he said
to them, to give melodies of music to them; and before him they sang,
and he was joyous. But for a long time only they sang each alone
or together few Ainur, at that time the others heard; for each only understood
the part of Ilúvatar’s mind whence they came,
and in knowledge of their brotherhood they continually grew slowly. Yet
always they heard, deep they understood, and they continually grew
in beauty and harmony.
- Eru Ilúvatar mahalmassë
Now you can read the 1st paragraph closely in Tengwar as well as listen to it! Click on the image with the right mouse button and enjoy!
Time to continue with our analysis. Here I’ll present the 2nd paragraph, a short one (lines #11-15) about the introducing of musical themes by Ilúvatar. So, hear them singing now:
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§1
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§2
Ar marta ten ya Ilúvatar hostanë ilyë Ainur ar
quentes ten taura lin, pantië ten engwer túrë
ar elmendië lá atánies talumë; ar i alcar
mentë ar yestaryava pentë indo Ainuiva, sië
luhtanentë Ilúvatar epë ar nentë hlónilórë.
- Ainur hroalórë indossë
§2
And it happens to them that Ilúvatar gathered all the Ainur and
said to them a mighty melody, opening to them things (more) powerful
and wonderful than he had shown at that time; and the glory
of its end and beginning stroke mind of the Ainur, thus
they bowed Ilúvatar before and were noiseless.
This is the exact, word-by-word translation of the 2nd paragraph. As you can realize, there are some strange constructions when translated this way, but those kind of syntax is absolutely allowed in Quenya. For instance: there are no ‘more’ word to make the comparative needed in #2 of this paragraph. In Quenya, only ‘than’ is necessary to express the meaning intended. “They bowed Ilúvatar before” sounds awfully weird too, but it is permitted. I wrote that way to avoid the phonetic fusion of ‘luhtanente’pë’, which definitely wouldn’t sound that nice in Quenya.
Talking about what sounds nice in Quenya, it’s time to listen indeed to what is the §2 all about!
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§2
In the 3rd paragraph, Ilúvatar finally introduces his idea of composing a Great Music in which the Ainur will have special part, devising Ilúvatar’s will into song. So, here comes lines #16-21 in the Quenya version:
§3
Tá equë Ilúvatar: ‘I lin yo anyárienyel,
merin sí ya caril indë rainessë Túra Lindalë . Ar
pan itintienyel Ilfirin’árenen, tanuval
túrelyar netienen lin sina, ilya sanwë
ar cururyanen, qui meris. Mal haruvan ar hlaruvan, ar nauvan alassëa yanen
le alta vanessë né cuivaina lindalessë.’
- I Nárë Ilfirin
§3
Then said Ilúvatar: ‘Of the melody that I have told you,
I want now that you make yourselves in harmony Great Music. And
since I have kindled you with Imperishable Flame, you will show
your powers “in (order to) adorning (with)” this melody, each with his thought
and his skill, if he wants. But I will sit and listen , and be joyous that
through you great beauty was awakened in music.’
That was the “word-by-word” translation of the 3rd paragraph. The only hard spot here was the verb adorn used in line #19. The verb is easy, (netya) no problem here. But besides being conjugated in gerund (which sometimes is confusing to distinguish in English) there is a instrumental function linked with ‘your powers’! So instead of just conjugating the gerund (netië) with dative suffix (netien) to express ‘in order to adorn’ or ‘in adorning’ (which would be a common construction in Quenya), it requires the INSTRUMENTAL case too, which wasn’t attached to ‘túrelyar’ due to phonetic reasons in this particular sentence. In the end, we get a verb in gerund and 2 case endings: netië+n+nen = netienen. It’s valid since Quenya allows case declination even in verbs according to its syntactical function. Gerund+dative, for instance, you see everywhere…but gerund+dative+instrumental…WOW!
Let’s LISTEN now §3 and the beauty of Quenya sounds…shall we?
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§3
Now all voices are ready to play the wonderful theme of Ilúvatar. Here comes the 4th paragraph where they began the melody and the beauty of Ilúvatar creation. Hearken the 1st Theme of the Ainulindalë!
§4
Sië i ómar Ainuiva, ve ara nander ar simpar, ar simpinar
ar tumber, ar tingeror ar súlinder, ar ve ara únótimë ómali
lindië quettainen, yéser autië i lin Ilúvatarwa túra
lindalen; ar lamma ortanë oialë quaptalë lindion lanyaina
rainessë yanna lahtanë hlarië i tumbor ar i
tárië, ar i nórer Ilúvatarwa ner quanta oloirëo,
ar i lindalë ar i láma tentaner i
Cúma, ar úmes cumna. Ullumë Ainur acárië
lindaleli ve lindalë sina, ananta nes quétina ya er antúra
nauva carna epë Ilúvatar i ómali Ainuiva ar i
Híni Ilúvataroinen epë auremetta. Tá i linder
Ilúvatarwa nauvar tyalda téravë, ar queruvar Eäla talumë…
{End of 1st page. To be continued…}
§4
Thus the voices of Ainur, like beside harps and pipes, and flutes
& trumpets, & ‘twangers’ & ‘windsongs’, & like beside uncountable voices*
singing with words, began to devise the melody of Ilúvatar to a great
music; and sound arose of everlasting exchanging melodies woven
in harmony whereto surpassed hearing the depths and the
heights, and the places of Ilúvatar were full of great flood
and the music and the echo directed toward the
Void, and it was not empty. Never Ainur have made
any music like this music, although it(‘s been) was said that still greater
shall be made before Ilúvatar by the voices* of Ainur and the
Children of Ilúvatar after# end of days. Then the melodies
of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and turn into Being in the moment…
{End of 1st page. To be continued…}
This was by far the most difficult paragraph translated ever! It’s full of musical instruments and as such a specific vocabulary, certainly there would be some words that simply didn’t exist in Quenya. I was a bit lucky, because there is indeed pipes, flutes and harps in Quenya but viols and organs….no! I had to adapt with words deriving from twang and wind to describe the kind of sounds those “unknown” (in elvish culture) instruments would make.
Noteworthy too, it’s the use of partitive plural of ‘voices’ in line 2 & 10 to in fact denote ‘choirs’ (a part of a song made by voices, right? That was my thinking) and also I marked the word “after” because it’s very interesting how the Quenya epë is used in both time and spatial relations. On line 10, for instance, there is “before Ilúvatar” meaning they were in front of him (thence spatial). Here we use epë to mean ‘before’. BUT on the line below, there is “after the end of days” meaning after the time of that particular event, so…we use epë too, however here it means “after”. Tricky, huh? Perhaps, but those kind of singularities just adds to Quenya flavor! And what a surmounting flavor there is to taste!!
Let’s listen now to the end of 1st page. Here comes the 4th paragraph (part I):
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§4
By
Wow. This is… breathtakingly cool. I’m amazed at the time and skill this must have taken. :O
I found a couple of helpful words though, for terms you had to invent things for. According to the Council of Elrond’s Quenya word-list, which is pretty comprehensive, there are viols in Quenya (well, violins and violas. They’ll do): salaquintil is a violin, and salquin is a viola. No need for twangers! Also “quilda” is “quiet, hushed, still”, which might work for “silent.” in §2.
http://www.councilofelrond.com/languages/downloads/quenya/Quenya_Word_%20List.pdf
Thank you, Taz! It really takes much time and patience I should say to translate bit by bit from English to Quenya. As you can see, there are some words pretty tough to adapt into Quenya.
I liked a lot your “quilda” suggestion. It fits very well and I can see clearly its composition from the noun quildë. It makes sense. The viols stuff, well I’m not that sure. You know, I have already seen some doubtful things on that Council of Elrond, that’s why I’m pretty careful to follow it blindly without double checking.
Accuracy is the #1 here and I triple check all sources not coming from Tolkien directly.
You probably know that parts of this text have been translated at least three times before, by Craig Marnock in 1991, by ‘vanlin680′ in 2000
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elfling/message/3816
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/elfling/message/3678
and by Ryszard Derdzinski http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/ainulindale.htm
I think now would be the time to collect all considerations of grammar and vocabulary that have been put into this over time, so they are not simply lost in the depths of the internet, and so that the next person trying this will not have to start from scratch once again.
I don’t think anyone has translated quite such a portion as you have yet, but as you say, the exercise becomes more and more doubtful as you have to make up words for “viols and organ” and the like.
I would really be interested in a close transcription (explaning grammar and word derivation) of your text.
best regards
Well, those two links you showed me have so many mistakes, I quit reading at the 2nd line. On the other hand, Ryszard Derdzinski had done a beautiful job, and it’s certainly my #1 inspiration when I decided to render the whole Ainulindalë into Quenya.
How do you conceive this “collection of all considerations…” you talk about here?
I really wouldn’t use the word “doubtful”, but as deeper and deeper you go, words tend to be more “adapted” instead of “doubtful”. I don’t and no one has to “make up words” for anything. It’s all a matter of using synonyms, solid adaptations and working with words’ etymologies. There is nothing about making up words.
As you aware, this kind of project takes a LOT of time! A close transcription as you want, is a possible thing but very very time consuming. I have so many things to attend to online and offline that I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the proper amount of time to dedicate to a transcription of a full analysis word by word. Of course, if you got some amount of Quenya knowledge, you can easily perceive the words employed in the text, when an adaptation is needed, when etymology does its job and so on and so forth.
There’s already available the literal English text of Ainulindalë where I exemplify how the Quenya text would look like closest to its meaning.
well, if you don’t like the expression of “making up” words, let’s say “finding” words. Of course, Tolkien himself “found” Quenya words as long as he was alive. So, I suppose, any Quenya text not by Tolkien will have to make up its mind which period of Tolkien’s life it is based on. Also, as the Ainulindale was supposed to be written in “archaic Quenya” (” Primitive Quendian”), you can really begin etymologizing stuff and try to come up with a text closer to the “Proto-Eldarin” suggested by the Etymologies. In any case, any translator of any text into Quenya will be forced to make a lot of decisions, and what I am saying is that it would be nice to have these decisions available as a sort of critical apparatus. I am saying this exactly because I know how much work it is to do something like this, and it would be a pity to throw away most of the work done to arrive at the final text.
But of course, because Tolkien is dead, nobody can “find” words for “viol” and the like if there is no unambiguous way to come up with words not explicitly glossed by Tolkien, and no two translators will come up with the exact same solution. Nobody today has a copy of Tolkien’s mind available, so translating stuff into Quenya basically means you are second-guessing what Tolkien *would* have decided if he had done the translation. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but of course no amount of ‘solid adaptations and working with words’ etymologies’ will result in a single correct solution.
No, it’s not about “making up” nor “finding” words. It’s about adapting and composing through etymology.
Tolkien as the single creator of the language was the ONE who created words anyway he wanted (once again not about “finding” nor “making up”) with his great ingeniousness.
Quenya, as known today, is studied with all material available from the late period of Tolkien’s life. Early material is quite distinguishable from the different features the language presented and because of that, the term Qenya is used instead. (I thought you knew that anyway)
I find interesting your argument about the decision making process involved in such a translation as Ainulindalë and perhaps that would be reason #1 if any detailed analysis would be published in the future. That’s a very good strong argument! I liked it.
No two translators would come up with the same adaptation! That’s an absolute truth! That’s why the importance of achieving the most accurate possible. Translators can compose different things with certain levels and degrees of etymological accuracy. That’s where lies the quality of the translation of a language with such limited vocabulary.
Nobody is trying to guess what Tolkien would write or what would be in his mind. One who translates things in Quenya is just working with the tools Tolkien gave. Just that. I am absolutely sure, any fan working his way with Quenya translations will never ever try to supplant Tolkien himself as the source of ALL!
Translation and adaptation through etymology is not about “a single correct solution” but perhaps “multiple accurate ways” of doing it.
Wow… I thank you so much for this, it is amazing.
And most truly I tell you: “You are mostly welcome”
I’m really happy you enjoy my work and your delight lies in the same place where mine is, Tolkien’s art!
Let’s keep spreading his work and specially his utmost masterpiece, Quenya!
I have loved Tolkien’s work ever since my dad read some of The Hobbit, at the age of 5.
That explains a lot! I myself am crazy for languages since early age as well. You know…those things cause a huge impact on a young child as we were!
I have only just started to study Quenya and mostly, I have studied the pronunciation. This site is the best I have found for learning Tengwar, Orthography and Phonetics.
Oh man! That’s awesome! I ALWAYS try my best in everything I do concerning languages!
101% is THE goal! Less is simply not enough!
I am as you say quettandil.
Anwavë nalyë!
Just wow. This is incredible !
This is the sweat of my brow…the fruit of my toil!
I hope you like it!
This is… amazing. Thank you for doing this.
You’re welcome!