I'm Finnish myself and it is actually quite fun to study the similarities in Finnish and Quenya. Like welcome in Finnish is tervetuloa a direct translation would be healthycoming or come in health. Quite close to blessed arrival. 😄
Great video. :-) Tolkien loved his hidden puns and linguistic in-jokes. :-) Lúmenn intentionally similar to Latin lumen ("light") or names like Dior (again, ostensibly fictional, but rather like French d'or, "of gold"). Quenya also shows a lot of its inspiration in real world Finnish not only by some words sounding vaguely Finnish ("omentielvo", "cuiva", "tulta", etc.) but also by having grammar elements that function the same as in real Ugrofinnic languages (even if the vocabulary is obviously fictional). For example, in the Quenya lyrics David Salo prepared for the film adaptations, the lyrics heard briefly in the shot when Gandalf and the balrog are plumetting towards the underground lake include one-word Quenya phrases, such as "Mettanna !" ("To the end !") and "Nurunna !" ("To the death !"). Most Indoeuropean languages would have to render these in a short phrase made up of multiple short words (e.g. English "To the end !", "To the death !", or Slovak "Až do konca !", "Až na smrť !", etc.). But in Ugrofinnic languages, you can often agglutinate these with the help of a suffix into just a single word. In real world Hungarian, you could say the above two words as "Végeig !" ("To the end !") and "Halálig !" ("To the death !"), the "-ig" suffix in the language meaning "towards", "to something", appended to the words for "end" (vége) and "death" (halál). So, Quenya certainly shows grammar rules inspired by Finnish and other related Ugrofinnic languages (Finnish and Hungarian are distinctly different, but much of their basic grammar follows very similar rules). "Sorya" as Quenya for "worry" reminds me of "Sorgen", the German noun for "worries". Maybe the professor got the idea for it there, or a similar language.
I don't know Finnish, but it can be easily recognized that Finnish was a clear inspiration to Quenya (and it is said to be the main inspiration). The syllabic schemes of the two languages are very alike, the vowels and consonants used, the word endings (Quenya endings like *-la* and *-va* , for example, and several others, appear to be very common in Finnish), among other resemblances.
_Nanye_ or _nanyë_ (writing the final _e_ as _ë_ in Quenya words is not mandatory) does not mean "name". It means "I am". In many languages, such as English, saying "I am [name]" is a form of telling your name to somebody (in the case of English, for example, it is even much more common to say "I am Carl" than saying "My name is Carl"). This causes many people to think that _nanye_ means "name" or "my name" in Quenya; but this is not correct. We don't know which construction ("My name is..." or "I am....") the Elves used in Quenya when they introduced themselves to someone -- or if they used both constructions. So, people may use whichever they want. _Nanye_ is comprised of _ná_ (an inflected form of the verb "to be") with the ending _~nye_ / _~nyë_ (or just _~n_ ), used for "I", attached to it. Thus, _nanye_ / _nanyë_ (or just _nán_ ) = "I am". When preceding two consonants (like the combination _ny_ of _nye_ ) vowels are not written with an acute accent; so, _nanye_ / _nanyë_ (sometimes, Tolkien wrote _nánye_ / _nányë_ , but he wrote _nanye_ / _nanyë_ more often, suggesting the latter is preferable). The Quenya word for "name" is _esse_ / _essë_ instead. To say "my name" in Quenya, you must use this word with the possessive ending _~nya_ ("my") attached to it. Thus, _essenya_ ("my name") -- but not _essënya_ (in the middle of a word, _e_ is never written _ë_ , except when this vowel is part of the groups _ea_ / _ëa_ and _eo_ / _ëo_ ). So, in Quenya, "my name is..." would translate, literally, _essenya ná..._ . Thus, when introducing yourself to someone in Quenya, you may say _nanye_ [your name] ("I am [name]") or _essenya ná_ [your name] ("my name is [name]").
@@Artreii That's a good idea, although I guess only few people will have the patience to read a post that big. Kudos to you for having it! I'm going to post another reply to explain something I didn't explain before. It is going to be another big post (sorry, no way it can be different).
@@Artreii I said that writing the *e* in the end of Quenya words as *ë* (with umlaut) is not mandatory (specially because the umlaut or something equivalent is not used in Tengwar -- the Elvish script). The reason for this is that Tolkien used the umlaut above the *e* in final position (and he didn't do it consistently) just to indicate, at least to native speakers of English, that this *e* / *ë* is always pronounced audibly (its sound never fades -- as it does, for example, in the English words "late", "fade") and that it does not undergo a sound change (all vowels in Elvish -- boh Quenya and Sindarin -- have always the same sound, regardless of their position in the word). So, it's up to you whether you will write, for example, a word like *lasse* ("leaf") as *lassë* or not.. You just have to be consistent: Don't write the final *e* of Quenya words as both *e* and *ë* in the same text (use either one or the other). Similarly, the combinations *ea* and *eo* were often (but not always) written *ëa* , *ëo* by Tolkien, just to indicate that the vowels of each of those combinations conserve their respective sounds and that they are pronounced in different syllables. Thus, *ea* is not to be pronounced, for example, as in "leave" or as in "dead", and *eo* must not be pronounced as in "neon" -- in this word, although _e_ and _o_ are pronounced in distinct syllables (as they would be pronounced in Elvish words), the _o_ has a diffetent sound than it has in other words, such as "bed", "elephant", "neck" (this doesn't happpen in Elvish). Thus, a Quenya word like *fea* ("spirit") may also be written *fëa* (it is pronounced "feh-ah"). But if you are going to write those combinations with an umlaut, you need to know which letter will receive it. When the first letter of the combination (in case, the *e* ) is lowercase, this letter receives the umlaut: *ëa* , *ëo* . When the first letter is capitalized (as in the names *Earendil* , *Ewonwe* ), Tolkien usually puts the umlaut above the second letter: *Eärendil* , *Eönwë* . In very few instances, he did the opposite ( *Ëarendil* , *Ëonwë* ), but these are rare exceptions; so, when the first letter is capitalized, it is better to put the umlaut above the second letter. Finally, also in very few instances, Tolkien wrote the combination *oa* (as in *hroa* "body" -- the physical body) as *öa* ( *hröa* ). But he almost always wrote this combination as *oa* ; so it is preferable to avoid writing it as *öa* .
*Aiya* (variant *aia* ) means "hail" as a greeting. It is also described as "a call for help or attention", said to be "only addressed to great or holy people like the Valar, or to Eärendil". Another greetings in Quenya was *hara máriessë* (#) "stay in happiness", or just mariessë "in happiness" for short, and the well-known *elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo* "a star shines upon the hour of our meeting". # *Hara* is a coloquial form of the imperative of the verb "to sit", "to stay" (verb stem *har-* ); the "actual" imperative form being *á harë*.
*Alámenë* looks like a Quenya word, but I couldn't find it on any dictionary I know. I suspect it is not Quenya (maybe it's Neo-Quenya). It is curious how this word resembles Quenya *alamë* , which is the pronoun *më* "us" with the negative imperative particle *ála* "do not" prefixed to it ( *ála* is the imperative particle *á* / *a* + negative particle *lá* "not" in the suffix form *-la* ). *Ála* is prefixed to pronouns in negative imperative phrases. Eg.: *alamë tulya* "do not lead us" ( *tulya* is a form of the verb "to lead").
My remarks on *saesa omentien lle* for "pleasure meeting you": *Saesa* is not a Quenya word. It doesn't even fit the Quenya phonology - the vowel combination *ae* doesn't occur in Quenya, neither as a diphthong nor as a hiatus ( *ae* is a diphthong in Sindarin, but *saesa* doesn't exist in this language, too). A Quenya word that could be used for "pleasure" is *alassë* "joy", "merriment". Also, *llë* is not an independent pronoun. It was meant to be a pronominal ending, *-llë,* to be attached to verbs and used as a plural "you"; but Tolkien changed it to *-ldë* - e.g.: *melinyeldë* "I love you"(as a friend) , which containins the verb *mel-* "love" (as a friend) + *-nyë* "I" + *-ldë* "you" (plural - used when you are addressing two or more persons). The independent pronouns for "you" are *tyë* (singular, familiar/intimate), *lyë* (singular, polite) and *le* (plural). Also, *omentien* actually means "for meeting", "in order to meet". It is the gerund *omentië* "meeting" (verbal stem probably *omenta-* ) with the dative case ending *-n.* In English, the gerund of a verb ("meeting", "singing",...) is used as a noun, often in place of the infinitive ("to meet") - Saying "pleasure meeting you" is the same as saying "meeting you is a/my pleasure", where the gerund "meeting" is used as a noun (it represents a thing, and thus could be replaced by "it" - "it is a/my pleasure"). In Quenya, the gerund is used in the same way: It functions as a noun and is used in place of the infinitive in sentences like "pleasure to meet you" / "pleasure meeting you". In Quenya, the infinitive is only used to combine verbs, as in "I want to fight the Orcs"; which, in Quenya, translates *méran mahta i Orcor* , where the infinitive *mahta* "to fight" is used in combination with *méran* "I want" ( *méra* "is wanting" or just "wants" + *-n,* the short form of *-nyë* "I"), and *Orcor* is the plural of *Orco* "Orc". But in "I came to fight the Orcs", the infinitive "to fight" denotes a purpose ("I came _for fighting_ the Orcs" or "I came _in order to fight_ the Orcs"); so we use the gerund in the dative case: *mahtien* "for fighting" / "(in order) to fight" → *Tullen mahtien i Orcor* "I came to fight the Orcs", or, literally, "I came for fighting the Orcs". In "pleasure meeting you" (or "pleasure to meet you"), the verbal form "meeting" (or "to meet") has the value of a noun (it is used as a "thing"), so we use the gerund; but, since it does not denote a purpose, we do not use the dative case. Thus, *omentië* "meeting" (seen in the greeting *elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo* "a star shines upon the hour of our meeting"), not *omentien. All in all, "pleasure to meet you" would literally translate, in Quenya, *alassë omentië le* (if addressing two or more persons) or *alassë omentië lyë* (if addressing only one person - and using the polite/formal "you" because you are not inimate of the other person). But, in Quenya, you would probably say *omentië le/lyë alassenya ná* "it is my pleasure to meet you", or, more literally, "meeting you is my pleasure" / "meeting you is a pleasure of mine" ( *ná* = "is"), or perhaps *omentië le/lyë alassë ná* "meeting you is a pleasure".
I always loves your videos that discuss elf language, because your videos I already know most of the Sindarin language and now is the Quenya Need more❤
For me, I don't know really. I've always liked how Aragorn speaks Quenya, but maybe it's just because of his character, and I guess that's not really a dialect then ^^
Regarding *hantanyel órenyallo* "I thank you from my heart": It is also possible to say *hantan lyen órenyallo* or, less often, *hantanyë lyen órenyallo* "I thank to you from my heart" - only using the pronominal ending (which is attatched to the verb) for the subject, "I", either in its short form, *-n,* or in its long/full form, *-nyë,* and using the independend pronoun for the object, *lyë* "you" (rather than the pronominal ending *-lyë* ) because it is inflected in the dative case, *lyen* "to you". And, since word order in Quenya is quite free (because it is a highly inflected language), we can also say *órenyallo hantanyel* or *órenyallo hantan(yë) lyen* or *lyen hantan(yë) órenyallo* or *lyen órenyallo hantan(yë)* , ... However, the current understanding is that pronominal endings are only used for the 3rd person. So, *hantanyel* "I thank you" would probably not occur in Quenya. We would only have *hantan(yë) lyë* "I thank you" or *hantan(yë) lyen* "I thank to you" (with dative "you"). Again, different word orders can be used.
@@Artreii Hmmm, it says on "lotr.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hobbit:_The_Battle_of_the_Five_Armies", "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies". The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is when this happened according to this. I guess I need to go ahead and watch the Hobbit Films @_@' I admit, I tried to watch them, but I found them hard to follow, due to lack of exposition. I guess I'm one of those Old School people (being 70 year sold), where I like to have some kind of explanation as to what the characters are going to do next.
@@kelvottomatpelaajat3797 I learned about it from other people in the comments who said I should explore Quenya - and so I did. And then I tried getting my info from the most reliable sources on the internet, that's it ;)
*Alámenë* looks like a Quenya word, but I couldn't find it on any dictionary I know. I suspect it is not a Quenya word. Curiously, there is *alamë* , which is the pronoun *më* "us" with the negative imperative particle *ála* "do not" prefixed to it ( *ála* = imperative particle *á* / *a* + negative particle *lá* "not" in the suffix form *-la* ). *Ála* is prefixed to a pronoun in negative imperative phrases. Eg.: *alamë tulya* "do not lead us" ( *tulya* is a form of the verb "to lead").
Study materials for learning about the grammar / morphology: - middangeard.org.uk/atanquesta/ - en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Quenya - tolkienlanguagediscussion.blogspot.com/2013/01/quenya-language-class.html - realelvish.net/wordlists/quenya/pronouns/
One of the very best websites with a Quenya course I ever came across is "Council of Elrond"(councilofelrond.com -- there is also a Sindarin course there). CoE has the best course (both Quenya and Sindarin) I know of for beginners, but it is just as good for more advanced students, too. Another website I strongly recommend you to learn Quenya from is Ardalambion (folk.uib.no/hnohf/ -- no Sindarin course, though). The Ardalambion course is, like, mandatory. Ardalambion is the site of Helge K. Fauskanger, the most famous guy in the universe of Tolkien's languages. Ardalambion's Quenya-English and English-Quenya dictionaries are the best.
The imperative (command) form is either *á enyalë!* or *enyalá!* Paul Strack's article on the Quenya imperative(s) : middangeard.org.uk/aglardh/comment/812 A Quenya pronunciation guide with soundfiles : tolklang.quettar.org/pronlo/pronguide.html
I don't know if you want the infinitive or the imperative form of the verb. But the verb you are looking for is *enyal~* , which means "recall" (= "remember"). This is the verb stem, not an inflected form of the verb. If you want to use the verb in the infinitive ("to recall" -- as in "I want to recall"), you must add an *e* to end of the verb stem. Thus, *enyalë* "to recall" (or *enyale* , if you prefer to write the final *~e* without the umlaut). The imperative ("recall!") is identical to the infinitive, except that the imperative particle *á* (also *a* ) is placed before the verb - not prefixed to it (but it can be prefixed to pronouns). Thus, *á enyalë!* "recall!" (= "remember!") is the basic form of imperative with the verb "to recall". A more informal construction has the imperative particle *a* appended to the end of the verbal stem ( *enyal~* ): *enyala!* "recall!" (= "remember!").
could anyone please help me with how to say "would you care to dance with me" in elvish with the pronunciation i have been all over the bloody internet trying to find it but the best i can find is "Lle narna Salk" but even if thats the right elvish sentence i am looking for i got no idea how to say it
Yeah, I understand your frustration - it's really not an easy sentence for Elvish. What I can help you with is the pronunciation of the phrase you found. The double "L" at the beginning should be read as pretty much a single one, then "e" like in the word "then" (basically "eh"). "A"s always kind of like in the British accent (the word "dad" for example), then roll the "R". I've heard a good tip in the comments that it should all sound like "a sound of bells". Hope it helps and good luck!
*_Ma nauva alasselya liltië as ni?_* or *_Ma nauva alasselya liltië asinyë?_* , both meaning: "Will it be your pleasure to dance with me?" (literally: "Will it be your pleasure dancing with me?") Explanation below (warning: it's long): There is no attested Quenya verb for "to care"/"to mind"/"to bother". But if we replace your question with a similar one, such as "would it be your pleasure/joy to dance with me?", maybe we could translate it into Quenya. "Do you want/wish to dance with me?" would also do, but since it sounds (at least for me) informal/familiar, in comparison to "would it be your pleasure/joy to dance with me?", I'm gonna use this one. We still have the problem that, in Quenya, there is nothing equivalent to "would". But we can circumvent this by using "will", instead: "Will it be your pleasure to dance with me?", which is essencially the same question, and it can be easily translated to Quenya. "Will" is an auxiliary verb, used to form the future tense in English. No auxiliary verb is used when forming the Quenya future tense, which is expressed by the ending *_-uva_* attached to the verb. Thus, in Quenya, "will it be your pleasure to dance with me?" translates: *_Ma nauva alasselya liltië as ni?_* *Ma* has no translation in English. And it isn't an actual word, but just a particle used to make questions, placed in the beginning of the sentence. *Nauva* is the future tense of "to be", so it translates "will be", also "shall be" (the infinitive is *na* "to be"). Notice that there is no pronoun for "it" in that particular sentence (but the pronoun is included in the English translation: "will _it_ be your plesure/joy. to dance with me?"). *Alasselya* means "your pleasure/joy", and consists of *alassë* "pleasure/joy" with the possessive ending *-lya* "your". This ending is the polite/formal version. The familiar/informal vesion is *-tya* (and there is also the plural version *-lda* , used when you are addressing two or more persons). Since "will it be your pleasure to dance with me?" sounds a rather educated question (in my opinion), I think it is better to use *-lya* . The third to last word, *liltië* , is the gerund of "to dance", so it literally translates "dancing" ("will it be your pleasure dancing with me?") - infinitive *_lilta_* "to dance". The second to last word, *_as_* , is the preposition "with"/"together with". And, last, *ni* is the independent pronoun for "I", "me" (but, in Quenya, personal pronouns usually appear as verb endings). _Note:_ In the Elvish script, there is nothing equivalent to the question mark. Quenya uses *_ma_* , while Sindarin apparently uses nothing. But the question mark is included when transliterating an Elvish language (either Quenya or Sindarin) to the latin alphabet or any other script that uses the question mark or something equivalent in written form. it seems that pronominal endings can be attached to the preposition *as* "(together) with", as suggested by the attested example *_i Héru aselyë_* , translated "the Lord is with thee", where the pronominal ending *_-lyë_* "you" (formal/polite) is attached to *_as_* ( *aselyë* "with thee/you"), an additional *_-e-_* inserted as a connnecting vowel before *_-lyë_* because *_as_* ends in a consonant. Tolkien changed the word *héru* "lord" to *heru* in LotR-style Quenya (our cup of tea). The Quenya equivalent to the copula "is" is *_ná_* . Note that it was omitted in *_i Héru aselyë_* , which often happens in Quenya when the meaning is clear without it (if the copula wasn't omitted, we would have *_i Héru ná aselyë_* ). Following the given example, instead of using the independent pronoun for "I/me" ( *ni* ), let's attach the pronominal ending *_-nyë_* to *_as_* . But, while *_-lyë_* (and any other pronominal ending except *_-nyë_* ) uses the connecting vowel *_-e-_* when appended to a word that ends in a consonant ( *as* + *-lyë* = *aselyë* ), *-nyë* uses *-i-* instead ; so we have *asinyë* "with me" (not *_"asenyë"_* ). *_Ma nauva alasselya liltië asinyë?_* So you have two options. Just pick up the one which most appeals to you.
cheers man, thanks for the detailed answer i ham still waiting for the chance to ask this to a person, but you have increased my confidence no end !!!!!
As a native Finnish speaker my experience is that it doesn't sound Finnish so much, but I can notice the influence. Considering how different languages English and Quenya are, I highly respect Tolkien's achivement in this and all other work he has done. It is evident that for Quenya he sought influences from Finnish and as evident that there are also influences from other languages. I don't know about the grammar of Quenya, but seeing long word-forms with many elements is familiar element in Finnish and other agglutinative languages. Some word forms could be phonetically Finnish, some not, because they look more like Spanish or Hungarian. I know that there are some word roots with Finnish influence, and one of them is from Finnish tule- 'come'. You can recognize it also in word meaning 'welcome'. Finnish word is "tervetuloa", which literally means 'healthy coming' ("terve" means both 'hello' and 'healthy'). I would say that from Finnish point of view the Finnish inluence in Quenya is at least giving some flavor of morphologically complex languages, in which phonotactics is such that syllables are often consonant-vowel (which shows also in Finnish names like in my own name or in place names like "Vanajavesi" and "Kalajoki"). I can't say how deep in Queanya language these influences reach, but probably deeper than superficial level. It is not like it sounds some language that could be related, but it sounds very beautiful with prestige. Tolkien's effort is remarkable.
The sentence is meaningless. It is a chop suey of words which look like Sindarin and Quenya words put together in the same phrase, but they are neither Sindarin or Quenya. To be fair, "na" can be both Quenya amd Sindarin and it is a form of the verb "to be", probably meaning "is", "are" in that phrase, and "andave" is a Quenya word (precisely, an adverb) which means "(for) long" - as in "may you live (for) long". All the rest are words that were just invented to look like Elvish words.
Depends on what you mean with "real". They are not real languages insofar as they didn't come to exist naturally (they are fictional, constructed languages). But they are real because they do exist as languages: They have a vast vocabulary and a good set of grammatical rules, so they can be used, - even though the insuficient vocabulary and grammar rules impose limitations to their use (you can say many things and write texts in Elvish, but you can't really have a conversation or write a long story, for example).
I mean, your pronunciation sounds like crud, as your accent is extremely heavy. Otherwise this is hilarious to watch... It's like a fun little story... And poor Celebrimbor... he didn't deserve to be treated that badly...