AuiQwFjNxTU — G+ LoME Archive

Paul Strack Feb 15, 2015 (01:58)

Hi folks,

I've been working on a multi-language Elvish lexicon for some time now, based on an XML data model used to generate entries for individual words and names, as well as their relationships. It covers both early and later versions of the languages (Early/Middle/Late Quenya, Gnomish/Noldorin/Sindarin) and includes data for the main works (LotR, Silmarillion, History of Middle Earth series), most issues of Vinyar Tengwar, as well as the major vocabulary lists from the Etymologies and Parma Eldalamberon issues 11, 12 and 17.

It is still a work in progress, and is very far from being "done" (assuming such a thing is even possible), but it has finally reached a point where I think it might be useful to others as well as myself.

The lexicon is here:

http://eldamo.sourceforge.net/

You can also down the files from here:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/eldamo/

Eldamo : Home

Eldamo - An Elvish Lexicon. by Paul Strack — v0.4.2 — generated on February 14, 2015 2:04:59 PM PST. This collection of documents describes Tolkien's invented languages, particularly his Elvish language, which are the most detailed. I call the collection a “lexicon” because it is not a ...

Anna C. Belkina Feb 15, 2015 (02:37)

Amazing work. Thank you so much for sharing!
What a coincidence - I was just about to ask the community if anyone could share a raw csv or similarly formatted word list for Quenya built from primary sources!

Fiona Jallings Feb 15, 2015 (02:54)

WOW. I'm definitely going to keep my eye on this, and I've definitely been wanting a resource like this.

Paul Strack Feb 15, 2015 (03:14)

Thanks to you both. The current version is by no means complete, since I have quite a few issues of Parma Eldalamberon to get through. I think I have at least 90% of the published vocabulary, though, since I have focused mainly on works with large word lists (e.g. PE11, PE12 and PE17).

Fiona Jallings Feb 15, 2015 (03:20)

One thing I noticed: You need to distinguish Doriathrin from Sindarin. "Dagnir Glaurunga" is Doriathrin (a middle-period language) phrase, and I don't see it in the list of middle-period languages.

Paul Strack Feb 15, 2015 (03:30)

I lumped Doriathrin together with Ilkorin in the middle-period languages. Since they are very similar, I found it easier to analyze them as dialects of the same language.

As for "Dagnir Glaurunga", since it made it into the published Silmarillion, I assumed it was dialectical or archaic Sindarin. There are a couple places where Tolkien indicated that Sindarin may have had an archaic genitive suffix "-a" (PE17/97, VT42/4).

I haven't fully analyzed the Sindarin phrases, though, so will likely make notes on the different theories when I get to it.

Paul Strack Feb 15, 2015 (03:39)

Actually, upon further reflection, you do have a good point Fiona. If someone is looking for Doriathrin in Eldamo, it isn't clear where they should go. I will update the label for Ilkorin so that it is clear that is both Ilkorin/Doriathrin.

Fiona Jallings Feb 15, 2015 (03:41)

Happy to help! BTW, I'm honored that you recommended my textbook! But, it's titled "Your Sindarin Textbook" ;)

Paul Strack Feb 15, 2015 (03:44)

I will correct that in the next version of Eldamo as well.

Daniele Ercoli Feb 15, 2015 (09:23)

Wonderful work, very useful! Thank you for sharing it.

Tamas Ferencz Feb 15, 2015 (09:25)

Amazing work! Many sleepless nights I imagine...
Now to find the most effective way to search all language files at the same time and publish the search results in a human readable way...

ܤܡܝ ܦܠܕܢܝܘܤ Feb 15, 2015 (12:47)

There's a misspelling in Westron "tharatîn" which should be tharantîn. (In relation, the W word for "part, portion" might be tîn or tîn(a); cf. Finnish neljäs-osa, Norw. fire-del etc.)

Paul Strack Feb 15, 2015 (16:35)

Regarding tharantîn, I've corrected the typo and made some notes on its possible decomposition. I'd like to credit you directly, but my system can't render the unicode characters in your name. Do you have an Latinized rendering of your name that you prefer?

Regarding Tamas Ferencz and search indexing, I've thought about it some, and it is challenging to build into Eldamo. Since I want the content to be downloadable, I'd have to write the search index in Javascript, which isn't easy. I will see what I can do, though. In the meantime, hopeful Google will index the site at some point.

Tamas Ferencz Feb 16, 2015 (00:38)

+Paul Strack my bad - I did not mean to ask you to build in a search - I just meant that I needed to find a convenient method to search the downloaded XML file

Paul Strack Feb 16, 2015 (01:26)

No worries Tamas. Built in search is something I am planning on doing eventually. I realized I was thinking about the problem the wrong way, and may have an easier solution than what I was originally planning.

Jenna Carpenter Feb 16, 2015 (14:16)

Looks really useful! Thank you for the link to my site incidentally, I will return the favour as this looks like a really good student resource.

Jonathon Omahen Feb 17, 2015 (04:49)

There is enough ovelap in your endeavour and mine that this will certainly help shortcut much of my work. I do appreciate your efforts as well. I believe I differ on some of the methodology reasoning and the data model representation, but those are rather trivial things. Since you have written rationale, it is easy to navigate and parse your results. Thank you for the ongoing efforts!

Jonathon Omahen Feb 17, 2015 (04:55)

I am also quite pleased to see essentially the SIL semantic domains identified. I am very strongly in favour of this and find it to be exceedingly helpful with identifying semantic frames.

Paul Strack Feb 17, 2015 (06:46)

Johnathon, feel free to use the XML data in Eldamo however you see fit. I put it in the most liberal Creative Commons license for a reason. If you have an existing data set that you are willing to share, I'd be happy to look at it. I did a data exchange with David Giraudeau from his analysis of Quenya word in PE17 are found it very useful in uncovering typos, even though our approaches were very different.

As for Semantic Categories, I agree they are quite helpful, but am embarrassed to admit the semantic classification in Eldamo is not very comprehensive yet. I still have a lot of data entry to do for I can complete that kind of analysis.