G+ LoME Archive
Post Fn236ZCoJgs
ܤܡܝ ܦܠܕܢܝܘܤ, Tamas Ferencz, Poetry, Matt Dinse, Roman Rausch, translations

Matt Dinse Jul 26, 2014 (21:19)

The first part of my translation doesn't look quite right ("to more among us"); any ideas? If there was a suitable verb I wouldn't have to be trying to use the dative and "among" at the same time ...

Also I'm not sure if matnâ would make manta (or if that's just from n-infixion and not suffixion, so that ma-n-ta and mat-na make different forms), as we find quenna (PE19:86) but Tolkien changed his mind about t+n, k+m, etc.

Qui imbi ambe véna anamíre (ná) manta ar tyalie al linde epe malta haurassea, analassëa ambar ná.

"If for more among us food and mirth and song [were] more treasured than hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world" is how I've been trying to word it.

That first part needs work, though, and the word order might need to be rearranged too.

Tamas Ferencz Jul 27, 2014 (00:37)

Some partitive would be nice, qui ana ambe ?? [plural genitive of ve]

Tamas Ferencz Jul 27, 2014 (00:48)

*veon?

Roman Rausch Jul 27, 2014 (01:08)

We do have a (likely) partitive: –ki or –(i)ka in miki, imíka 'among' (VT43:30). One could think about the possibility of applying this suffix directly to the pronoun, but I would just say it like that:
Qui amba nóten imíka vé ...

Matt Dinse Jul 27, 2014 (01:40)

Thanks!
Oops - I actually intended to use a word for "among" (hence "to more among us" in my English) but actually wrote "between" because I've been looking at PE17 so much lately, and thus the Nainie. I like the construction with nóten; it flows better.

Tamas Ferencz Jul 27, 2014 (15:35)

amba in PE17 is classified as an adjective and a noun, so it's possible you can simply decline it: qui amban imbi ve

ܤܡܝ ܦܠܕܢܝܘܤ Jul 27, 2014 (20:34)

Tolkien's original wording was "if more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world".

To translate "to value" here, using a compound verb along the lines of *mirwa+nav-/+nam- seems to me like the most functional solution at the moment.

Matt Dinse Jul 30, 2014 (05:37)

I briefly considered creating a verb (but not with +judge, which I like!), but was discouraged by "[No verbal forms of this stem]" in one of the etymologies for MIR- on PE17:165. Though míria- would seem to contradict that statement, so I wouldn't rule a verb out after all. In that case it should be fine.

Tamas Ferencz Jul 30, 2014 (11:08)

+Matt Dinse
how about using laita- in a metaphoric sense?

Matt Dinse Jul 31, 2014 (00:13)

+Tamas Ferencz
Actually, the translation elsewhere* (which prompted me to try my own hand) used laita-. It's not quite to my taste, though I agree it could be appropriate. A bit more precision (closer to the original) might be possible IMO, though, with some of the options we've been discussing. Though maybe it's just because I'm reluctant to use metaphors? Admittedly my own attempt was a bit more clunky though.

*(it was for a tattoo request that was already completed, so I wasn't going to post "Oh, this is how I might have done it instead" in the thread after the requester got their answer)

Tamas Ferencz Jul 31, 2014 (09:05)

+Matt Dinse
yes, well, it's not ideal, and admittedly tries to mimic English 'appraise'.
I wonder if an idiom like 'hold sg/sb precious' (perhaps with  hep- 'keep, detain') would hold water in Tolkien's Quenya.