Post G7XM8FEba4s

Fiona Jallings Apr 19, 2015 (01:05)

Hi everyone! Remember that kick-starter a while back? Well, this is the sort of website you can make with it! Below is a link to a translation of The Fall of Gil-galad that I did into Sindarin. Check it out! We've gotten most of the bugs worked out, and now we need translators! So, I'm inviting the Sindarin-translators here to help fill the shelves of our library.  If you're interested, join the forum here: http://sindarinlibrary.boards.net/ and introduce yourself, then read this page: http://sindarinlibrary.com/howtocompose.php and start posting!
Sindarin Library
I Lant Gil-galad by Dreamingfifi. Sindarin. English. Tengwar/Angerthas. Grammar. Gil-galad. aran. edhellen. [br]. I. thelegain. linnar. o. then. [br]. I. âr. vedui. dôr. vain. a. lain. [br]. Min. eryd. ar. i. aearon. [br]. [br]. Megil. dîn. and,. ecthel. dîn. laeg,. [br]. Thôl. hílol ...

Paul Strack Apr 19, 2015 (01:19)

Very, very nice!

Hjalmar Holm Apr 19, 2015 (11:21)

In many places in the tegnwar text, i seems to have been substituted for l.

Fiona Jallings Apr 19, 2015 (20:40)

Yeah - someone's been logged on as the admin and has been messing with stuff. Our current theory is that it's someone who hasn't realized we're out of Beta mode and trying to release it, so they can't randomly mess with things to see how they work anymore. We thought we had it handled, but it started up again after I posted the link. So, hold off on making an account - it might get deleted by whatever idiot is screwing things up. Our techie is working on fixing the security problem so this won't happen anymore.

Александр Запрягаев Apr 20, 2015 (14:26)

+Fiona Jallings What kind of texts are accepted? Only translations of Tolkien's works? Prose or verse? What if a text heavily involves my own reconstructions?

Fiona Jallings Apr 20, 2015 (17:55)

It can be a translation of a poem, original poetry, riddles, jokes, short texts, long texts (though, those are harder to do at the moment. It starts getting really clumsy to use after 100 words.) just about anything you want, as long as you translated it. You can't post Tolkien's translation of the Elbereth hymn, but if you wrote a hymn for, for example, Aule, that'd be just fine.

Patrick Gifford Apr 21, 2015 (08:01)

Argh. Please let us know when the tech has resolved this, hard enough learning Sindarin without some bozo screwing with stuff.

Fiona Jallings Apr 25, 2015 (04:42)

And here's a video explaining how to make entries: https://youtu.be/XctQAnkoMYI I can't wait to see what you guys post!

Александр Запрягаев Apr 25, 2015 (10:26)

+Fiona Jallings Huge thanks for a very enlightening video! Some of my questions are now resolved.
Still, what if my composition involves (not widely accepted) reconstructed words? Should I make dictionary entries for them? And if not, how are the readers supposed to understand them?
Also, is there any possibility to upload at least some preliminary set of dictionary entries (Hisweloke, Parf Edhellen, Eldamo etc.)? As of now, typing entries for words in the longest and most discouraging part of making an entry; different people may have diffenent ideas about how to format the entries as well.
And what is the 'Note' section in 'Grammar' for? Discussing irregular forms, explaining the reasoning behind author's reconstructions or maybe both?

Fiona Jallings Apr 25, 2015 (19:27)

Still, what if my composition involves (not widely accepted) reconstructed words? Should I make dictionary entries for them? And if not, how are the readers supposed to understand them?

Add your reconstructions to the database. Just mark them carefully so that people will know that they are not-attested words, and explain how you made the words. The dictionary is designed to be one that grows and shows the words in use, so that it's not prescriptive, but descriptive of what people actually use. If you don't want to add a word to the dictionary, you can give a full description of its meaning and origin in the custom note.

_Also, is there any possibility to upload at least some preliminary set of dictionary entries (Hisweloke, Parf Edhellen, Eldamo etc.)? _

We already have Xandarien's dictionary uploaded, but the process we used to convert it from document to database didn't go very well, especially if there was a special character in the word. We're still sorting those out. I'll see about making an instructional video about the best ways to add dictionary entries. At the very least, I'll write up a guide and post it.

And what is the 'Note' section in 'Grammar' for? Discussing irregular forms, explaining the reasoning behind author's reconstructions or maybe both?

All of the above. Anything that you want to include in the annotations, but that isn't already in the morphology tree.

Paul Strack Apr 25, 2015 (23:15)

I would be happy to help you with a Sindarin data dump out of Eldamo. Since to the data is in XML, it is easy to convert to other formats (e.g. a CSV spreadsheet for editing/import).

I happen to be in the middle of cleaning up the Sindarin data and comparing it to Hisweloke's dictionary, so the data should be cleanish soon.

Fiona Jallings Apr 26, 2015 (01:35)

Here's how to do dictionary entries: http://sindarinlibrary.boards.net/thread/36/using-adding-dictionary-effectively

+Paul Strack  I'm not sure if what you have at Eldamo is very compatible with what we're making here. Yours is better for tracking changes of words over time, and for figuring out what [fill in the blank] word means, but what we're making is a morphemic dictionary. If you decided to convert Eldamo, the content would have to be edited extensively. If you're interested in taking such a project on, I say, YAHOOOO!!!!!  and give you a big cyber-hug and make you one of the admins on the website so you can get to it.

Paul Strack Apr 26, 2015 (02:18)

Actually, I took a look at the format for your dictionary entries and I don't think it would be that hard to do the conversions. Eldamo is organized around morphemes already, so it is mostly a matter of extracting the Sindarin data and putting it into your format: a 2-column CSV with embedded HTML in the second column defining the morpheme.

Like I said, I am in the middle of some Sindarin cleanup I'd like to finish first. Once I am done with that I will take a look at doing an export in your format. It may be a couple weeks, depending on how busy my work is.

This kind of data manipulation is exactly why I created Eldamo. I figured once I had a good Elvish data set it could be reused for all kinds of things. At the very least it could give you a big jump start on hand editing the entries (which I would also be happy to help with).

Fiona Jallings Apr 26, 2015 (02:38)

Are you signed up yet? If you are, tell me your username and I'll make you an admin. Also, here's an e-hug: http://www.aplacetolovedogs.com/2012/12/top-ten-cutest-puppy-breeds-do-you-agree/1486645506/