Post duNk1pWzkti

Robert Reynolds Dec 18, 2017 (00:10)

Tékanen síra'r karne rea VinQuenyarin quetta “*equétiévanítas” i mahta *Ingillin [English language] quettar toldo: ‘to have been about to have said it, to have been going to have said it’. Tolkien esta tana kanta “Past Future Perfect”. Quenya amahyarna!

Tamas Ferencz Dec 18, 2017 (09:58)

I don't know what that means in English even!

Robert Reynolds Dec 18, 2017 (13:37)

+Tamas Ferencz I can follow it, perhaps from being a native English speaker, but it's awkward and I can't imagine using it in the real world. To actually use it, I would convert this infinitive to a regular verb tense stem and reword the English gloss of the past-future portion: “equétiévanenyes” ‘I was about to have said it, I was going to have said it’ > ‘I would have said it’. Tolkien's canonical gloss seems fairly literal, almost interlinear, and was presumably intended (ironically here) to clarify the Q semantics; it's ungainly in regular E. Furthermore, he notes that the form is rare and used mainly in the sense of the reformed gloss in conditional statements. Even after all that, there are still five E words for the one Q word or four if one contracts to “I would’ve said it”. :)

Tamas Ferencz Dec 18, 2017 (13:55)

+Robert Reynolds well, as a speaker of an agglutinating language that's not unusual for me:)

Robert Reynolds Dec 18, 2017 (14:02)

+Tamas Ferencz Haha, nice! It's quite unusual for me; I imagine that getting used to E must have been the opposite for you: words, words, and more words! :)

Tamas Ferencz Dec 18, 2017 (14:11)

we can make it a competition: who can come up with the longest (grammatically correct) Q word

Robert Reynolds Dec 18, 2017 (14:43)

+Tamas Ferencz Initial submission: *alamyetengwaniévanenyes “I would have read it poorly (lit. not-excellently)” for 10 syllables and 23 letters. It'll be interesting to see what words persons like you who do speak agglutinating languages can construct.

Tamas Ferencz Dec 19, 2017 (08:53)

+Robert Reynolds nice one!
My entry is vorohtakariendevéatassengwallor.
Translated as "from our concepts of making it like continuous process of warfare".
Nine elements, 31 letters.

Robert Reynolds Dec 20, 2017 (13:50)

+Tamas Ferencz Impressive! I'm unfamiliar with that process so this is my attempt but please feel free to let me know if I'm not getting it (I'd like to learn):
marmaxainamulematietúrevéremálehasiengwalinnar
"to some of our great personal health benefits of home-cooked meal eating"
11+ elements (depending on how one counts them), 46 letters

Tamas Ferencz Dec 20, 2017 (17:25)

+Robert Reynolds ah. Now, you see, what you have done is you have made a monster compound (not unusual in German, for example). What I had in mind was to have a core element (which can be a compound word like sincahonda or parmaresta) and then make new a new word out of it step by step by adding productive prefixes and suffixes to it. In the case of my noun above it was oktakarie "warmaking" > vorohtakarie 'perpetual warmaking_ > vorohtakariende 'the process of perpetual warmaking_ > vorohtakariendevéa 'like the process of continuous warmaking' > vorohtakariendevéata 'make it like the process of continuous warmaking' > vorohtakariendevéatasse 'the concept of making it like the process of continuous warmaking' > you get the idea.

Robert Reynolds Dec 20, 2017 (17:39)

+Tamas Ferencz Hantanyel! It's good to learn about the processes. I had interpreted your entry as a similar loose "genitival" compound. When I'm not babysitting a seven-month-old I'll try your approach too: it seems more "unitary". I did observe when constructing my second entry that one could essentially continue indefinitely along the lines of "the mother's second son's daughter's noble half-brother's..." arta; thus, having a less open-ended approach seems more fitting.

Robert Reynolds Dec 21, 2017 (17:17)

amyandunyarnamaitalenduinesseveaitilvalinnar "toward generally/habitually being similar to some of our concepts of an excellent western storytelling river" 12-13 elements, 44 letters ("river" used metaphorically; I had in mind our evolution of Tolkien's very extensive created mythos by means of Eldarin languages)