Post ggfWjZ7KgY8

Александр Запрягаев Apr 25, 2015 (19:11)

Hogwarts motto, anyone? Behold the linnod of the day!

Cíniel faulug lorel, avo echuiad vertho!

[Having seen a sleeping dragon, don't dare to wake him!]

faulug 'fire-breathing drake' < faw + lûg (Q. foa-lókë) [could also be fólug, I don't wish to obscure the meaning]
lor- 'sleep, slumber' (intrans.) (cf. Q. lor- < (O)L-OR)

Jenna Carpenter Apr 25, 2015 (20:31)

Curious why you aren't using amlug? Or is it just to emulate the form of the Quenya word? (Also surely if you're using fire it should be naur or lach?)

Ekin Gören Apr 26, 2015 (02:07)

Interesting choice for 'sleep'. And I also think amlug would have been a better one.

Александр Запрягаев Apr 26, 2015 (09:52)

Well, never expected this one to be so controversial. +Jenna Carpenter There were two main reasons for me. First, having such a developed classification of drake species both in Q. and S., I just couldn't miss a possibility to denote the dragon as (fire-)breathing one, as suggested by the original quotation. The cognate was made pretty straightforwardly and is not unexpected, knowing amlug and limlug. But more vitally important for me was the problem of accent. Lhûg itself has an over-long vowel in it, and (cf. amrûn) I'm very afraid that amlug with nothing to compensate it would be stressed to its second syllable and break my line. Putting an undoubted diphthong into the first syllable with faulug/fólug is a failsafe thus to guarantee the necessary metre.
+Ekin Gören As +Fiona Jallings rightly pointed to me, olla(oltha)- is an impersonal verb, something like 'it sleeps to me'; in my headcanon, I'd expect some constructions like Balannor olthol/elthiel enni 'Valinor which I see/saw dreams about', and past participle olhannen (olhasten?!) is totally meaningless due to the verb's intransitivity.
But the meaning 'sleeping, slumbering' (state as opposed to 'having dreams') should be somehow rendered in the language; in Quenya there is lor- verb exactly for that; and knowing that the stem is OLOR, not OLOS, in 'mature', PE17-styled language, making a cognate is trivial. Hence, lorel is the simplest and safest method of yielding 'sleeping' in S.; so I employ it.

Jenna Carpenter Apr 26, 2015 (11:45)

There is also the reconstructed losta- to sleep.

Ekin Gören Apr 26, 2015 (12:02)

I was thinking about "losta" too when I said that, but I see your point with OLOS root.

Александр Запрягаев Apr 26, 2015 (12:09)

+Jenna Carpenter For me, losta- automatically feels like something from lod-tā or loth-tā. 'To flower'?

Update: I found an actual Q. losta- 'to bloom' (PE17:26)!

Ekin Gören Apr 26, 2015 (12:42)

+Александр Запрягаев Wow, great! Then, from now on, I'll use "lor-". :)

Jenna Carpenter Apr 26, 2015 (17:42)

Well that would be edlothia- :-)

Ekin Gören Apr 26, 2015 (18:03)

+Jenna Carpenter It is indeed, for Sindarin. Though I didn't said anything about using losta- as "to bloom". In fact, I'm not going to use losta- ever. :D From now on:

lor- for "to sleep" (still thinking though)
edlothia- for "to bloom/blossom"
losta- for, nothing at all.

Fiona Jallings Apr 26, 2015 (19:34)

Though, I usually correct Edlothia to Edlethia, because the -ia causes I-affection. Unless it was coined after the I-affection changes?

Александр Запрягаев May 01, 2015 (17:35)

+Fiona Jallings In Salo's book, the derivation is et-lot-s-ja- > etlotsia- > etloththia- > edl?thia-, so indeed, there are no reasons for not applying the i-affection. On the other hand, there are such words as erchamion, also not affected; possibly, in order not to obscure the root in derivations and/or in later compounds, as you suggested, the i-affection rules could be optional. Also, there is a point for consideration: the word is from a Gondorian password; hence, nothing is to prove that the verb is not a Mannish compound made by people not really understanding the historical developments of Sindarin (not being able to produce losta- from loth correctly and so inventing from known elements)?

Fiona Jallings May 02, 2015 (00:46)

That definitely could be the case. With I-affection, and a lot of the other changes - I try to put the word into its context. When it was coined is very important when it comes to reconstruction. It's like the words Ennor versus Gondor. Ennor is the older term, coined before intervocalic ND became NN, and Gondor would have been coined much later, so that it's ND would stay intact.