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James Coish Mar 14, 2017 (04:09)

Is this correct? Yessesse, Ranta 31:49 Ar Mipsa, an quentes, I HERU ávet tire imbe, íre vanwe velto.

Paul Strack Mar 14, 2017 (04:50)

A phrase like "May the LORD watch between us (you and me)" is the ideal situation to use the adverb nai "may it be", which is used in the expression of a wish. Also, rather than using the normal inclusive 2nd person plural ve, I would use the 2nd person dual inque "you and me", which is my favorite Quenya pronoun.

So nai i HERU tire imbe inque.

Note that nai is usually used with the future tense, but the aorist is also allowed, especially of timeless wishes.

James Coish Mar 14, 2017 (04:54)

I forgot about inque! I love it too. The version I had almost sounded imperative. I like the nai better.

James Coish Mar 14, 2017 (05:02)

Yessesse, Ranta 31:49 Ar Mipsa, an quentes, nai i HERU tire imbe inque, íre vanwe inque.

Paul Strack Mar 14, 2017 (05:11)

The second half of the phrase is trickier. The most common English translation I found was "when we are absent one from another" or something similar. There are a bunch of different Quenya words for "when", and I am not sure of the best one to use. íre probably works, but my intuition says that the generalized relative pronoun might be better.

vanwa "gone" could work, but I'm really not sure how to express "from one another". The key idea here seems to be separation, so I might use that instead, so perhaps satya "separate".

Maybe yá satya inque ná (lit.) "when separate we are"

I must confess I am not entirely satisfied, and I wish I could read the original Hebrew to get a better translation.

Paul Strack Mar 14, 2017 (05:28)

Here is another take at the second half of the phrase. Maybe you can use "be gone" as a verb, auta- "to depart", in the perfect tense avánie "have/are gone", with the 2nd person dual so avániengwe.

Perhaps "one from another" can be expressed with the impersonal pronoun mo "one" and the the ablative of the noun exe "other" hence mo exello.

Thus perhaps yá avániengwe mo exello "(lit.) when we have gone one from other".

To be honest the perfect feels awkward here, so maybe the aorist is still appropriate: yá autangwe mo exello. At least that scans better.

Tamas Ferencz Mar 14, 2017 (09:45)

Here's a bunch of translation variants of that verse: biblehub.com - Genesis 31:49 It was also called Mizpah, because he said, "May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.

For "away, separated, absent" perhaps simple oar or háya would work, too; but I also like the root NEK; I wonder if the suffi -enca could also function as a sperate adverb.

Rick Spell Mar 31, 2017 (02:18)

+Tamas Ferencz​ That is an impressive array of versions and information! I use Logos on my computer, but will remember this for away use