Monday 4 June 2007

Turin and the Dragon - Work so far

Did some more work on draft translation of Tolkien's The Lay of Turin and the Golden Dragon - from HME vol 3 (page 5) - so far

Turin ion Hurin a Glorund i thlug

Ai! I thlug vallon en-balan udun
I fuin in-thaurion ardahon si pellen
in naeth edain a nirol in-edhil
firiol [hethan] dad vaid glad
nai si naro a i eneth nidwain
o Niniel naer a i eneth nurwain
o Turin ion Thalion orthornen na amarth

Nae! Hurin Thalion vi in choth auth
orthornen, [ir] gwaith o Edhelrim
cemmin vaen [noner horn]
pain an ngurth na i dhelu naer o Morgoth

Taw parth esta aen [ ] na i'waith
esta Ninin Unorthradin - Nirnaeth Arnediad

Key Questions:
1) Forming an adverb for faintly (hethan?)
2) Expressing the when for temporal clauses
3) The Sindarin word for "yet/still"

I've made an assumption in translating "were driven" as _noner horn_ which is using the past passive verb to be were with the adj for compelled - need to research if this is correct

More to come

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hello!

Some comments:
_lhûg_ is "snake, serpent" (though it may have been replaced by _lŷg_); I'd suggest _amlug_ for 'dragon'. Plus there's the bonus of not having to get into the controversial debate over whether the lenition of lh- is thl- or l-.

Next, you use _Glórund_ whereas the later version in Tolkien's mythos is _Glaurung_ — are you trying to stick with older forms, e.g. _Erithamrod_?

I'm not sure where _taurion_ comes from - if you're trying to add a suffix -(i)on to augment "forest", I wouldn't expect there to be -i- in it, but then _*tauron_ would conflict with _tauron_ "forester", a name of Orome. Why not try _I fuin in-eryn_? And in any case, nasal mutation of _in + t_ would become _i th_, not _in th_. ;)

_Ardahon_ is _ardhon_, but you already knew that.

There isn't an attested Sindarin verb for "weep", so perhaps _In naeth Edain a nîr in-Edhil_, "the woes of mad and tears [weeping] of Elves"?

I'm not sure what function you intend for _*nai_, which isn't even an attested word as far as I know.

_a i_ might become _ah i_.

-wain is definitely _not_ a superlative suffix. The only example supporting this was the interpretation of _Iarwain_ as "oldest", whereas Tolkien revealed that the name actually meant "old-young", to describe Tom Bombadil's nature. See Lambengolmor 642, in which Bertrand Bellet suggested the meaning old-new _before_ Tolkien's note was even published, and Lambengolmor 877 in which it is confirmed and the analysis of -wain as a superlative suffix shot to pieces.

However, this doesn't mean there's no way to intensify adjectives. You might want to Google "Parma Tyelpelassiva" and look at the articles there - the one called "intensifying prefixes" is what you're looking for.

Next, there's no instances with verbs in -r having a pa.t. from old -ne, save in Old Noldorin of the Etymologies, in which those verbs later have -ant anyway. I suggest you look at the Sindarin Verb page on Parma Tyelp. as well.

I think _ir_ for relative (not interrogative_ "when" is fine.

You have some mutations problems again - _in choth_ would be _i chyth_.

I would expect "white-clad" behind "armies" in an adjectival sense, and a past participle rather than _in hemmir_ (though that would become _i chemmir_, i.e. _in gwaith fainchemmin en-Edhelrim_.

I notice you use _o_ for "of" a lot — its use is closer to "from". I.e. "an Elf [from] Imladris". "The white clad armies from the Elven-folk" works okay, though I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were using.

_*taw_ is a reconstruction, though I might expect _*tan_ after Q. _tana_, matching Q. _sina_ > S. _sen_. So _parth dan_?

As for _Nínin Unothradin_, that's a phrase of Noldorin of the 20s which was replaced by various other phrases eventually leading to __Nírnaeth Arnoediad_. If you wanted variation, you might be able to use _Nírnaeth Aronoded_, though that's a little close. But you seem to be fine with using older forms (Glórund, Erithamrod, etc.)

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