Henneth Annûn Story Archive

Hi everyone!

Since you were so wonderfully helpful, I would like to request more assistance -- only this will be much harder.

I'd like to know the Sindarin translations (exact or approximations, or even guesstimates) for the two distinct words, "to tickle (2nd person)" and "eyelashes".

I looked them up in the Sindarin dictionary and didn't find them directly. I also wanted to try "to touch lightly" or "eye hairs", but couldn't find "to touch", for example.

I know this probably isn't possible, but if anyone can think of alternates that I haven't considered that are in the vocabulary, would you please let me know?

My entire experience with the Sindarin dictionary (and language) was to come up with my screen name -- and that took hours... (Not to mention, then I chickened out because "Elenathtiriel" just seemed too long, so I bastardized, um, Anglicized it.)

Whether you come up with anything or not, thank you for reading this!

Best regards,
Barbara

 

Ai! Harder is right – this one’s a toughie… So far I haven’t been able to find any good equivalent for these terms either. Keep in mind these languages are FAR from complete - especially Sindarin.

Suggestion for “to tickle (2nd person)” – well, actually – none!
Possible (very slightly) related term: ercha- "prick" – 2nd person present tense: erchach – you prick.

Perhaps you could rephrase the line you want to translate?


Suggestion of possible constructs for “eyelashes”
Hen = eye
lhê = fine thread, spider filament ; one meaning of _lain_ is ‘thread’; and Fîn = a tress – could possibly be used to mean ‘hair’ in general.

So – henlhê, henlain, or henfîn.

Hope this helps.
Ithildin
BTW, I am always interested if anyone else has further suggestions (or corrections) for these possibilities.

 

I don't know Sindarin, but what looking at the phrase differently like 'feather touch' or 'laughing touch' for tickle?l

from the dragonfire software:
laugh is gladha-
Lalaith is laughter.
lebed is finger

what about laughing finger. gladhalebed ....??????

/yikes/ I'm not sure how well that works

 

what about laughing finger. gladhalebed ....??????

That's great, Sulriel.

Ithildin - I think your first two suggestions for "eyelash" are pretty good, although I would lenit lhê with it being the second part of a compound word -- so hentlhê, or possibly hetlhê -- and probably make henlain into hellain, just for purposes of euphony.

[edit:] Well, let’s see. There’s tyar- in Quenya, “to cause”, from KYAR, which Sindarinises as car-. Of course, car- is already the Sindarin word for “to do”, but it seems to me that these definitions are close enough that car- can be used for either. If you add lalaith and lenit the verb as the second component of the compound, you get, perhaps, lalaithgar- – “to laughter-cause”; or, alternatively, the gerund gladhad, “laughing” (as a noun), can be used for gladhadgar- – although personally I prefer the former.

...I think I have no life...

-Aerlinnel

 

Wow. I just can't believe how talented you folks are.

(Nor can I believe how funny you are...)

I think I'll go with hentlhê for "eyelashes" (because hellain sounds too much like "hellion"...) Is that the plural form?

And lalaithgar sounds good for an approximation of "to tickle" (because gladhelabed sounds too -- I don't know -- Scandinavian or something ).

What would be the second person singular of lalaithgar?

Thank you!

Best regards,
Barbara

P.S. Just to let you know, I have a line in my story: "Why do you tickle me with your eyelashes?", spoken by Rúmil to my OFC. But, it turns out that this OFC is still learning Sindarin, so she doesn't (yet) know the two words, "tickle" and "eyelashes", so she has to ask him what they mean (and, of course, Rúmil then has to demonstrate the answer... Um, did I mention that they're in bed together?)

Right now, the whole sentence is in English, but I thought it would be more effective to have Rúmil say something like "Why do you lalaithgar me with your hentlhê?", so the readers need the words to be translated, too. If I do my job right, the readers will learn what they mean along with the OFC/protagonist (but of course, I will also have translations at the end).

(And in case you read this and think "Mary Sue!", be aware that the story is not exactly a Mary Sue. If you *like* Mary Sues, you will *not* like this story. Trust me on this.) (Notice that I didn't imply that if you *hate* Mary Sues, you will like my story. It's sort of aimed at a very small niche...)

 

The line in your story would be something like, "Why do you lalaithgerich me with your henthlî?" Unless...Ithildin, what do you think? Would the presence of the pronoun "you" in the sentence make the verb lalaithgeri, or just lalaithgar? I remember reading this somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment...

-Aerlinnel

 

If you use the pronoun instead of the pronominal ending you would use the third singular form. So it would be _lalaithgâr_ or maybe _lalaithgar_ since sometimes the accent is lost (or reduced) in the last element of a compound. I’m not sure how that rule would apply to a verb.

There is no specific word for ‘why’ but if we used _man_ “what” + _na_ “for” we might be able to translate the whole sentence.

So, if you wanted it all in Neo-Sindarin – it might look like this:

Man-na le lalaithgâr nin ah henthlî lîn?
- or -
Na-van lalaithgerich nin ah henthlî lîn?

What do you think Aerlinnel?
Ithildin55

 

Yes, this is exactly what I need!

So, in the story, I will have Rúmil say (using English for the parts that the OFC understands, and Sindarin for the unknown words):

"Why do you lalaithgâr me with your henthlî?"


Then, at the end of the story, I will include these translations:

lalaithgâr - (you) tickle, literally 'cause-laughter'

henthlî - eyelashes, literally 'eye-threads' or 'eye-filaments'

Thank you for all your help!

Best regards,
Barbara

 

I think it would be lalaithgar as opposed to lalaithgâr; AFAIK, the vowel only lengthens in monosyllabic verbs. Otherwise, looks good.

-Aerlinnel

 

Got it! Thank you again!

 

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