English: You do know what hobbits are the right height for Literal Translation: You know for which a hobbit’s heights good (informal) Guide for Adding Punctuation to the Tengwar and Cirth Cirth, used for Woodelven and Doriathren Sindarin: l#ðR c, tc:c% 1b@lc, 6&@ Tengwar the Mode of Beleriand, used for
English: You do know what dwarves are the right height for Literal Translation: You know for which a dwarf’s heights good (informal) Guide for Adding Punctuation to the Tengwar and Cirth Cirth, used for Woodelven and Doriathren Sindarin: l#ðR c, tc:c% fc!ð9 6&@ Tengwar the Mode of Beleriand, used for
I’m not sure if lay-fans have noticed, but something obvious to Tolkien-language scholars is that the Elven languages aren’t being used exactly the same way in the TV show as they were in the Peter Jackson movies, and the languages themselves are slightly different too. There are a few things
Mary, your name is really cool! It’s an ancient name that has soared in popularity for thousands of years. It’s so old that we don’t exactly know its meaning. We have many, many possible meanings based on linguistic research. There are two main theories. First is that it’s an old
Michael, your name is so cool! It’s a rhetorical question, “Who is like El Elyon?” When it comes to translating this name, we have a huge problem. This name isn’t translatable. Not directly, anyways. Elven names aren’t made from sentences. They’re made by combining nouns, adjectives, and name suffixes. Worse
Samuel, your name is really cool! It’s the name of a biblical figure and has been borrowed into many languages, wherever Abrahamic religions show up. It has two possible meanings. The first is Shmū’ēl “Name of El Elyon.” The second is based off the passage in the Torah describing why
Melissa, your name is really cool! And cute. It means “honeybee.” We find it in Greek Mythology as the name of the Nymph who saved and raised Zeus, and it has changed little from antiquity. I also happen to really love how this name sounds, but I’m a weirdo linguist,
John, your name is really cool! The Abrahamic religions imported it all over the place, meaning that many names that you never considered to be the same name might be yet another a version of Yohanan. The graphic represents only a tiny fraction of the variants of this name, not
There’s this weird misconception that translating a name should be a simple one-to-one process. That a translator should be able to just supply you with an Elven name, like you’re asking for the Sindarin word for “hat” (Carab, by the way). But, there’s so much more to it than that,
Let’s face it. The game developers could really have used a Tolkien-language expert on their staff. I’m going to explain how they messed up, and fix it for them. First off, let’s go back to the 90’s, when Tolkien-language fans were trying to find ways to write in Tengwar on