It is well-known that in the late 1950s Tolkien made an attempt to revise the cosmology of his imaginary world in order to make it more realistic and scientifically credible than, as he put it, “the Flat Earth and the astronomically absurd business of the making of the Sun and
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
Over the years, I’ve translated dog commands for a few people, so I’ve decided to make it a short article for all you nerdy dog trainers. Before I started translating, I looked up some research on what exactly dogs hear when we speak. Turns out that what they hear best
Rachel, your name is really cool! It means “ewe” in Hebrew. Sindarin Sindarin doesn’t have a word for “sheep.” We have two options here: Use a less precise word for an animal: Lavan. Coin a new word, based on the Quenya word and the ancient root it was based on,
Timothy, your name is really cool! It’s an Ancient Greek name that means “Honour God.” The “Honour” part is a verb, so we’ll make that into an agental noun (honourer/one who honours) to make it fit with Elven name-structures. The Theos part here is referring to the Christian god, so
Madeline, your name is really cool! It’s from the Ancient Greek word meaning “of/from Magdala.” It was used as an epithet for one of the many Biblical characters named Mary, and started to become used as a name on its own after the translation into Latin. Magdala itself is the
Roman, your name is really cool! It’s a name based on the Roman ethnicity, and those are really, really difficult to translate. Well, you know me, I love it when it gets interesting! Sometimes when translating an ethnicity, you can go back to what the name of the ethnicity means.
Dennis, your name is really cool! It’s an ancient Greek name that means “the Zeus of Nysa.” Nysa was a forested land of nymphs where Dionysios was raised. Zeus was his father, which is why he was named after him, much the way that Finwë’s descendants include “Fin” in their
Christine and Christian, your name is really cool! It’s a Latin family name meaning “follower of Christ.” This -iāna/-iānus suffix, which was used for members of a family or of a group having something to do with whatever the suffix is attached to, survives for us as the -ian suffix.
Joseph, your name is really cool! It’s an ancient Hebrew name meaning “he adds [to].” Elven languages don’t have sentences in their names. Instead, we’ll take the verb “to add [to]” and use agental suffixes to make it mean “one who adds [to].” Sindarin Sindarin has two verbs that are