tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu May 18 08:22:04 1995
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Beginner's Help: Tolkien
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Beginner's Help: Tolkien
- Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 11:20:28 -0500
yoDtargh writes:
>>>>>>>>
Maybe a Tolkien scholar can confirm this, but I think the word for
elf in Quenya is "elda", so perhaps you could use {*'elda'pu'
che'wI'pu'} (the rulers of the Elves).
<<<<<<<<
Yes, "elda" in Q., so 'elDa or 'elDa' (capital D!) is OK in Kl.
Note that we DON'T need to end the word with a consonant: final a
is infrequent but definitely OK.
'Iwvan writes:
>>>>>>>>
The _Kh_ in _Khaza^d_ is an affricate, so {QaSaD} is closer than
{HaSaD}, though again I think it's better to borrow the English
word as {Dorov}.
<<<<<<<<
It's not an affricate, it's a distinctively aspirated stop.
Khuzdul (Dwarvish), like Sanskrit, ancient Greek, and the
Chineses, distinguishes p from ph, t from th, k from kh, where in
each pair the second has, and the first lacks, a clear period of
voicelessness after it. This also comes out as a puff of air.
English and Klingon both tend to aspirate their voiceless stops --
i.e., our p,t,k are more like the Dw. ph,th,kh than like Kh. p,t,k
(at least at the beginning of a word) -- but Klingon does it even
more than English.
What that boils down to is that if a Klingon heard a Dwarf's word
for the Dwarves, "Khaza^d", the initial kh would sound to him much
like his own strongly aspirated q. He'd map the d to Klingon D,
and the z maybe to S but more likely to j: qajaD.
The Elves called the Dwarves Naugrim or Nogothrim in Sindarin; I
forget what in Quenya (my books are at home). You might use
noghotlh, but I'd rather take it straight from the Dwarves
themselves as qajaD.
yoDtargh also writes:
>>>>>>>>
If you assume that "Terra" is the same planet as Middle-Earth,
{tera'ngan} could refer to not only men, but elves, dwarves,
hobbits, orcs, ents, etc. Since you are referring to "men" as a
species, you would use {Human}.
<<<<<<<<
Terra IS the world of the Hobbits: LotR is set on this planet, in
what is now northwestern Europe. When Tolkien writes "Men" with a
capital M he is referring to the human species, so yoDtargh is
correct in translating that with Human.
- tlhIngan veQbeq la'Hom marqem
Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'!
Mark A. Mandel
Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA : [email protected]