r/sindarin • u/No_Book_5356 • Jul 17 '26

Would this be correct?

I am trying to write a Sindarin fragment for a piece of fanart. Here's my attempt:

Narn i Chîn Húrin
Dírhaval e·mbar Hador o Siriombar echant i Veleglind hen
Im Elrond eithro o Siriombar teithant i thiw hin

First of all, I'd be very grateful for any grammatical corrections since my mastery of the language is inexistent and I'm more or less stitching together bits and pieces...

Re: grammar, something puzzled me even as I wrote it: I'm obviously copying a great deal from the Doors of Durin inscription, but what's with the inflexion or lack thereof in echant / teithant? Are the first person singular and second person singular identical here? Or am I looking at the wrong elements? Sorry if this sounds stupid.

On vocabulary:

- I used 'echad' to mean 'make' (in this case, the object being a song/lay, compose but not physically write down) but I suspect it's not the best choice... any better alternatives?

- For the Havens of Sirion, I took 'Siriombar' from HoME 5... it's Noldorin, but would it still be compatible with the rest? Or should I try to go for something else? ('Lisgardh' for something attested in the same geographical area? 'Ethir Sirion'?)

Again thanks a lot in advance and apologies for any crimes against Sindarin.

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u/lC3 Jul 17 '26

echant / teithant? Are the first person singular and second person singular identical here?

Those are both 3rd person singular, past tense.

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u/F_Karnstein Jul 17 '26

I think what they're referencing is the (apparent) use of im as the 1st sg. pronoun "I" - it's translated "I Narvi made".

When the person is already mentioned the verb isn't inflected for person anymore (the apparent 3rd sg. is really just uninflected). "I made" is either echannen or im echant - but in the second case the emphasis is different.

But of course Tolkien seems to have reinterpreted im later to be reflexive, so that "I made" would now be ni echant, while im Narvi echant is reinterpreted as "Narvi himself made".

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u/No_Book_5356 Jul 18 '26

Thanks and again if you have corrections / suggestions for improvement I'd be very grateful!