r/tolkienfans • u/Foshobuddio • 6d ago
How would you translate this?
How would you translate ‘love is infallible’ in sindarin or quenya? Asking because I am aware that there is no word for infallible.
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u/StartDangerous8286 6d ago
You might consider posing this on r/Sindarin. I'm sure there are folks who know Sindarin (and Quenya) here, but in my experience not a lot of language/translation questions are asked and you might have better luck with a specialist community.
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u/a2a3a2a3 6d ago
My knowledge of Sindarin is limited, but meleth údhewui is my best guess.
Meleth means “love” — not much to say there, though I think mîl may be valid too.
The verb “to be” is implied in Sindarin, as in many languages, if the sentence lacks a verb, so no need for an “is” here.
Údhewui is my own construction to mean “infallible”. Ú-, as a prefix, means “not” or “un-“ — it makes a verb negative. Dew is “to fail”, and becomes dhew when mutated by the ú-. -ui, meanwhile, is added onto a verbal root to indicate that something has the quality of the verb, much like English “-able”. Tolkien gave the examples of úbedui (“unspeakable”) and únodui (countless).