According to some name dictionaries, this is scandinavian for "the only mighty one", another says it's Old German "the ever-ruler" - whatever it means, it would be "Ertur" in Quenya; there are many possibilities for grey-elvish, I'll list some: Cauner/Ergaun, Eraran, Eriolár, Evrannon, Erdaur (Erdór?) or Erchír - the last is perhaps the best.
Originally posted by coco_x
Why isn`t there only one elvish language?????
it s only harder to learn it if there are many more. (very hard)
And they werent made to be learned but to make Middle-earth realistic... in fact middle-earth is just the space for the languages to spread their individuality.
Originally posted by coco_x
Do all elvish languages use the same writing ????
They use the same systems, but in variations.
There are three main types of elvish writing - the oldest are the Sarati, then came the Tengwar and the Cirth.
The Sarati are forgotten in Middle-earth and are only used in Valinor. They work in a system likely to that of the Tengwar and also use tehtar for the vowels and are good to be written with a feather, although they're not written from left to right but vertically down. They are not too well-documented.
The next one is the Tengwar-system, invented by the smith Feanor as a further form of the Sarati; they're the letters most people know as "elvish". They were used for the ring-inscription and that on the door of Durin in Eregion; there are modes for practically all languages, including Black Language, the Languages of Men or our modern languages, always with some differences concerning the adaption of the letters for the single sounds. They are supposed to be a phonetic writing, but this fact is often lost, unfortunately, and so there are many ill-looking inscriptions spread on the net. They are created to represent the actual sounds of words, not how they might be originally written in our Latin letters. Like for example the word "knight" - it wouldnt be written k-n-i-g-h-t but n-ai-t (ai being nearly a diphtong, I think), so it's used like the writing you always find in dictionaries for foreign languages after the word in [ ... ].
In Sindarin that doesnt make a real difference, but for languages like English or French it's quite important.
The most important or best-known modes are the "Quenya-mode", the "Noldorin-mode" (used for Sindarin; changing the positions of the vowels and altering some sounds like qu or dh compared to the Quenya-mode), the "Beleriand-mode" (also for Sindarin, but using full letters for the vowels and not only tehtar; also some nasal-changes caused by these vowels) and the "Westron- (or English-)mode" (with letters for sounds like "sh", "ch" and so on). If you learn elvish writing, you'll most probably learn the Noldorin-mode, though it's not the easiest of them.
Finally we also have the Cirth or Runes, used for carving in stone, wood or metal; there are also many different forms for Sindarin, Dwarvish etcetc. The systematical order is similar to that of the Tengwar but they're more pointed and have no round parts so that it's easier to cut them into the materials. They are probably easier than the Tengwar and especially easier to learn as Tolkien gives a whole table inclusive Latin-alphabet- transcriptions, but by far not as beautiful as the Tengwar.
Examples for the Runes are for instance the inscription on Durin's Tomb or half of the lines on the first pages of most LordoftheRings-editions.
So, I think nobody really read these lines... but well... that's the problem, if you try to explain the things the others "really, really, totally seriously" want to learn, nobody will listen to you anymore because all of a sudden everything gets too complicated 😉
Learning "elvish" sounds nice, but is hard work.
As already stated in many posts and by many users,
The simply best site is most probably www.ardalambion.com (about languages);
About writing I can also just repeat what was already said
Originally posted by Exa
...dunno any better (and any more confusing) link than http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/at/ ...You can download Tengwar fonts (that maybe work) also here
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/4948/tengwar
(use YATT http://www.jadro.cz/tengwar/index.php for transcribing, yeah, I do know that's complicated but if you seriously want to learn elvish, you won't come around complicated things)
More infos about Tengwar here
http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_teng_primers.html ("Tengwar Guides"😉
For those who understand a bit german or want to see some examples for tengwar using
www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/tengwar.htm
Linwe Minyatar? I dunno what Linwe is... Minyatar means "first ..."... erm... first... queen? no. please quenya dont leave me... "first father" perhaps? Linwe sounds like Singer or Fish but I dunno what it means
And, I'm sorry, I also have no idea what "Molly" means. Do you know its meaning? Is it related to the Latin word for "soft"?
Ooops Mary? 😄 ok...
There are many translations for this, I've been searching quite long for that, as it's also my name (in the form "Maria"😉 😄
Sindarin possibilities are "Tarlancwen" or "Tarias"; there's also "Aurél" ("Aurélwen", perhaps) for "morning star" and "Saereth" for "bitter"; The Lapseparma also gives the Quenya translations "Sáre" or "Sárie" and "Nilde". Chose which one you like best 😉
[as some might have perhaps noticed I've already posted that before in nearly exactly the same words 😛 ]
Phewww ok... first Eugenia... the female form of Greek "Eugene" which means "noble", so LP suggests "Máranóne" for the high-elven form... Sindarin would be "Maeronnen" or "Onnemmae".
Tiffany is the English form of Greek "Theophania", which means "God-to-appear", LP translates it as "Erutanie", greyelven maybe "Rodothien"? "Eruthia"?
Kaitlin is, I think, a form of Katharina which is Greek for "the pure one" or "virgin"; LP suggests Vendea or Vénie, Sindarin maybe "Úwaeniel"? Or "Gweneth", perhaps?
Margaret is Greek (I think) for "pearl"; in the old Qenya lexicon Tolkien mentions the word "Marilla" for pearl, so maybe "Marille", but it's not sure if this is still to be seen the correct form compared to later Quenya. I don't know any Sindarin word for pearl.
Oh, Kara 🙂 is some form of Italian "Cara" which means "dear" or "precious" ( 😛 )... so Sindarin Mílwen, Quenya perhaps "Melde" (I'm not good at Quenya grammar)
Hope that helps
And about how I do that... I have different sites. The most important ones are of course encyclopaedias with the meanings of the names (mostly "VNL" which is "Vornamenlexikon"😉. I know only few (like Mary, Margaret, Melanie, Catherine) by heart 🙁 Ok then I have some Sindarin and Quenya dictionaries to translate the words I don't know and look up some grammar; and finally for some Quenya names I also needed the Quenya Lapseparma (LP), a site that provides different Quenya translations for names. Very useful as my Quenya is really weak.