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Suggestion - The Elvish Section
http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=21998
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Author:  dreamingfifi [ February 4th, 2012, 4:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

I'm putting together a useful links section for Elvish-Enthusiasts. I'm dividing the sections into "Casual" "Lingua-Curious" and "Linguist". Does that sound like a good way to divide up the various Elvish websites?

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ February 4th, 2012, 8:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

Crutchie is currently working on the Elvish sections now. I'm not an expert on the content we have currently, or the proposed new content. I just know what sections could be made neater to look at.

So to help Crutchie (and to some degree myself), the Elvish that dreamingfifi has given us, is that to replace all of the pages we have on AU? Are they extra? And what exactly are we removing from our current content? As I said, I have no idea. :goofy:

Author:  dreamingfifi [ February 4th, 2012, 9:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

Johnny's Fan wrote:
Crutchie is currently working on the Elvish sections now. I'm not an expert on the content we have currently, or the proposed new content. I just know what sections could be made neater to look at.

So to help Crutchie (and to some degree myself), the Elvish that dreamingfifi has given us, is that to replace all of the pages we have on AU? Are they extra? And what exactly are we removing from our current content? As I said, I have no idea. :goofy:

This is replacing all of the Elvish content except the interview. It includes 2 new pages: Elvish Website Links and Pronunciation, and removes the phrasebook, namelists, and wordlists.

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ February 4th, 2012, 9:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

Ah, thank you. Now everything is clearer. :D

Author:  Harthad [ February 4th, 2012, 9:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

Oh, Dreamingfifi, can you please edit the file with all the sections so that it doesn't include your site's CSS? It would just be easier for me to add to the pages. :) And thank you for clearing up what I'm supposed to add/not add.

Author:  dreamingfifi [ February 4th, 2012, 9:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

The CSS is in it's own separate file, so the CSS script isn't actually in the page. I set it up so you can just "view page source" and grab the HTML.

Author:  Anameleth [ February 5th, 2012, 5:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

I think we should have a phrasebook and namelist still, as they are part of what makes AU's elvish section unique. From what you've said, dreamingfifi, what we have isn't good enough, but maybe you or one of the others working on this section could make new ones?

Author:  [ February 5th, 2012, 6:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

I don't know if you are planning to remove it, but can we please keep the Elvish from the movies? It might or might not grammatically adhere to the Elvish dreamingfifi studies but as long as we clearly state the difference I'd like to keep it. It gives a nice overview of the phrases from the movies. :-)

Author:  dreamingfifi [ February 5th, 2012, 5:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

Eä wrote:
I don't know if you are planning to remove it, but can we please keep the Elvish from the movies? It might or might not grammatically adhere to the Elvish dreamingfifi studies but as long as we clearly state the difference I'd like to keep it. It gives a nice overview of the phrases from the movies. :-)

It's not that it doesn't grammatically adhere to what I study, it's just outdated. Since those Elvish lines were written, several important publications happened. Ae Adar Nín (The Lord's Prayer in Sindarin) hadn't been published yet - a composition that taught us a lot about subordinate clauses, syntax, the imperative, and pronouns. The Addenda and Corrigenda to the Etymologies hadn't been published yet - a source of hundreds of words. Eldarin Hands, Fingers, and Numerals taught us a lot about, well, hands, fingers, and numerals. And finally, Words, Phrases, and Passages in Lord of the Rings revolutionized pretty much everything that we had known, and it was published 4 years after the last movie came out. David Salo didn't know that the past tense system he was using was Tolkien's thoughts for Noldorin (an earlier version of Sindarin) and had in fact been replaced by the time he wrote WPP. He didn't know that the word for the nominative familiar "you" was "ci", and the nominative verb suffix was "-g", not "-ch" which we now know is a dual plural familiar "you". He didn't know that the syntax for sentences with pronouns was different from the syntax for sentences with normal nouns. (SOV versus SVO) He didn't know that "an" didn't use nasal mutation, but a mixture of nasal and vocalic mutation. He didn't know that there is a diminutive suffix that can be placed on nouns to make endearments. Most of the problems in his translations are just that we now know so much more about Tolkien's work than we did back then! (Another huge problem is that he could get a bit far-fetched in his reconstructions, as he tried to match the demands of the dialogue.)

But, I'm actually in favor of keeping the elvish from the movies up. It's in the movies, people are curious about it, and it's not going to change, and I already did the IPA transcriptions for all of it.

Anameleth wrote:
I think we should have a phrasebook and namelist still, as they are part of what makes AU's elvish section unique. From what you've said, dreamingfifi, what we have isn't good enough, but maybe you or one of the others working on this section could make new ones?
The thing is... it will take a LOT of work, and it won't be a one-time thing either. Publications of Tolkien's notes keep coming out, so we'd have to change the pages every time something new comes out. I don't have that kind of time. If Eruraina graduates my Sindarin class she could compose and do the upkeep on these sections, but that won't happen until the end of summer.

The wordlists, for example: don't mark the language that the word comes from, and account for a tiny fraction of elven words. There are about 12 000 Elven words published. The elvish dictionary has been done by much better people who do pretty much nothing but catalog and analyze the words and names he made up. Linking to their efforts is much much better, in my opinion, which is why I suggested the links section.

Author:  Anameleth [ February 5th, 2012, 6:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

I get that it's a lot of work, but the namelist at the very least should stay. So many of the people who visit the site, do so because we have an Elvish section that is accessible and has the kind of information they would like to see, and I think we should try to keep it that way. Most of them won't even be all that bothered if the names they choose aren't grammatically correct, they just want an approximate translation of their name.

Author:  dreamingfifi [ February 5th, 2012, 7:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

Tell you what, I have something already written that I put together because people were copying the bad phrasebooks here and posting them on their own websites. 101 Sindarin Phrases I just updated the IPA transcriptions to match the ones I did for A-U.

The A-U namelists are unacceptably bad. I already ranted about that a bit. It's better to link to others' far more detailed and expansive efforts.

By the way, I just added a link to the Casual Links section:

The Council of Elrond's Elvish Names Database
It is HUGE, and the efforts of a goup of people working together. The rest of COE's Elvish section is a bit outdated, but this section has aged quite well.

Author:  Taurquende [ February 5th, 2012, 10:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

The current elvish section may be bad, but you can't deny it's popular; it's one of the first results you get if you google "elvish," and it leads a lot of people to the whole of the site and the forum. Personally, I think our priority should be to preserve that popularity while reforming the elvish to be more correct, and I think one of the best things we could do is keep it accessible. I just ask that we keep this in mind.
(Incidentally, this is why I was opposed to communicating the pronunciation solely via IPA, and would very much like to include sound clips and/or have a layman's version of IPA.)

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ February 5th, 2012, 10:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

Perhaps as a compromise, as I have seen this causing some debate around the forum, would it not be possible to keep the content in question exactly as it is now, and call the page "Original AU Elvish" or something like that with an explanation that we know it isn't "proper" Elvish, but if you are not too concerned with a 100% accurate saying, and just want a bit of fun, this is where you should be. And then we have the other pages that are the proper sayings.

I personally, as someone not bothered about the lanaguage at all, can't see a way around this unless we keep both the proper stuff and the things that have been on AU for so long, and I'm pretty sure, have been of use to people (like me, who really was never into the deep stuff). :-)

Author:  Arabella Baggins [ February 5th, 2012, 10:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

I agree. It seems the best way to give everyone what they want without any hurt feelings or anything.

Author:  Johnny's Fan [ February 5th, 2012, 10:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

:-)

It will be nice if AU can satisfy everyone's needs - the people who want the full blown stuff, and the people maybe new to LOTR who just want to pick up a few easy things, or would like a nice Elvish sounding name, without it being to difficult for them to pick up. As long as we let visitors know which is which regarding accuracy, I don't see why we can't have both.

Then maybe some sites will regard AU better for their Elvish. ;)

Author:  dreamingfifi [ February 5th, 2012, 10:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Suggestion - The Elvish Section

That's why I wrote a page explaining what the symbols stand for. What would a "layman's IPA" look like, anyways?

The sound clips are a good idea though. Time-consuming, but a good idea.

Yay, it makes the website popular! But that doesn't change the fact that it is absolutely atrocious translation work and shouldn't be available to people. It doesn't matter that it was done 'for fun'. It's being taken as real, honest, scholarly work by people who don't know any better or how to read the fine lines. It's insanely annoying that people keep bringing their "Elvish names" to me that are no better than smashing your forehead on your keyboard. It's sad that I keep having to say, "No, read the block of text at the top! It's all pure *beep*, and the author knew it was!"

I could put together a small list of good translations that are steady and likely to age well - no reconstructions and only boring English names - no surnames and try to keep as many of them genderless as possible (Too many names can be used by either sex), and what language would we choose and which dialect? But you'd have to wait a while. I have way too much on my plate to whip this up at the moment.

In the meanwhile, the namelists should be taken down.

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