Disputatio Portae:Tolkien

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E Vicipaedia
(Ex pagina disputationis Mattie nostri)

De Tolkien nostro[fontem recensere]

Xaverius Mattie suo s.p.d.! Me excusas, sed hanc amplissimam explicationem scribere Anglice necesse est mihi. Regarding the Tolkien/Lord of the Rings articles, aiming at a future pagina mensis, there are several issues I was wondering, and maybe if we put some thoughts together we could even create a Porta:Tolkien (cf Porta:Hispania et al).

Well, that wasn't that long after all. Anyway, I hope we can work together on this! --Xaverius 13:41, 29 Februarii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

English is okay! On the first and third points, I think we should take the usual Vicipaedian position, that if it's not translated, we use the original language. In the case of Tolkien, none of his works were translated into Latin (except a very partial internet translation of Lord of the Rings, which I don't think counts), and given the importance Tolkien gave to his works' linguistics, I feel we should stick to English. This means renaming Dominus Anulorum to The Lord of the Rings, talking about Elves, not Alfi, the Shire, not Suzat, etc. Or does the Guide to Names... offer Latin translations? ¶ What I did when working on the Harry Potter stuff was that I mimicked what they had at en:. So whenever an English article I was translating from linked to en:Harry Potter universe, I'd link to Universum Harrii Potteri. This was a very easy way to stay organized. The "list-articles" and redirects we have at the moment are a mess, but I think that even just adding some consistency (and English) to the names should help a little bit, as should creating pages out of some redirects, etc. ¶ As I mentioned, I intend to translate from English rather than create original articles, which is what I nearly always do here since, to me, it's the most efficient way to work. Is that okay with you? What do you plan on doing? ¶ I actually finished reading the Silmarillion just a four days ago -- just in time to do some work on Tolkien! I'm glad we'll be working together :D Let me know if you disagree with any points I made. Mattie 01:09, 1 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the points you've made, I'll go for a "Homeric inversion here" :-). Good to have a collaborator for such a project! I still have to read the Silmarillion, but I'm affraid I cannot devote to sihc reading during term time! ¶ As for the translation from English, that's fine with me, even if I try to avoid direct translations (especially because I cannot do direct translations, and I normally write shorter texts because of my limited Latin skills). I normally just take the data and information from there and create a new text in Latin - I've done some direct translations too, but I personally do not like them. ¶ The list-articles are very sueful, but they are right now a mess, and I think maybe we should start there, sorting them out, making proper articles out of them, because this will give us a sort of skeleton on which to work for further articles ¶ LAstly, on latinisation, I know Tolkien wrote the Guide... to allow and enease the translations of his book. It may well have some instructions on how to translate to Romance languages, I do not know, it's just a matter of checking. But following mores nostras, proper names should not be translated, but common names should (so alfi and nani but Shire and Mordor). The thing is that Tolkien made all these provisions to translate his writtingss so they would work in translation -- and although we are not here to do official translations, if there is a recommended and not outrageous way to latinise some names (for instance, Shire or Brandywine are more easily translatable than Rohan or Anduin). --Xaverius 10:45, 1 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
De commentationibus-indicibus omnino consentio. Expurgatio ante facienda est quam novorum additio! Adhuc autem de Latinizatione cunctor, quod de Comitatu Mordoreque, sed de Rohan, constantiae causa loqui nolim; praeterea omnia indeclinabilia verbo "regio" declinari possunt; et sunt nomina propria, nobis, ut dixisti, non fingenda. Illo tamen Guide abs te lecto, nobis duobus plura scientibus, profecto de hac re iterum colloqui possumus! Mattie (disputatio) 03:07, 3 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just adding food for thought here; I'm sure you two will make good decisions :)
Tolkien, as we know, was obsessively good at all this stuff. For us to translate Brandywine, we have to forget that Tolkien designed the name Brandywine as folk etymology; the river's Sindarin name being Baranduin, which has a different meaning.
For us to translate The Shire as "Comitatus", we have to forget that shires, when first invented, were not governed by counts: it was only with the Norman conquest that it became appropriate to call them counties or "comitatus", and I don't think the Shire ever suffered a Norman conquest! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:29, 3 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
On this note, and be it as it may a true name or a derivation from the Sindarin name, I think that the point is that because it is a common noun used in English, it may be translatable... I may be too influenced by the Spanish version, though...--Xaverius 23:01, 4 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If I'm reading your comment properly, Andrew, you seem to be agreeing with me that the names should be left untouched. Mattie (disputatio) 00:44, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but very tentatively! I think my feeling is that the names in e.g. Sindarin and Elvish suit Latin better than the names in Hobbit-English; so I would be happy to see the river as Baranduin. But I can't really justify that, it's just a feeling. I don't remember offhand if we are given an alternative language name for "The Shire". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:50, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That could work. Sindarin would be the most obvious answer, and I assume we'd have much more luck finding Sindarin placenames than Quenyan ones, but Sindarin is mostly analytical so we won't have more syntactical luck than by using English. Nevertheless, I would be okay with using Sindarin, if only because it would give the articles a nice ring! ¶ The Shire does have other names, i.e. Sûza(t) in Westron (the t meaning "the") and i Drann in Sindarin, where i means "the" and would, I suppose, be dismissed when writing in Latin. Mattie (disputatio) 23:46, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Does Westron then work like Basque? blimey...--Xaverius 23:52, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't put it past Tolkien! I read it as a simple enclitic, though, like in Scandinavian languages. Who knows ... Mattie (disputatio) 23:59, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, if I remember correctly (I believe Christopher Tolkien talks about this in the preface for The Silmarillion), "Elvish" is used as a synonym for Sindarin, not Quenya. Mattie (disputatio) 23:50, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then I guess I must have meant Sindarin and Quenya ... but I repeat, it's only a vague feeling and I suspect you two experts will be better able to decide. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:24, 6 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll check the Bod this afternoon or tomorrow and see what Tolkien has to say on this (if something at all), it may be the easiest way to solve this!--Xaverius 13:48, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IIRC, shire erat regio in dicione hominis shire-reeve appellati, qui in shiremoot praeerat. (Is Latine vicecomes appellabatur.) Are there sheriffs in Middle Earth? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:58, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, the Shire has sheriffs. See the last few chapters of Return of the King. Mattie (disputatio) 23:33, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hobbits[fontem recensere]

Nobis est disputandum: vidamus Hobbit (gens ficticia) et eligamus; hobbit (indecl), hobbit, -is, or hobbitus, -i? Nunc miki videtur formas tres in paginis esse--Xaverius 23:56, 5 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we still haven't decided what we're doing in terms of borrowing! After all, there's also the Sindarin (i) Periannath to consider, heh. Mattie (disputatio) 00:08, 6 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at el:Το Χόμπιτ, it seems the Greeks handled Hobbit as an indeclinable ... not much help from them, then ... Mattie (disputatio) 00:18, 6 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Liber conversus Hobbitus Ille nomen hobbitus attestabitur. When the book comes out (scheduled for September), many present questions will surely be answered. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 00:39, 6 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Goodness, brilliant! :D This will help us out immensely, and I can't wait to read the book! Here's to hoping the names will be better handled than in Harrius Potter ... Mattie (disputatio) 02:02, 6 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now that will prove useful! --Xaverius 13:57, 6 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guide to the names...[fontem recensere]

I have been checking Tolkien's Guide... today, and I have found some useful information, but of course, this may not be useful after the Latin translation of The Hobbit is published.

  1. "All names not in the following list should be left entirely unchanged in any langauge used in translation, except that inflexional -s, -es should be rendered according to the grammar of the language" [I take this refers to plurals only]
  2. "The language of translation now replaces English as the equivalent of the Common Speech (...) The names in English form should be therefore translated into the other language according to their meaning" [after which a long list of names, do's and don'ts is given]
  3. Amongst the unstranslatable nouns are Ent, Hobbit [specificaly mentioning that it should not be translated or altered; cf. the Greek example], Isengard, Rivendel(l), Isengard, smial, Orthanc, Baranduin, etc etc, with the only exceptions in which small changes are done for the sake of euphonics (for instance, "dunlendings" into Spanish "dunledinos"). All of these names are referred to as "Common Speech versions of non-Common Speech names".
  4. Many other things are mentioned as not just as "translatable" but as "should be translated" (all in English, where English=Common Speech), including place names (Ashen mountains, Black country, Bywater, Hobbiton, Mount Doom, Helm's Deep, Brandywine), amongst other proper names (Brandybuck, Captains of the West, Corsairs, Dark Lord, The Dead, Easterlings, Elf-friend, the Enemy, the Fellowship of the Ring, Free Peoples, etc etc).

Now, in this I see a conflict between the facts that we are not authoritative translators and Tolkien's instructions. Most of the items mentioned in these lists I've outlined should not pose much problem and should be straight forward (until at least we get the references from the published version of The Hobbit), but there may be issues when dealing with personal names and (in particular) surnames.--Xaverius 18:59, 6 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re #1: Since the plural morpheme is the only pertinent inflection available in English, that phrase could be taken to mean "except that [all inflectional forms] should be rendered according to the grammar of the language"—which, in turn, would mean that Tolkien was specifically allowing all the inflectional forms available in Latin. Surely he wasn't wanting to restrict Latin to the plural morpheme when genitive, dative, and other cases are implied (but not brought to the surface) in the grammar of the English text? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 00:58, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think Tolkien would have wanted us to decline... the question (to me, at least) is whether we add a bunch of -us's or go Harrius Potter and use the 'original' as the singular nominative and treat every noun as if it was in the third declension. This works for Mordor and the like, no doubt, but for, say, Morgoth ... Mattie (disputatio) 01:06, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To the extent that Morgoth is meant for us to think of Goths, take whatever we call an individual Goth (Gothus, -i, no?) and add Mor in front of it? Ergo Morgothus, -i ? And then using that as the model, handle other words that end in -th (like Cirith) analogously? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:19, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I too was thinking of Morgothus, actually. But we should probably handle names case-by-case. I think Cirith Ungol, for instance, being a phrase ("Spider's Cleft") and not a character's name, should probably be treated as an indeclinable neuter. What did you have in mind exactly? Mattie (disputatio) 17:27, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, do you think that "small changes done for the sake of euphonics" means that adding -us (etc.), as in Hobbitus, is basically acceptable, in this case for the sake of declension? I mean, we may as well go and call the Ents Ens, -tis which is a real Latin word (Tolkien's Ent comes from an Old English word meaning "giant", while the Latin ens comes from some present participle of esse, but nevertheless). Tolkien wrote the Guide with Germanic languages in mind, which of course don't absolutely need to decline nouns; it follows that had he been writing for Latin, he would have encouraged making them declinable. ¶ As for the Common Speech, I think I'll change my position, then, and say we should go ahead and translate what "should be translated." It'll make the whole thing a lot easier. We just need to make sure we're consistent, so creating individual pages right now, to settle on what exactly we're calling different things, should be a top priority. Mattie (disputatio) 00:16, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
NB My point about "The Shire" was only a bit of pedantry. In reality I think a translation such as "Comitatus" would be good. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:14, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, I was guilty of pedantry just as much as you! Frankly I don't like "Comitatus" (the Shire being meant to represent more or less rural England, non-English / Celtic / Elvish names just don't work for me), but that doesn't really matter, does it :P Mattie (disputatio) 17:19, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So names in English/Common Speech we translate according to their meaning, and other we decline? I believe that those that could fit easily in a declension, like Mordor, should be declined, but Osgiliath or Cirith Ungol, maybe it is esier to leave them undeclinable, making our work easier, and probably Tolkien happy. And right as always, we should get the names sorted out first, before we continue further. I suggest to begin with place-names: I have been working on Arnor, and I'm happy to continue with Eriador east of the Misty Mountains and north of Rohan, and maybe you can do Gondor and the Anduin valley? --Xaverius 10:28, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As for right now I'm just going around willy-nilly creating a bunch of pages about characters, places, events ... maybe not the best strategy, but it's more fun! Mattie (disputatio) 17:30, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No worries then; I'll begin with Eriador and then we'll see. Before I write an article I'll put up the link in the opus, so you all can discuss the translation and if it is adequate.--Xaverius 18:37, 8 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brandywine tributaries[fontem recensere]

I've attempted a rough translation of the rivers flowing into the Brandywine, but these may be too outrageous.--Xaverius 10:47, 9 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Supercategories[fontem recensere]

I've been messing around with the categories on geography, putting into it one for rivers, another for towns and cities, and a last one for realms. I hope you all agree! I haven't done too many changes, and should be easily reverted if necessary.--Xaverius 23:16, 9 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good work! Mattie (disputatio) 03:21, 10 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Character names[fontem recensere]

OK, here's an idea: We stick to NF in terms of the pages' titles, but Latinize them as we must for declension in a note immediately following it. So for the above-discussed Morgoth, you'd get something like:

Morgoth Bauglir, quod nomen Morgothus latinizamus, est ...

—and for his pet spider:

Ungoliant, quod nomen Ungolians (-antis) latinizamus, est ...

—and the characters are always referred to in writing as Morgothus, Ungolians, etc., but the links link to their actual Tolkien-given names to avoid confusion. In the case of Morgoth, this is actually useful, because it means we always write [[Mogorth]]-declension, so we have [[Morgoth]]us and [[Morgoth]]i, not [[Morgothus|Morgothi]]. Am I receiving nods of approval here? :-) Mattie (disputatio) 20:03, 10 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... On Morgoth I do not see it nicely working as Morgothus, but I imagine this system works. I would put it into the 3rd, but just my opinion (pun: Morgothus sounds too "gothic" to me). I see Ungoliant working better, but simply maybe because it fits nicely into the declension. But of course, as we have discussed above, Tolkien agreed to add declensions (or so it would seem)!--Xaverius 22:59, 10 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Morgoth, -is? I'm personally not a fan of using the English form as the nominative and sticking third-declension endings onto it. ¶ I was thinking Rohan → Rohanus. How should -im words (Rohirrim, etc.) be Latinized? Rohirrimus? Or Rohirrimi, I suppose, since the Rohirrim is collective. Then that also gives us Rohirricus for Rohirric. Mattie (disputatio) 01:22, 11 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Rohirricus works well. In order to avoid the problem I'd go for gens Rohirrica or natio Rohirrica as a substitute for Rohirrim. For Haradrim, similarly could be avoided by using the Westron=English version, which is Southrons ("Meridionales"?). For the rest, I've been using "Arnorianus", so "Gondorianus" and "Numenoreanus" would work in these. What other -im nations are there? --Xaverius 10:23, 11 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See, if I read an article that talked about "Meridionales," I would have no idea the author was referring to the Haradrim. What about gens / natio Haradrica, following your example? Mattie (disputatio) 17:15, 11 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm... I've never come across the form "Haradric" in English, Catalan or Spanish (which I have found for Rohirric and Hobbitic), but I imagine it could work! The thing with the Haradrim (regarding "gens" or "natio") is that Haradrim is just a way to mention people from harad, but there are many tribes within them, so we may want to make a distinction there (fortasse "natio" for the general inhabitants of Harad and "gens" for the different tribes - this would mean that "natio Rohirrica" could be the Rohirrim, but we could even use "gentes Hobbiticae" to refer to the different Hobbits).--Xaverius 22:07, 11 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I made up Haradricus: given Rohirrim → Rohirricus, it follows that Haradrim → Haradricus. Whether it's legitimate to use this adjective is up for debate, obviously. Thank you for Categoria:Linguae Terrae Mediae, by the way! I was going to get on it but fell short on time. Mattie (disputatio) 04:45, 12 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I see the way you got to Haradricus, I was just surprised, because it was new. I imagine it would work, unless we want to go for Haradensis or Haradinus.--Xaverius 08:45, 12 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As for other words in -im, there's at least Thangorodrim. Mattie (disputatio) 17:35, 11 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which, might I add, I think might just legitimize the need to find a common way to decline all words ending in -im. As they say, three's company ... :) Mattie (disputatio) 04:45, 12 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hm... yes, it would seem so. Montes Thangorodici ?--Xaverius 08:45, 12 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nonnulla de Ungoliante scripsi, ut systema meum, hoc modo quo eo utamur, demonstrem! Mattie (disputatio) 02:19, 11 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nouns in -duin[fontem recensere]

Duin, meaning "(long) river" according to the Appendix in The Silmarillion, is found in Anduin, Baranduin, Esgalduin, and Malduin. (There's also Taur-im-Duinath but that doesn't end in -duin.) I thought that, given the word's meaning, we could make a link to flumen and decline it as, e.g., Anduen, Anduinis ... Mattie (disputatio) 05:00, 12 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure thing, as far as we keep it Anduin, -is; although in Baranduin I've been using Brandivinum as the declinable form--Xaverius 08:45, 12 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nouns in -on[fontem recensere]

I'm thinking of Lindon(Harlindon & Forlindon) and Rhovanion. The first I latinised as Lindon, -i (n.) but the second you have latinised as Rhovanio, -nis (?). I know that Lindon does not come from Greek (which is the parallel I was trying to make), but I feel it fits nice into the latinisation (=Westron version) of an old non-Westron language. What do you think?--Xaverius 13:43, 21 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The parallel I was making is the English -tion, which as you know comes from the Latin -tio, -tionis. I think this makes for a clearer read -- for instance, seeing the genitive Lindi doesn't make a particularly clear link to Lindon, whereas I think Lindonis does. ¶ But I think our disagreement merely comes from that I see Tolkien's words as stems, not nominatives. I think this is an important distinction to make. So if the English stem has -on, it follows that the Latin stem will also be -on (i.e. -o in the nominative, -onis in the genitive). Does that make sense? I would rather change the nominative, which seems a rather superfluous move to me, than the stem, which seems a graver one. ¶ Lastly, Tolkien obviously got his very common -(i)on ending from Welsh (it's a common pluralising ending) since he liked the sound of Welsh, and I think a third-declension -onis like I'm suggesting does a better job at respecting Tolkien's phonetic preferences. :) Mattie (disputatio) 21:23, 21 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I see your point, and you have very well convinced me. I'll do the changes in Lindon and elsewhere to make it fit into a 3rd decl.--Xaverius 22:09, 21 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Silmarils[fontem recensere]

I've been Latinizing this word as Silmarillio, -nis. See Sindarin plural Silmarilli and Silmarillion, which I think, basing myself off of Quenta Silmarillion [= tale of the Silmarils] is the genitive plural. Okay? Mattie (disputatio) 21:23, 21 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further references[fontem recensere]

If in need, and if other wikis lack certain information, this site I just found may prove useful: Tolkien Gateway --Xaverius 23:37, 11 Martii 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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