Post #2693350
2026-04-15 20:38 UTC
@jeroen94704@fosstodon.org For authenticity, here I took a known text (I recognized the poem), in the same language (Quenya), written by Tolkien himself (from "The Road Goes Ever On"), and transcribed it to see what was happening.
I learned a lot! For example:
- Specific signs for "R" at start vs. end of a syllable
- Punctuation marks
- Capitals for (some) proper nouns
- Mark for inserting "y" (na -> nya, ro -> ryo, le -> lye)
- Vowel stems for long vowels vs. "orphaned" short vowels
(Cont'd.)
Replies (1)
-
@alexglow@chaos.social 2026-04-15 20:45
@jeroen94704@fosstodon.org ...And so, for your translation, I hunted down specific syllables from that text, since it matches the language. :) The same consonant is used in QUA and QUE, so I was able to just change the vowel sign. There are a LOT more references available online now, which is awesome, but it can be dizzying! There's also a way to write the vowels separately, inline. But once you get the hang of *one* way, and an idea of the possible variations, you can puzzle out pretty much anything :)