Quenya Children's Song

[grey gazania]

I'm attempting to put a verse of "Funem Sheynem Vortsl Aroys" into Quenya; in English it means the following:

From the fine feather
A fine pillow was made.
Pillow from the feather, feather from the bird
Bird from the nest, nest from the branch
Branch from the tree, tree from the root
Root from the earth
Since heaven and earth were created.


With some help from Elleth on the verbs I came up with:

I mára quessello
mára quesset cárina.
Quesset i quessello, quessë filitello
filit i caimallo, caima i olvallo
olva i aldallo, alda i sulcallo
sulca cemenello
apa Menel Cemenyë ontainë.


Anyone see anything I botched? I couldn't find a gloss for 'nest', so I used 'bed', and I took some poetic license and omitted i before filitello so the line would scan. I can change filit to aiwë if the omission is inadmissible or jarring. (I just think filit is a prettier word.)

My dictionary also lists epë, opo, and po (or pó) as variants of apa, but it's not clear on how acceptable po and pó are, or if there's any difference between them; does anyone have more information on this? Either would bring the final line closer to scanning, but I'll take not scanning over bad Quenya.

[Darth Fingon]

Jul 10, 2011 9:17:07 GMT -6 grey gazania said:

I'm attempting to put a verse of "Funem Sheynem Vortsl Aroys" into Quenya; in English it means the following:

I'd suggest a few small changes.

Filitello -> filicello. Given that the plural of filit is filici, the stem to which cases are affixed would be filic-.

Cemenello-> cemello.

For nest, I've used 'sonda' (seat), owing to a French safety book the Elflings once had that advised to build a nest (therein translated as siège: seat) in the event that you become lost in the forest. Ludicrous, I know.

apa Menel Cemenyë ontainë.

I might suggest going with 'pa' here, mainly because the last word of the previous line ends in a vowel, and if the two were strung together they could legitimately be written as 'sulca cemello 'pa Menel Cemenye ontaine'

I'm also contemplating the use of ablative case in the first line. Somehow, it doesn't seem right to me. I'll consider this more, but right now my thought is that it should be genetive.

[grey gazania]

Jul 10, 2011 13:34:07 GMT -6 Darth Fingon said:

For nest, I've used 'sonda' (seat), owing to a French safety book the Elflings once had that advised to build a nest (therein translated as siège: seat) in the event that you become lost in the forest. Ludicrous, I know.

Like, up in a tree? For real? Man, girl scouts always told us to just build a lean-to if we needed shelter.

Jul 10, 2011 13:34:07 GMT -6 Darth Fingon said:

I might suggest going with 'pa' here, mainly because the last word of the previous line ends in a vowel, and if the two were strung together they could legitimately be written as 'sulca cemello 'pa Menel Cemenye ontaine'

That works very well. Thanks!

Jul 10, 2011 13:34:07 GMT -6 Darth Fingon said:

I'm also contemplating the use of ablative case in the first line. Somehow, it doesn't seem right to me. I'll consider this more, but right now my thought is that it should be genetive.

In the source sense of the genitive? That makes sense. So would it be I mára quessollo? And would it be restricted to the first line, or needed in the other pairs? (Quesset i quessollo, quessë filicollo, etc.)

Thanks for all the help!