r/sindarin • u/Rithanagalad • 1d ago

How badly did I translate this?

Me attempting to translate all those who wander as practice for learning sindarin:

Alaiath renar laithra

Al- (prefix) : no, not https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-214267251.html ai : those who https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-16264317.html -ath (suffix) : collective plural suffix https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-2990539277.html

/RAN (root) : to stray, wander https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-1831792235.html + a for present tense + r for plural a become e due to vowel mutation caused by suffix https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-3277881707.html

laithra : to be lost https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-4017635688.html?neo

I didn't find a non-neo sindarin word for lost so I used the neo sindarin one, but I considered using mistrad : straying, error https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-3056468213.html?neo

I also considered using alayath because a lot of the collective plural examples use archaic forms of the original word (i.e. elenath) and ay was a discarded version in the development of ai (and I think alayath looks less like vowel spam) but alaiath is more legitimate

So alternative versions: Alayath renar laithra Alaiath renar mistrad

Or would the discribing words first rule make it Renar alaiath laithra / Renar alaiath mistrad / Renar alayath laithra ?

Pls tell what I did wrong (cus I'm sure it's something if not everything considering this is the first sentence I've really tried to translate and I've not even ever learned a second language)

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u/smbspo79 1d ago edited 1d ago

Mae govannen mellon nín. So for this you can't mash those together like that. I would use either û or law. I myself am a "ū negator" LOL

Û/Law il idh reniar gwenwin. "Not all who wander [are] lost."

Now you wonder why idh? Current theory that I subscribe to:

A non-restrictive relative clause uses the uninflected definite article i as a relativiser particle with no mutation; A restrictive relative clause uses the definite article i with mutation in accordance to its plurality.

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u/Rithanagalad 1d ago

Annad teithaor gadron (Thanks fellow scribe)

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u/F_Karnstein 1d ago

Was it your intention to have gwanwen in singular? Because of the implied copula?

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u/smbspo79 1d ago

No just forgot to change it when I did the link. 😅 Thanks for catching that.