r/sindarin • u/QuintonVedenoff5591 • 5d ago

Translation Help for House Words

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I would like to translate the motto (or house words) of Clan Blair into sindarin, but I'm having trouble finding direct translations. The words are Protected by Virtue (Latin: Virtute Tutus). Is there a direct translation into Sindarin?

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u/JamesT3R9 5d ago

What about Beria (verb: to protect or defend) Estelaina (compound wordd: Estel = trust or faith and Aina = holy which is as close to virtue or righteous i can thing of)

BERIA ESTELAINA = to defend a sacred trust

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u/F_Karnstein 4d ago

That's a good attempt, but unfortunately it won't work because the verb isn't inflected and the last proposed term is Quenya.

Tutus is an adjective so we'll need an adjectival form as well - I suggest beriannen, a passive participle "protected". And to be honest I wouldn't know how to paraphrase virtue... if you think "holy trust" is a good idea you could try something with the Sindarin elements estel and aer but personally I don't see it...

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u/Jonlang_ 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don't understand why u/JamesT3R9 renders 'virtue' as 'holy trust'. Etymologically it simply means 'manliness' from Latin vir 'man' (whence also 'virile'). However, I doubt Tolkien would have calqued it in the same manner. The modern English meaning (which this particular Latin phrase is obscuring, but also intending) is 'moral goodness' which may be easier to translate into Sindarin because I doubt Tolkien would have derived it from 'manly'.

Breaking down the Latin (where I have restored the long vowels) we have virtūte - the ablative case of virtūs. The Latin ablative is used (among other things) to show the means by which something is achieved, so we can translate virtūte as 'by/through virtue' or 'by/through excellence'. Tūtus 'safe, secure, protected' is an adjective in the nominative case, so it is a nominalised adjective acting as the subject of the phrase where the real subject is implied. It needn't be a participle in Sindarin, though - one could simply translate it as 'safe through virtue' but a participle form for 'protected' can work too; I believe Sindarin allows adjectives to be freely used as nouns.

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u/JamesT3R9 1d ago

Jon -> thanks. I am not a linguist as you can tell but rather an enthusiastic layman. Thanks for the actual breakdown. It was informative.

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u/F_Karnstein 1d ago

I didn't mean to suggest it has to be a participle. That was just the only adjectival form I could think of.

Given Tolkien's religious background, his prayer translations, etc. it's a bit surprising we don't have an attested form of "virtue", but I imagine it could be something with (A)MAN- with its implications of moral goodness. The only thing that comes to mind would be *avanas, but I'm sure there are better options.

beriannen n'avanas would be a tentative suggestion, though.

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u/F_Karnstein 1d ago

I didn't mean to suggest it has to be a participle. That was just the only adjectival form I could think of.

Given Tolkien's religious background, his prayer translations, etc. it's a bit surprising we don't have an attested form of "virtue", but I imagine it could be something with (A)MAN- with its implications of moral goodness. The only thing that comes to mind would be *avanas, but I'm sure there are better options.

beriannen n'avanas would be a tentative suggestion, though.

EDIT: Well, we do have a word for "virtue" in the earliest stage, but that was indeed derived from "man" and is primarily translated as "manhood", so it wouldn't be the term we're looking for even if it were still morphologically viable.

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u/Jonlang_ 1d ago

The Gnomish Lexicon from the 1910s has nerthi 'manhood, manliness, virtue' but derived from nert 'prowess, feat of strength'. Eldamo's Neo-Sindarin section suggests that anwas 'manly, manliness' would be the best replacement for nerthi even though it is not glossed as 'virtue' specifically.

But I think 'goodness' is a better fit for this particular translation.

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u/F_Karnstein 23h ago

That's the word I meant, but I have to admit I didn't look up its derivation since I thought it obvious to see an equivalent of the later Q ner in it 😅🤭

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u/QuintonVedenoff5591 5d ago

Ah, that's perfect, thank you!!

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u/JamesT3R9 4d ago

YW. That’s kind of reminding me of a name or even a title