• Registered: 2016-05-29
  • Posts: 48

Topic: Words of Ainur and from Valarin

I have just published words of Ainur and from Valarin for Zhâburi (B). I thought it could be of interest

Here are some of the words
azhan "ainu" from Valarin 'ayanûz' (ainu) (I think this is the same as in Zhâburi A and if so published in the word list here)

Arûn    "Melkor, Morgoth" An Adûnaic name for Morgoth, perhaps coined by Sauron when he introduced the worship of the dark god to the Númenóreans, translated as “Lord” (Sauron Defeated: 376)

Maghanashi "Melkor, Morgoth", The One Authority

Maghani "Vala, Valar; the authority",From Valarin mâchanâz “authority”, not only applied to Valar

Manashi "Eru" The unique proto-form and substance “see ‘man’ under the Words from Valarin and ‘ashi’ individulizer

Mâron "Mairon (Sauron)" Phonetical adaption

You can find the lists here
https://zhaaburi.wordpress.com/word-lists

  • Registered: 2016-05-29
  • Posts: 48

Re: Words of Ainur and from Valarin

I have now also added a list of words from Adûnaic. There are som words for families such as father, mother etc and for sailing

  • Registered: 2013-06-15
  • Posts: 87

Re: Words of Ainur and from Valarin

You said that "The problematic part of transferring words from Valarin to Zhâburi is the length of Valarin words which are mostly (all?) have several syllables and because many of them are compound words it’s difficult to decide where to cut them."
But other problem is strong phonetic difference between these languages.

So a lot of imagination is required to transform Valarin into Black Speech-like words. Some valar names in your list still sound like Valarin.

As for Adunaic, BS has lack of words for animals and birds. And those existing look stupid with "-bork" suffix in almost every of them, therefore some borrowing is not a bad thing in this case

4 Reply by bjornaxen (edited by bjornaxen 2018-10-08 18:28:16)

  • Registered: 2016-05-29
  • Posts: 48

Re: Words of Ainur and from Valarin

Yes the names of Valar in Valarin are just names that cannot be further analysed except the ending long vowel -z. When I looked at my list of names again I noticed that Ulmo is Ulbôz from Ulubôz. A more coherent form would be Ulub and I think I will change it. Ulub is also analogous to konwn BS words such uruk, olog, oghor.

As for animals I would like it that most animal names comes from Angband orcish and then would the old dialect suffice as source material. But of course some names of animals could be adapted from other languages.

These are the words for animals in Adûnaic. I think there ought to be older orcish words. But as said I haven't decided yet
khâu, kêu    "cow"
narâk "eagle"
raba "dog",
rabô "dog", masculine 
rabê "bitch", feminine
urug "bear"
urgî "female bear"

  • Registered: 2013-06-15
  • Posts: 87

Re: Words of Ainur and from Valarin

Grouping words in categories is good and natural idea while creating new language.
For my new dialect I split Swadesh 200+ list in categories: Pronouns, Conjugation & participles & prepositions, Numbers, Adjectives (quantity, size, colors and other), Persons & relatives, animals, plants, parts of body & organs, verbs, cosmic objects (like Moon and Sun), terrain types & objects, weather & fall-outs, fire, time & seasons. Then I expanded this list a little bit in each category.

The next step is to translate elvish, mannish, dwarven etc. names for Arda-specific geographical terms (specially places of Mordor), names of races, creatures, animals and plants.

Next are the words for orcish (or just dark) way of life (kill & destroy). However there are already plenty of them in Svartiska. Which brings names of weapons and armor, and then names of crafting materials (specially lacking words for metals), technological processes (casting, melting, forging, hardening etc.), cooking (speacially meat in field conditions), names for professions etc. Words for killing & destroying also brings us more terms in anatomy and parts of body.

Then goes roleplay terms from LARP to D&D.
...(etc.)...
The last step will be dialectical words for Orcs from different regions (Mordor, Moria)

Each step leads to word-making process in other categories.

I hope this approach will make dictionary small but vivid and is better than trying to translate some random assorted texts. Perfection will be achieved when we will be able to translate dialogues from LOTR without much simplification (like Shagrat and Gorbag conversations on Horngoth's page).

  • Registered: 2016-05-29
  • Posts: 48

Re: Words of Ainur and from Valarin

So you are working on your own version of The Black Speech which you have mentioned before being inspired at least structurally by finno-ugric. I am really looking forward to see some of it.   

Yes creating categories can be a good way to create words and it suits the creation of a Black Speech because of it's engineering logic of language creation. I am working with categories as well but my first categories are languages of Arda. The first was of course Black Speech and Orich. Then Primitive Elvish -> Proto-orcish (or Angband Orcish as I call the version that I'm actually creating) then as you see Valarin and Adunaic. The Valarin word list made me concentrate on the topic of Ainur which I have been thinking on for a long time. I would really lika to have all the names in Valarin.

But I still like the organic approach to create The Black Speech even though a more machine like procedure would fit my idea of The Black Speech. My solution is to divide the words of the language in three parts: Those from Angband orcish, those of other ardalanguages and the "engineered" words.