Two Christian Prayers
by David Chapman
David Chapman wrote in his message to the ELFLING list: Here are the first two Christian prayers I have translated (hopefully) into Quenya. I have written each one with the title, followed by the English version. The Quenya translation is then suffixed to this. The numbers in Quenya text refer to the footnotes which follow at the end of each piece. Any comments or corrections you have would be most welcome. This Christian texts were first published on the ELFLING list in April 2001.
The Sign of the Cross
Essenen
Atarwa, ar Yondova, ar Ainasúleva. Amen
In the Name1 of the Father, and of the Son2 and of the Holy Spirit3. Amen4.
1
Here I have used the instrumental Essenen
- 'By/with the Name', instead of locative Essesse
- 'In the Name', both to suit my lámatyáve, and because the prayer is
doing something in the Name of God, so that the Name is why the thing will
happen, or the instrument through which it shall be done.
2
For both Atarwa - 'of the Father'
and Yondova - 'of the Son' I have
used capitals (Proper nouns, not just any father and son), and have no i
- 'the', as I believe this is not necessary for proper nouns.
3
Possessive of Ainasúle - 'Holy
Spirit', from aina 'holy' + súle "spirit".
4
Can 'Amen' still be Amen in Quenya?
Richard Derdzinski uses the
reconstructed tancave 'surely' in his Ave
Maria, but as in English and
other languages 'Amen' is used, surely the Elves would do so, too.
Glory
Be
|
A. |
A laita Atar, ar Yondo, ar Ainasúle. Ve nés i yessesse ná sin, ar yéva tennoio. Amen.
|
|
B. |
Nai yéva Atar alcaresse, ar Yondo, ar Ainasúle. Ve nés i yessesse, ná sin, ar yéva tennoio. Amen. |
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in
the beginning6,,
is now, and will be7
forever. Amen.
I didn't think 'glory be' would translate literally, as it is an idiom. Therefore here I have tried to translate it in two different ways. This first way translates 'glory be' as 'glorify' in the imperative, or just simple 'praise'. Therefore I have used the imperative for the verb laita - 'praise'.
I'm
not really happy with simply translating 'glory be to the Father' as an
imperative; to me it seems to represent something more optative like 'may the
Father be gloried' or 'may the Father be in glory'. Unfortunately I have no
idea of how to translate a passive idea into Quenya. I know that with the
'wishing formula' you use nai + future form of verb, so I
thought that perhaps as I'm saying 'may the Father BE in glory' I could
use yéva as a future form of 'to be', thus giving nai
yéva. However, having two forms of 'to be' consequetively
seems clumsy to me, so this is probably not correct. Any better suggestions?
6
Yessesse
'In the Beginning', taken from Helge Fauskanger's derivation for the
translation of Genesis.
7 Yéva 'will be', again taken from Helge Fauskanger's Genesis. I know that the paradigm for 'to be' from which yéva derives is probably obsoleted by that which produces ná (Unless 'to be' is a VERY irregular verb!), but it is at least attested Tolkien Quenya, as opposed to any derived form taken from ná.