Quotes in other languages

[Aganzir]

Let's try some Hungarian.

"Amióta élek, nem láttam Lovasvégen a Vörös Nyilat! Hát idejutottunk? S mire számít Denethor úr, mennyi az én errőm, s mikorra érek oda?"

[Aganzir]

Nyíl = arrow
Számít = reckon

[Guinevere]

Thank you ! Arrow was a useful hint

I guess it must be Théoden to Hirgon:

The Red Arrow has not been seen in the Mark in all my years! Has it indeed come to that? And what does the Lord Denethor reckon that all my strength and all my speed may be

Originally Posted by Aganzir

I can read Lotr in a language I don't actually know and still understand what is happening. The feeling of the book remains the same, whatever the language.

Here I must disagree with you! The feeling of the book is often not the same when translated! There are two German translations and neither of them satisfies me. More in this thread (the only one I ever started...)

[Aganzir]

Yes, that's it. I thought that arrow would probably give it away.

I'm quite content with the Finnish translation- the translators have done wonderful work. I have the book also in some other languages, but eg. the Swedish translation is something I don't particularly like (I haven't read it, but leafed through it sometimes). Unless my knowledge of the Swedish language fails me, the translator has seemingly misinterpreted something and written that Treebeard had two lovers called Fimbrethil and Wandlimb (yes, the name is Wandlimb. It hasn't been even translated)...

[Guinevere]

OK, here is a quote in French again:

Ne méprisez pas la tradition qui est descendue des années lointaines; car souvent il se peut que les vieilles femmes gardent en mémoire des contes de choses qui autrefois étaient nécessaires à savoir pour les sages.

[Thinlómien]

But that's easy.

Originally Posted by Farewell to Lórien

"But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know."

[Guinevere]

Should I have picked an obscurer quote then?

There aren't that many languages I can (grammaticaly correctly) translate into from English. There are more languages I can understand a bit, of course (Finnish, obviously, not being among them...)

Anyhow, it's your turn now, Thinlómien!

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Guinevere

Should I have picked an obscurer quote then?

Possibly.

Let's try some Spanish. This shouldn't be too difficult...

"Es cierto que el mundo esta colmado de peligros y que hay en él sitios lóbregos, pero hay también cosas hermosas y aunque en todas partes el amor está unido hoy a la aflicción, no por eso es menos poderoso."

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Could it be this? I put somewhat vague translation together from French, Latin and mere guessing and my brother helped me with translating a few words and prepositions

Originally Posted by Fellowship of the Ring; Lothlórien

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

[Thinlómien]

Well, that was quick. Your thread, Legate.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I decided to let you experience some language different from the most that appear around here. It's Hebrew, but it should not be that hard. If it is too hard, I may put in the names of the characters speaking, but personally I think it won't be necessary.

"Has! Dabber b'shequet! Raah!" amar _____ k'harot. "M'ad b'ha-yaar, gav b'ha-derek anakhnu ba'u ettah. Ha-zeh ha-hu. Lo attah roeh-o, over min-ec l'ec?"
"Ani roeh, ani roeh ettah!" amar b'seter _____. "Raah, _____! Ani lo hodati-kha? Sham ha-zaqen.(...)"

P.S. And I seriously hope no one who knows Hebrew reads this, or I am labeled as diletant.

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

If it is too hard, I may put in the names of the characters speaking, but personally I think it won't be necessary.

By saying that you probably scared off everyone who doesn't want to appear ignorant of Lotr.

I guess the character names might be necessary. That sounds rather orcish, though.

[Thinlómien]

And if not the character names, then at least some other hint. Even though I think I might be closer to the answer if I had really concentrated on trying to find it even for five minutes.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Okay, two possibilities. Choose for yourselves.

a) I will tell you what the characters' names are,
b) I will tell you what "raah"/"roeh" means (as these are forms of the same word - here you also have a hint).

The characters' names... well. This would make it very much easier, as it will definitely narrow the places where you should look for it. On the other hand, if I told you the word and it did not help, then saying the names will probably solve it for good.

So, choose (someone. Whoever posts here between this moment and the moment when I appear back on this thread, will choose which hint should I post... if there is more of you, I will choose by "votes" or by primacy or by something else )

Lommy: Think for five minutes then

[Aganzir]

I vote for raah.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Okay, raah/roeh is "to see", resp. "to look", you know, this stuff. I'm sure you can easily decipher the particular forms of the word in the text.

[Gwathagor]

"Hush! Speak more softly! Look!" said Legolas pointing. "Down in the wood, back in the way that we have just come. It is he. Cannot you see him, passing from tree to tree?"

"I see, I see now!" hissed Gimli. "Look, Aragorn! Did I not warn you? There is the old man."

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Correct, of course! Well done, Gwathagor! You may provide us with a new one.

[Aganzir]

In Finnish (spoken language, mainly), "raah" is a word used to express roaring or growling. That's why the orcish vibe.

[Gwathagor]

OK, let me work on that. Maybe I can do something in New Testament Greek.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

OK, let me work on that. Maybe I can do something in New Testament Greek.

Yes, yes, go on!

(mwahaha...)

[Gwathagor]

[Gwathagor]

"Isto é uma noite contanto que anos," disse. "Como longo o dia demorará?"

Portuguese! It's a Romance language, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

(EDIT: For the record, I don't speak Portuguese; I had to use a computer program. I ain't language-canny like the rest of you folks.)

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Is this it?

Originally Posted by Helm's Deep

"This is a night as long as years," he said. "How long will the day tarry?"

[Gwathagor]

Yes! Take it away.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right, this one is in French, but I believe it is not that easy to connect it to context, so I would like to underline the fact that I want also the correct name of the book and chapter where this is taken from.

"Ta fenetre ne regarde pas a l'est?" il disait. "On peut amender ca."

I must add, it was very painful to refresh my French skills...

[Thinlómien]

That is, of course, Faramir to Éowyn in LotR, RotK, Chapter V, The Steward and the King.

"Your window does not look eastward?" he said. "That can be amended."

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Oh, I hoped it to be harder. Apparently, I was mistaken. Okay, your turn

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Lommy? Lommy! (...and his voice echoed between the steep rocky walls of Lammoth...)

[Thinlómien]

...I know...

I wanted to borrow Agan's Swedish version of LotR, since I think we could have something different for a change, but I forgot it so I wondered if I should do according to the original rules and translate some Swedish myself but it looked quite impossible (I'm not good at Swedish...) so...

But oh well, I'll try to come up with something in some language today, it's stupid to keep this thread inactive just because I seem to have a bit too specified criteria of what I want to post here...

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

But oh well, I'll try to come up with something in some language today, it's stupid to keep this thread inactive just because I seem to have a bit too specified criteria of what I want to post here...

Oh yes, it does not matter if you post something you just simply pick in Finnish, for all the foreigners it's as different as anything else, and while others are answering, you can prepare some more "high-class" quote so that the next time you get the chance to post you can do it (I was thinking along the same lines when choosing the French quote, at one time I wanted to drop it and give you something in Czech so that I don't have to bother ).

[Thinlómien]

Today? That "today" sadly ended something like five hours ago. *sigh* Anyway, I'll plague you with more Spanish as I'm currently in Noggie's place and he doesn't have LotR in Finnish here and the passages I can remember straight from the book are the most obvious ones and the translation is so good I don't want to "spoil" it with dabbling at something of my own...

Algunas no ocurrirán nunca, a no ser que quienes miran las visiones se aparten del camino que lleva a prevenirlas. El espejo es peligroso como guía de conducta.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Ah, of course. I have to (once again, when it comes to Spanish) give thanks to my brother, who alerted me of the word "espejo". At the moment I learned what "espejo" is (and from my own knowledge of languages guessed what "peligroso" is), it was easy to find where this is from.

Originally Posted by Mirror of Galadriel

Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them. The Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds.

[Thinlómien]

Take the thread, please.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Someone mentioned Koine Greek?

Dakryous myriona ymeis ekcheeite; kai _____ peribalousin _______ kata ymas, kai ekbalousin ymas exo, ina mete echo tou odyrmou ymon metabesetai dia ton oron.

I must say I enjoyed making this one, not saying that it is perfectly correct; but when I finished it, the professional deformation worked on me: I immediately wanted to make a textual analysis to find whether it was some purpose to use the derivations of the word "balo" so often. And I'm mentioning this so that I can tell you in English, peribalousin and ekbalousin hardly have anything in common, so don't let yourselves confused by the similarity.

A suggestion: for non-Greek speakers, you can try to discern in some words the prefixes you know, as they are even in English or in internationally known words.

[Gwathagor]

I don't suppose we can get it in actual Greek letters, can we?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Well it's the rule to post it transliterated to latin script. I believe it will not give you much advantage if I transliterated it back for you (it will be without all the accents still, but anyway), it will take a little time from me; I'm only afraid if others will not take it that you have some sort of advantage. Anyway, the script above is (almost, only you don't have the difference between o/o mega or e/eta) more or less letter-to-letter transliteration, so if you know the Greek, you can transliterate it for yourself...

EDIT: Okay, here is it in original, for comparison; so that if anyone is seriously linguistically interested he can check. I had to write it in standard Windows fonts (hope it shows to everyone), so I didn't know how to make the accents in there, but you can guess if you are familiar with the language. It is almost the same as in the text above, you can check in the two variants (even you who don't know the Greek script, if it will do you any good). η is long "e", ς is "s" at the end of a word, ω is long "o", χ is "ch"; and when standing alone, I transliterated υ as "y" (as that's how it's read) and when in double consonant ου, I transliterated it as "ou".

Δακρυους μυριονα υμεις εκχεειτε; και _____ περιβαλουσιν _______ κατα υμας, και εκβαλουσιν υμας εξω, ινα μητε εχω του οδυρμου υμων μεταβησεται δια των ορων.

Good night and happy riddling. I want you to provide the quotation and where it comes from...

[Gwathagor]

Hurrah! Thanks.

[Aganzir]

Since Uncle Gwathy hasn't provided us with a guess yet, I look forward to see Uncle Leggy provide us with a hint.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right. "Kai" is "and", "ymeis/ymas" is "you", "ymon" is "your".

And I suggest you to look at the words "myriona", "exo", and "echo", if they don't seem familiar to you or resemble some words you know from elsewhere.

If you wish other hints, you may ask me for specific words and I will tell their meaning to you. Or at least I could tell you what it is (like, a noun, a verb etc.)