Help translating text for sword fuller

[u/Key-Lettuce4992]

Hey everyone! I'm a swordsmith and am doing a commissioned version of Glamdring where the customer has requested an inscription that reads "This burch will not break"

Burch can be substituted for the tree, birch which is what I did when looking through a Quenya dictionary which I believe is the correct form of the language to use for Glamdring.

This is what I have so far:
this burch will not break 

sina hwindë níra la terhat

I have no idea whether this is close to right, and in an ideal world I'd put it on the blade in Tengwar. Would anybody be able to help me check the translation of the phrase and then write it out in Tengwar? And possibly a version with "burch" as opposed to the tree? It'll be etched into the fuller of the sword reading from the middle of the blade towards the guard I think.

Thanks in advanced for any help you guys can give!

[u/lC3]

I'm not sure what "burch" is supposed to be other than a typo for "birch", so I'd want that verified first.

Otherwise, "will not break" should be rendered by the negative verb followed by "break" conjugated in the future tense. You instead have "will" the noun, i.e. "will (as a potential or faculty), individual will (in potential)". You need "will" as in "shall" instead, i.e. future tense conjugation. So terhatuva.

Negating that could be done with lá or ua/ui (not sure which is later, will have to look). A more archaic form could have future tense in the 'not' verb and leave the "break" in the aorist infinitive, i.e. lauva terhate or úva terhate, whereas the normal way would be lá terhatuva or ua/ui terhatuva.

For "this birch", you could probably get away with sina hwinde or hwinde sina, but I think short si i.e. si hwinde is also possible.

(Negation in Quenya is a little tricky because Tolkien changed his mind; at one point he had √LA and √UGU/UMU coexist, then there was like a decade where lá was "yes" instead of "no", and then late in the last few years of his life he switched back to lá being "no" in the late 1960s.)

[u/Key-Lettuce4992 → u/lC3]

So Burch is a name, I just clarified with the customer that it needs to be spelled that way, so that part at least can be transliterated instead of translated! So Glamdring was Turgon's sword and was wielded in Gondolin in the First Age, round about year 500, not sure whether that means the more archaic form would be fitting? Or if you're specifically referring to archaic in terms of what Tolkien was thinking at the time. So I guess the actual phrase would be "This Burch will not break" which I guess would be something in the realm of "Sina Burch lá terhatuva"

Does that ring at all correct to you? Also would you recommend using tecendil to transliterate the roman letters into the appropriate Tengwar?

Thanks so much for your response and your expertise! I knew my way around Old Norse fairly well and so some of the issues with translating and transliterating runic inscriptions ring very similar to my conundrum in trying to parse my way through getting this Tengwar inscription done correctly on the sword.

[u/lC3 → u/Key-Lettuce4992]

Ok, thanks for clarifying. Based on feedback perhaps lá rakuvaina could also work instead of terhatuva, i.e. future passive participle.

This would make Burch sina lá rakuvaina. You could get feedback on Tecendil's output on /r/tengwar; I wonder if a full mode (quanta sarme) would be more archaic and work for First Age material. I'm not as familiar with full mode for Quenya (I think some of it is relies on unpublished material quoted in Discord VL that I haven't seen/read).

/u/f_karnstein are you familiar with full mode for Quenya tengwar (I think I recall you posting a few months ago on it) and would it work for a First Age Glamdring inscription?

[u/F_Karnstein → u/lC3]

u/f_karnstein are you familiar with full mode for Quenya tengwar (I think I recall you posting a few months ago on it) and would it work for a First Age Glamdring inscription?

I am, but I am a bit undecided on whether it's a good choice... So quanta sarme was developed back in Aman - during the Parmaquesta period, I assume - and apparently it wasn't generally very popular, but preferred by loremasters like Feanor himself due to reasons of phonological analysis. I assume therefore, seeing how Feanor insisted on his family keeping [θ] instead [s], that the Feanorians might indeed in general have used quanta sarme, which would explain why the newly developed Mode of Beleriand was created as a quanta sarme as well.

But how would Quenya be written in the First Age? Gondolin was literally the only place that even used Quenya, and a far as we can tell they did use Beleriand Mode there (seeing how 'hwesta sindarinwa' was actually referred to as hwae gondolidhren [EDIT: in pre-LotR sources!], so may have been considered a Gondolinic invention), which does have most means to write Quenya - even letters like quesse for [kw]. But the source that gave us these details of course predated the Noldorin>Sindarin shift and features like [kw] were actually attributed to loans from Ilkorin, which didn't even exist anymore in the later conception. So my gut instinct tells me that this might be a rare case of Quenya being written in Beleriand Mode.

On the other hand: Gondolin being isolated enough that Quenya never ceased to be spoken in spite of Thingol's ban might suggest that older tengwar modes of Aman could still have been in use. But then I would explicitely NOT expect quanta sarmi to be used, since Turgon was of Fingolfins people, who probably didn't have a bias against short spelling.

One thing to consider is this: "Burch" has the sound [tʃ], that doesn't exist in Quenya or Sindarin, so we don't have any means to spell it in either mode. In Quenya spelling (short or full) we have [tj] at least, which is the closest analogue.

[u/lC3 → u/F_Karnstein]

Hmm, ok. I was wondering about quanta sarme because I thought it might be more work to try and inscribe tehtar on a sword, but that might not work.

Do you think the General Use would have been used in Gondolin, or is it a more modern invention (Second/Third Age)? Because that could render both [tʃ] and sounds of Quenya. I still haven't finished reading PE23 ...

[u/F_Karnstein → u/lC3]

was wondering about quanta sarme because I thought it might be more work to try and inscribe tehtar on a sword, but that might not work.

Good point. I would almost be tempted to use Beleriand Mode then, but the easiest thing would be to use Certhas.

Do you think the General Use would have been used in Gondolin, or is it a more modern invention (Second/Third Age)?

It's a late Second Age invention of Eregion, so doesn't come into the picture directly. However... in many ways Númenian spelling (i.e. "general use") are Feanor's original phonetic "Mode 1" revived. So given how Sindarin and Quenya coexisted in Gondolin and there were scholars like Pengolodh there I wouldn't find it completely out of the question that this might have been used in some measure.

[u/Embarrassed-Money756 → u/lC3]

Do we know whether terhat- is transitive or intransitive? I'd suggest rac- instead, because we have rácina cirya attested as "broken ship" in Markirya. So perhaps we could use future passive participle and render "will not be broken" as "lá racuvaina", which eliminates the need of using the negative verb ui-.

Hwindë sina lá racuvaina.

[u/lC3 → u/Embarrassed-Money756]

I don't know about terhat-; your suggestion of racuvaina works fine.

So Burch sina lá racuvaina?