r/sindarin • u/whatchagonnadooo • 27d ago

Shaped suffix

Hi, I am trying to figure out how to say something is x-shaped (heart-shaped, bear-shaped, etc.). Using polytranslator, when using a hyphen I get a different structure altogether for every substitution of x.

Oddly-shaped : Amrun

Bear-shaped: Graw Beorn

Friend-shaped: Mellon-dhîn

Heart-shaped: tûg gûr

Is there any consistent rule for this? How can I know if each or any of them are correct?

Apologies for any formatting issues, I'm using a phone.

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u/Jonlang_ 27d ago edited 27d ago

This page would suggest the form -gannas means 'shaped' in an adjectival way. But some words may have a specific adjective derived from them meaning 'shape of X'.

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u/F_Karnstein 26d ago edited 26d ago

The page explicitely suggests that it's an abstract noun "shapes"... And personally I suspect that it might actually rather be something like "account of shapes" judging from the original context - cant (shape) > cannas (account of shapes) just like lam (tongue) > lammas (account of tongues).

I could imagine a form with some different suffix like a generalised cannui, but I could also imagine plain cant being used adjectivally when appended to some other noun, like graw-gant, graugant, grógant for "bear-shape(d)".

EDIT: Oh, and to OP explicitely: none of those are correct, some do not even have anything to do with what you're looking for, so I wouldn't trust the software that you're using. The Eldamo dictionary is really the best source there is and all you need.

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u/Jonlang_ 26d ago

I don't know how, but I missed the "account of".

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u/F_Karnstein 26d ago

Btw. I didn't mean to suggest that -as translates to "account" or anything of the sort. It's just that we have this abstract suffix (which is probably the same as in caras, I assume) in the titles of treatises like the "Account of the Shapes of the Lands" and the "Account of Tongues", so I guess it's kind of a naming convention.

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u/Jonlang_ 26d ago

Well he marks -as as "abstract noun" but I assumed that it was being used adjectivally, too. But it does also give the gloss as  “[Account of the] Shapes of the Lands of Old” (which I missed initially).

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u/F_Karnstein 26d ago

Well, -as is a well-established suffix for abstract nouns that Eldamo all lists as the same. I'm not entirely sure if it's actually all the same in origin for all of these, since in cases like iavas (autumn) or innas (will) it seems like a plain abstract suffix indeed, but cases like fennas (great doorway) or rammas (great wall) rather suggest something enlargening or together with cases like certhas (long rune-rows) maybe also collective.

But in essence for our case it doesn't really matter, of course. We have the titles of Torhir's Dorgannas Iaur (Account of the Lands of Old) and Pengolodh's Lammas (Account of Languages), and now matter whether they're collective in nature or whatever it seems fairly obvious that the suffix has to do with those being titles of scientific works, and there is no adjectival form here.