Your Sindarin Textbook
Chapter Four, Lesson One: Plurals and a Few Special Words
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Sindarin plurals change from the inside, instead of having an S tacked on the end. It's difficult at first, but remember that once upon a time, in the distant past, English also made plurals by changing the vowels inside them. Remember: when nouns become plural, their adjectives also become plural. Accents But first, a quick note about the circumflex and acute accents. When a word gets more syllables, its circumflex accent becomes an acute accent and it's acute accent disappears. Regular Plurals The trick to Sindarin plurals is knowing what type of vowels you are changing: final or non-final. Non-final vowels are all of the vowels in a word except the last vowel, or if the word is only one syllable long, there is no non-final vowels in it. Here is a list of how all of the non-final vowels that change. Examples: Final vowels are the last vowel in a word if it isn't a U without any consonants following it [This is because in the word's history, the U used to be a W.] and if the word is only one syllable long. All of the accents are kept through the transition, unless the transition is into a diphthong. So, an Ê becomes an Î, and so on and so forth. Examples: Class Plurals There are two plurals that do entail tacking a suffix on, and these are called "Class Plurals." Class plurals are used on nouns. If they are added to the end of an adjective, say "green" for example, then it would mean "green ones." This is important to remember when pluralizing adjectives with nouns, because the meaning of the phrase could be drastically altered with hilarious effects. When a noun is a class plural, it's adjective is a normal plural. The first class plural is made by adding "-rim" to the end of a word. It is the equivalent to putting "a group of," "some", "a collection of", or "a bunch of" before a word in English. One odd little rule about using it: if the last letter of the word being pluralized is an L, then "-lim" is suffixed on instead of "-rim". Examples: The second class plural is made by adding "-ath" to the end of a word. It is the equivalent of putting "all of the" or "all" before a word in English. It also has a little oddity to its usage. If the last letter of the word is an M that came from MB or an N that came from ND, two N's or M's precede it. Examples: Special Plurals There are a few exceptions, and they are marked in (good) dictionaries. These exceptions are remnants of grammar no longer in use in the Sindarin language. The dual singular. This is for denoting one of a couple, pair, or set of twins. The host of evil. Used only for military regiments of mistrusted and feared things, it is an old equivalent to "-rim". It is related to the -hoth of counting. "From" "With" "And" "About" Elves like their words to flow. So, after some common words ending in vowels, they add consonants when the word was preceding a vowel to make the word flow easily into the next. The words are: Examples: Conjunctions In English, we have many conjunctions. For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. In Sindarin, there is only three: "and" (a[r]), "or" (egor), and "but" (dan). Homework Symbols that you may need: Wordbank Nouns: Adjectives: For this assignment, don't worry about Lenition, I chose words that it doesn't apply to. Make plural all of the words in the word bank. Aur - oer Make all of the nouns class plurals. Au - Aurrim Translate the following into Sindarin: All right-handed fish are old. - Limmath fergaim iphaint. Into English: Uthaesrim iphaint o lim firyn. - Some old temptations, concerning fish, are mortal men. |