Magradhaid
Lindon
Aug 7 2015, 12:49am
Views: 2086
|
It's an unusual mode of writing but is definitely an attempt at saying Nai hiruvalye Valimar around the top, and Nai elye hiruva around the bottom. In this case, vowel tehtar are placed above the preceding tengwa. The vowel markings for E and I are switched, as are O and U: these have happened (e.g. in CT's English transliterations, and the Black Speech ring-verse), but not so often for Quenya (one example of O/U is DTS56). The separation of the diphthong AI like that (and not written over yanta) into A over the preceding and I on a short carrier is attested in some of Tolkien's examples. The U is missing in hiruvalye, and they decided to use kh- for the hir- parts. Indeed, harma would have originally been used, but later on it was renamed aha because kh- had become h- initially, and hy- (hyarmen) started to be used for initial h-.
So there's a rationale for each of the unexpected parts, save the missing U, and -lye. Tolkien sometimes represented consonants like ly, ny, etc. in Quenya without using the two dots to represent following y, and instead used L and a Y-tengwa afterward. However, the L had a dot underneath to indicate no following vowel, and the vowel after -y was then placed above it (DTS72, which has separation of nai as I mentioned). However, that uses anna, not yanta, and there's no underdot. Another way is found in DTS73, but while that does show -y represented with yanta and no underdot, the vowel after it is still placed above yanta: and nai is then written with A over N and a following yanta, not like here (or DTS72). There's also the matter of whether rómen would be used for final R in Quenya.
So we can tell what it's intended to say, though I'm somewhat surprised at how it's written, given our attested examples.
Edit: You're right, they do have N in Valimar, which is a mistake that can't be explained away.
(This post was edited by Magradhaid on Aug 7 2015, 12:51am)
|
