Help with Sindarin grammar

Hello! My friend and I have recently gotten into Sindarin grammar, and would greatly appreciate any answers to our questions!

1. We made up the name Elin-Gelebrin (silver stars) for a project. Is it properly pluralized, accorded, and lenited? And is it in the correct word order?

2. How do you properly compound the words edonna (to beget) and estel (trust)? We want to make a title "To Beget Trust" for a project, but are having trouble finding the correct way of compounding these words.

Thank you in advance!

1. I have no issue with ✶Elin-Gelebrin .

2. If this is to be a personal name, I can easily see the verb "beget" being represented by either a short adjective/action noun (viz. ✶eduin < OS ✶eton-ia < -jā), the third participle ( -iel ) or an agental noun type formation such as ✶ed-on¹, -onweg, -odhron for a male and edodhril or ✶eduneth for a female. "Trustworthy" might simply be conveyable with ✶estellen or ✶astorren — since -ren (= -len ) means "X-like in hue OR WORTH" (and it's predecessor -rin was used to translate "X-able, -ible" during the Early Noldorin stage of the language : see e.g. eldamo.org).

¹ From OS ✶eton-no (see similarly derived words from TOLKIEN, LISTED in "A Gateway to Sindarin" p. 162) or ✶etono (cp. TAN : eldamo.org).

For examples of how the final and first consonants of Sindarin compound elements change when joined, there is a handy free guide to consult at www.tolkiendil.com .

Greetings. There is a lot of misinformation on Sindarin grammar out there, either due to plain inaccuracies or because a resource is outdated. "Outdated" because Tolkien's notes are still being published in documents like the Parma Eldalamberon #22 from 2015. And so these documents, besides debunking old unattested theories, replaces some of his own older ideas. Which resource are you using for your studies?

1. It is correct, but there should not be a hyphen between the words.

2. That edonna- comes from Tolkien's Pre-1950 (i.e. non-canon) notes, showing a rather redundant ed "out". We have reason to think that the proper Sindarin form of the verb would be onna-. But "to beget trust" is an Anglicism that does not quite fit the Elvish languages in my opinion, I would rather express this as "to cause trust". I can approach that with a causative verbal suffix, which would yield "to make [someone] trust [something]". And so we would have *estella- (older *esteltha-) "to make trust" (which can also be interpreted as "to give hope" and "to strengthen/restore faith", since estel is "hope, trust, faith"), whose gerund would be *estellad.

[Edit removed.]

Thank you very much for your answers! We really appreciate the help! I hope you don't mind if I ask some more questions.

1. Why would there not be a hyphen between Elin and Gelebrin? If I remember correctly, Gil-Galad and Gil-Estel use a hyphen. And is Gil Gelebrin the correct plural form?

2. I have several other titles as part of my project, but I'm unsure of whether they are correct or not: I Echui (The Awakening), I Thross (The Whisper), I Narchad (The Sundering -- I could not find any direct translations for "sunder"), Carfad (Talking/Discussion), Londbar (Homecoming).

For our sources, we used David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin, A Summary of Sindarin Grammar, Reconstructing the Sindarin Verb System, and Sindarin Lessons. All of these were found online, and I also have a hardcopy of An Introduction to Elvish, by Jim Allan. However, some parts of these online sources contradicted with my book, especially with regards to the use of the Sindarin article ("the").

Sadly, all of those sources are outdated (including the Gateway), severely so for some. And that "Sindarin Lessons" resource (by which you probably mean the "weebly" website) is bafflingly inaccurate, so I strongly advise staying away from it. I recommend this resource instead. And more importantly, I would recommend joining our instant messaging group Vinyë Lambengolmor where the foremost figures in the field (including David Salo) discuss the languages and help beginners.

1. "Why no hyphen?" - Because Gil-Galad and Gil-Estel are (false) compounds which rather mean "[spark]star of [word], whereas elin gelebrin is simply "silver stars". If you want the elements to form a compound name, that would rather be sg. Celebel (pl. Celebil, Celebelin). The correct singular form of elin gelebrin would be êl gelebren.

2. I would replace narchad with *haded (lenited chaded) from √SKAT "break asunder". I would not use "carfad" (or carphad) for "discussion", Tolkien gives athrabeth for that meaning. Finally, that "Londbar" does not work phonetically, and if it did, it would rather mean "Haven-home". I would need what exactly you mean by "homecoming", but working with "returning home" I would say Barradhed as a compound, or *Radhed na Mar separately.

[Removed messages that were related to a (now resolved) misunderstanding, as well as my comment that started it, to avoid littering the topic.]

@Sami Paldanius: I have sent you a message and a "friendship request" on Facebook. If you wish to address anything else, we can speak privately there.