Translation Help

MLDLady #1465

Hello!

I am very new to the elven languages, and I was wondering if anyone could help me translate a phrase from English, into either Sindarin or Quenya.

The phrase is “This too shall pass”.

I'm finding translations to most of the words within the quote, except specifically the word shall. There are translations for 'shall not' 'shall do' etc., and approximations with the different languages for their words for 'see', but I’m not seeing any translation for either language for just the word 'shall'.

Also, I understand that both elven languages have a bit of a different sentence structure when it comes to wording and phrases, so any help rearranging the words to sound more syntactically correct in either language would be much appreciated.

Thank you guys so much for your help!

Elaran #1466

No one would knowingly provide ungrammatical translations (unless they have a grudge), so I find the last part rather amusing!

I doubt that you can find the words "too" and "pass" in Sindarin, because they do not exist; Tolkien never wrote them down (or the ones that he did, he later rejected, so they should not be used). There are ways to make a Sindarin translation work, but it would be safer to translate this into Quenya.

You are unable to find "shall" either because you are not considering the gloss "will" which is more frequent and has the same translation as "shall", or you are looking specifically for a word in isolation whereas both Quenya and Sindarin rather employ a suffix to express the future tense. In the case of Quenya, this is -uva.

In a late (1960s) note, Tolkien said that adverbs should follow the verb or appear at the end of a sentence, but since we are not translating "This shall pass, too", the emphasis on "too" could be made by placing it before the verb just like in the English phrase. So I would offer:

Si yú autuva

MLDLady #1467

Thank you so much for your help!

As I said, I am very much a newbie when it comes to this, so I really appreciate it, and enjoy hearing about things from Tolkien's perspective as well as everyone else's.

I can't believe I ignored looking into if there were any differences between the words 'shall' with 'will' (and because they are one in the same due to the future tense being a suffix, it fits pretty perfectly).

I suppose that’s what I get for starting research so late at night, you tend to miss the more obvious answers when you’re tired.

Thanks again for your help!