From the Book: Basic Sindarin

Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by Goldenstar in From the Books

In “From the Book” Goldenstar discusses the significance of in-game people, places and things that were part of the book.

dictionary It would take a great deal of study to learn the Elven tongue of Sindarin but knowing a few things could be beneficial to your gaming. Many places in Middle Earth are mostly known for their Elven name. The name itself typically is descriptive which could assist you in finding where you should go to complete a quest or find certain creatures.

For example if you were asked to visit someone on Amon Raith while in the North Downs, it may be helpful for you to know that Amon means “Hill”.

Likewise anything named Emyn (being the plural of Amon) is a group of hills such as Emyn Hoedh in Ered Luin. Coincidently Ered means “mountains” and Luin means “blue” which is why they are also known as the Blue Mountains.

Locations such as Barad-Dûr (the tower of Sauron) has two words. Barad translates to “tower” and  Dûr means “dark” or “sombre” translating this place as the Dark Tower.

Dol Guldur is translated: dol is another word for “hill” and guldur means “(dark) sorcery”. This location is known as the Hill of Black Magic probably due to it being the hide out of the Necromancer in it’s past.

There are all sorts of locations like these to be found in Lord of the Rings Online where the name usually describes the location quite well. A pretty good site I found with just basic words and their Sindarin translation would be from Arwen-Undomiel.com. There are of course very detailed lists of Sindarin words like this Sindarin Dictionary.

Naturally, if you use the quest assistance system in game you don’t really need help finding a quest location. Still I don’t see how knowing these little tidbits is at all harmful. It may even be useful some day if nothing else than to impress your fellows that you know that you’re looking for a hill!

Have a question on why something in-game is the way it is? Have a in-game item that was in the book but not really mentioned in the movies? Send your questions and suggestions to Goldenstar!

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5 Responses to “From the Book: Basic Sindarin”

  1. Heiko

    25. Nov, 2009

    These things are very nice to know.
    I found that Sindarin Dictionary website in the past (when looking for names for my legendary weapons I think). While it is a pretty big list of words, the words on that website are nowhere near a complete langauge.

    Did Tolkien invent a more complete language besides what you can find on that website? Or did he just invent those words he needed to write his books?

    And what is that book in the picture, is it a Sindarin dictionary? Of is it just some book? (I guess if its a Sindarin dictionary there must be many more words than are listed on the website).

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    • Goldenstar

      25. Nov, 2009

      No that picture is just a picture of some regular old english dictionaries. :) I’m not certain if there are any real Sindarin dictionaries you can purchase. That’s a pretty interesting idea though. I think I’ll look that up!

      Reply to this comment

  2. Kael

    25. Nov, 2009

    I do believe there are websites out there with enough information on Sindarin to speak it as a language. There are a few words you have to make up on your own based on rules Tolkien left, but other than that it is very complete.

    Reply to this comment

  3. Doyce (Geiri/Finn)

    16. Dec, 2009

    One of the other useful place-name words to know (for me) has been “nan”, which usually indicates a valley of some type.

    Reply to this comment

  4. Project Altoholism: Thoughts on SoM | A Casual Stroll to Mordor

    01. Feb, 2010

    [...] thought I had gone ahead and started seeing Mirkwood without her; when in fact I was scouring the sites she had suggested for names and trying different combinations (most of which I encountered were already [...]

    Reply to this comment

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