That's the one that came to mind, yeah.

PPC Sindarin by Tawaki on 2021-08-24 13:50:13 UTC Reply

The PPC has been in operation for decades, and there are many Agents and staff from Arda. Now, Sindarin has multiple dialects in-universe, but one or two would be standard.

There would certainly be a ton of loanwords right off the bat, some of them introducing new consonants or reintroducing vanished consonants. Using Salo's book as a guide for consonant mutations:

*Quab, a crustacean from Ahnonay in Mystverse. The base form would be "queb", with the plural "quib".

*Lenition: "i-gweb" (the quab)

*Nasal mutation: "a chweb" ("for a quab")

*Stop mutation: "e chweb" ("from a quab")

*Liquid mutation: "or chweb" ("above a quab")

*Mixed mutation: "en-gweb" ("of the quab")

Now, a Sindarin speaker may get a Gods Must Be Crazy mission. The main character's name starts with a lateral click consonant. So this is guesswork:

*Lenition: "Gxi" (Xi as the direct object of a sentence)

*Nasal mutation: "a Nxhi" ("for Xi"). Note that the click is nasalized as well as aspirated, as nasalization is what happens when a click follows a nasal.

*Stop mutation: "e Xhi" ("from Xi")

*Liquid mutation: "or Xhi" ("above Xi")

*Mixed mutation: "e-Ngxi". ("of the Xi", if the Suethor forgets the apostrophe in "Xi's" and one doppelgänger in particular needs to be singled out.)

Looking at the "ch" in "Chuck", I gather Sindarin would modify that to /s/?

I found a very relevant paper! by Huinesoron on 2021-08-25 09:06:04 UTC Reply
I had a whole thing written up here, but then I thought: what does Welsh do with loanwords? We know Tolkien based Sindarin on Welsh, so it's the perfect example. And lo and behold, there's a paper from 1949.

I'm no linguist, but it seems to be saying this:
- Many loanwords are treated as Welsh words, and mutated as normal. "pleser" (pleasure) becomes "yn bleser".
- Some loanwords are treated as if the English form was mutated, particularly when they start with what sounds like a mutated consonant. English "bench" should give Welsh "bainc", but this is back-mutated to be "mainc" (and therefore "bainc" in many sentences).
- Sounds which shouldn't exist in Welsh at all (they give th as an example) are just adopted directly, and do not mutate... sort of. The trouble is th is already a mutated sound in Welsh...
There's an interesting note that in proper names, "there is of course no lenition of the sounds in any position". I've never actually been sure whether names mutate in Sindarin - I think they might? But it always feels like they shouldn't.

Yeah, this is why I don't get on well with Sindarin.

hS

Names do mutate in Sindarin. by Tawaki on 2021-08-25 10:17:48 UTC Reply

"Daur a Berhael, eglerio!"

That's the one that came to mind, yeah. by Huinesoron on 2021-08-25 12:37:02 UTC Reply

It just seems weird, though, that the Lay of Leithian would be the song of Luthien a Veren for example (though maybe that's why it's Beren a Luthien instead?). It also means that proper nouns almost certainly never take the definite article - because otherwise the book of the Elder Days would be called i Hilmarillion.

Though that would be a loan-word itself; apparently the best Sindarin word we have for Silmaril is the Noldorin "Silevril", which probably is an adapted loan-word. With Sindarin not having a genitive case (except in the Doriathrin), the literal translation of 'Silmarillion' would just be "Silivril", the plural form of the noun - "Silmarils".

hS, rambling