Elvish question

[Earenya]

Wow, I havent been to Entmoot in days!!!!!


Ok, my roommate has a question that I cant answer:

In FotR, Chapter VI, Aragorn says:

Arwen vanimelda, namarie!


What does that mean?

[Comic Book Guy]

Just before Randy gets this, I think it's "Arwen your beauty, Farewell".

[Wulažg]

There is already a thread for this in the Middle Earth forum, "does anyone know elvish", but I'll help anyway. It means "Arwen beautiful dear, farewell" and it was Aragorn in a flashback to the last time he had seen Arwen. Just think back to the movie, with the scene at night between them. Same deal

[Earenya]

Thank you!!! I couldnt believe that I didnt know that, Im gonna have to study up!!

[Wulažg]

Curses, CBG has beaten me once again to the chase

[Ñólendil]

If you call me Randy again your going to get a really bad wedgy CBG. You'll be be doing some serious undy-tasting. Geez, I can't believe what that bleeping bleep Wayfarer caused here.

From the Ardalambion:

Arwen vanimelda, namárië! "Fair Arwen [lit. Arwen your beauty], farewell!" - Aragorn's farewell to Arwen on Cerin Amroth, repeated by him as he recollected the scene on the same spot many years later. The first edition had vanimalda instead of vanimelda. (LotR1/II, end of Ch. 6, translated in WJ:369. The version in LotR has namarië instead of namárië, but both WJ:369 and other sources [one of them in LotR itself] confirm that the second vowel should be á, not a.)

[cian]

Tolkien linguist David Salo has a different reaction to even Tolkien's explanation. I include it for (possible ) interests sake. David worked on the langs for the film, if his name sounds familiar (or is unfamiliar):

"I'm not at all certain that when Tolkien wrote 'Arwen vanimalda', and much less that when he emended it to 'vanimelda' that he had in mind the explanation that he gives in _Quendi and Eldar_. Even to a Gondorian Quenyist it might well seem that Aragorn had intended to use a compound of vanima + melda "fair beloved" (which would have been entirely appropriate) or vanima + elda "fair elf" (slightly less so, esp. as Arwen was _perelda_)." David Salo