Where's the Tolkien fans at?
Noticed my 1973 copy of The Hobbit has a message on the inside cover.
Can anyone translate?
@Arioch1530 I tried to transcribe a bit, but the result is disappointing:
der góys
nu dh dhiitality b
niddyli yers reenoan
alvás in jór
harte nd ehw [n]gerne
[...]
[hy/i]py
nirsnda
tymp,
quse
rasa 5, 1974 amb
'y' is a palatalization marker and not a vowel. 'qu' is 'kw' and does not have a vowel unless explicitly added.
There were numerous mistakes (equivalent of putting the dot under the i, or writing p from the baseline up). I did the best I could.
@dhasenan You did better than I could have, thank you!
I think we have more questions than we did before we started. It would be incredible if the image is recognized by someone - either the person who wrote it or the recipient.
I think they've put their vowel markers backwards (on the letter preceding, not following).
@Arioch1530 Probably English. It looks like it starts with something like "Dear Jess" and ends with something like "Love, Cathy/Kathy".
@Arioch1530 There seem to be errors and inconsistencies, but here's a guess:
Dear Joyce,
May the vitality of Middle Earth remain always in your heart and each journey there awaken the child within who joins again to the joy and wonder of life.
Happy birthday.
Love,
Kathy
@Aaron Thank you so much!
@Arioch1530 @Aaron This seems pretty close! I get “the child within *you once* again” (“y[u] ons[e]”).
Yes! That must be it. That prose reads more naturally. I was working with something like "hu 'ouyns 'ahgahyn".
There's a ton of play in the rest of it too, so further improvements would not be surprising. It's terrible writing; it's not clear how specifically the Tengwar are being used (the "mode") and there are tons of errors.
@Arioch1530 It says "Smash that like button and don't forget to subscribe and to hit that bell button for daily content"
I'm not sure of the final part.
@Bowoski @Arioch1530 final part says "(not clickbait)"
@twee @Arioch1530 Ah yes, good call m8
@Arioch1530
The Hobbit doesn't use elvish language, it wasn't developed yet. Just the runes, but the actual language is English.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tengwar_eng.htm
Good luck.
@Arioch1530 I'll take a stab at this when I get home tonight.
@Arioch1530 for what it's worth, here's how I would have written this message. Probably a mistake or two here too, but not nearly as many as the original I hope!
@joeld Incredible!
@Arioch1530 I think it says:
« This book is property of the public library of St-James and has to be returned before the 5th of June, 1973. »
@Arioch1530 "We updated our privacy policy."
WHY YOU GUYS MAKE ME DO THIS?!?! 😩
@Arioch1530 don't have time to do a full transcription right now but judging from the fact that the first word is "dear" I think it is English transliterated into Tengwar, which should make it (relatively) easy to figure out.
Here's the alphabet/writing system if you want to take a stab at it: http://omniglot.com/conscripts/sindarin.htm