Ulthuan

I mostly write Lizardmen fluff pieces. A long time ago I invented a Saurian curse "Mahrlect!" I never translated it, I use it in place of English four letter words. The context makes it clear that's it's profanity and other writers have picked up and started using it.

Now that I'm starting to write more about the warm bloods, I could use some Eldarin swear words. Even unofficial swear words would be nice. Right now I'm working on the tale of a witch hunter in Nordland. One of the many problems he's dealing with is Dark Elves collaborating with Human Khaine cultists to abduct children for slavery in Naggoroth, to fence stolen goods that the Druchii don't want to use, and possibly spy on the Empire. Eventually he gets joined by a High Elf hoping to shut down the Dark Elves.

Since I am going for grim and gritty but don't want to be censored, I would like my High and Dark Elf characters to "swear."

If you guys have anything, let me know. Otherwise I'll make something up I guess.

Thanks in advanced.

I've never come across anything. I doubt there's much in the GW or Tolkein fluff on this as they are too family friendly.

John Rainbow wrote:I've never come across anything. I doubt there's much in the GW or Tolkein fluff on this as they are too family friendly.

Tolkien never would have because he took his languages VERY seriously, but in other mediums it's been used to get stuff "past the radar" with nonswear curse words. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... nMyKlingon

I knew what you meant (like the use of 'feth' in 40k Gaunt's Ghosts book, etc). I just meant I hadn't seen anything for Elves so you might have to make it up.

pui-en-orch: (Sindarin) Orc-spit

(By Fiondil at Stories of Arda)

Aicanor wrote:pui-en-orch: (Sindarin) Orc-spit

(By Fiondil at Stories of Arda)

Nice, but what does "Sindarin" mean?

There are several dialects of elven tongue in Tolkien's universe. High Elves speak Quenya, Grey elves (those living in Middle Earth, Sindar) speak Sindarin. I can dig out Quenya version of this swear phrase later or find some more possible swear words later, or you can Google 'Ardalambion' and have some fun yourself.

The new ultimate fantasy nerd tattoo is that curse written in tengwar across your knuckles!

You mean in Daeron's runes as it is Sindarin. But all right, 'urcu piuta' in tengwar.

By Eldarin, you mean Eltharin right? Start making your own up mate, but dude, share them on here ^_^

So is the language officially called "Eltharin"? I saw the word "Eldarin" used several times on the DE forums. Realistically their language should be the same, just with a different accent.

The three Elven races Druchii, Asur and Asrai have vastly different dialects, different words/spelling/meanings/pronunciation, for their gods aswell.

I don't of any either, but as you did with the Old Ones butlers.
I'm sure we had a dictionary of Eltharin words on here sourced from novels and old RP books.
There might by something harsh in there that you could splice with another word, or word's spelling for flavour.

Edit: here it is:
http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic. ... Dictionary

Asurion Whitestar wrote:The three Elven races Druchii, Asur and Asrai have vastly different dialects, different words/spelling/meanings/pronunciation, for their gods aswell.

This makes perfect sense to me. In India, Im told, people speak three languages. Firstly they speak their own state language, then they speak Punjabi which is more of a national language, and less traditionally they speak English.

For High Elves, I suspect firstly they would speak their own language, for example, Swordmasters would probably speak the language of Saphery, then they would know a common Elf language. Most would likely (especially the character models) would know a known world common language which I would suspect is probably Empire influenced.

As for swear words, I dont suspect that the swear words for Elves are the ones that we regard as swear words, you know the ones that feature a lot in certain films on TV, but merely insults. I can imagine that rather than using swear words, insults would be more appropriate, for example
Your father wears blue/red/yellow etc (as I imagine certain areas would hold themselves in higher standing when compared to others)
Or perhaps put downs by mis spelling things, such as "He is so useless that he went to sign up and the only units that would accept him were the Lothern Flea Guard".

However, you guys know Elves a lot better than me.

Asurion Whitestar wrote:The three Elven races Druchii, Asur and Asrai have vastly different dialects, different words/spelling/meanings/pronunciation, for their gods aswell.

High Elves speak Tar-Eltharin, Wood Elves (I am told) Fan-Eltharin and Dark Elves speak Druhir (Drukh-Eltharin).

Looking at the dictionary at the top of this subforum 'drukh elthrai' would be 'black/dark doom'. That could be something to say when things go badly.
When it comes to insults, being a political race, I believe High Elves prefer subtle, complex ones as Lady Phoenix suggests.