Snippets of Elven

[Michael Morris]

For some reason my campaign has a consistent set of elven words I've made up over the years. While not a full language, it does add some flavor and is fun for the players of elves to use. All of the following applies to eldarin as well.

• Cal Itze "Sibling Beloved" (Elven has only a few gender specific words).
• Frian sade "Farewell forever" is the closest translation, literally "Forever Farewell". This parting is used only when the parting is believed to be permanent.
• Li Bye. Used far more frequently than the above
• Ni Hello.
• En Capri Literally "In Head" or "In Mind". Used in the same way we would say "How are you?" and a more loose translation is "What's on your mind."
• Loi Good, or fine.
• Moi Bad.
• Loi moi so, so.
• Loirae Great. Rae is a superlative suffix equivalent to er.
• Tiane Mother or father.
• Tianerae Grand mother/father.
• Shan She - this is is used as a prefix when gender is important. Shantiane is "Mother" explicitly.
• An He - as above.
• We Elven word for 'elf'
• Niwe ni means 'no'. So 'not an elf'. Elves often call other members of the party niwe.
• Hone Valley. The largest half elven kingdom of Telzoa is named "Hone Rae" meaning "great valley."

I'll stop there - probably bored everyone already.

 

[racoffin]

I can't speak for everyone, but I am definately not bored. I'd be interested to see what else you have.

 

[fba827]

Nice stuff, back in 2e I did the same but it was a list of all random words that I (DM) or players made up for any of the languages, as well as made up names for any of the flora and fauna, and any regional slang terms etc.

Our list had lots of dwarven curses and food items.
The elven words had lots of terms for natural phenomenon

There were a couple running jokes hidden amongst our list (though I will spare everyone that).. but, yeah, it was great fun. I know the players got a little giggle from seeing a word they made up make "the list.'

At one point, when I started the list, I considered giving negligable exp for creative rp in adding to the list.. but before i even had to offer any incentive, the players were quite thrilled to add to it on their own accord without any prompting from me. It went over quite well.


*I should add that the game in question was played by email so 1) it lent itself more to RP opportunities and 2) it was easy to refer to the list on the webpage (i'm sure it would have been harder 'at the table' with so many other papers and activities going on)

 

[Timeboxer]

I stole an elven word from Tolkien for my character's occupation -- palantir, "one who sees from afar," which in her case means detective.

 

[EATherrian]

Since I hear it all the time in LOTRO, I'm keeping Mae Govonan (sp?) as the Elvish phrase for hello. In fact, if you like Sindarin, there is a lot of it voice recorded in that game.