…I think it’s all there, in the thread title.
I don’t imagine that Tolkien would have come up with anything “strong” enough to make a sailor blush, or anything, but I’d hope that there’d at least be equivalents to “Damn!” or “You Idiot!”
Not that I wouldn’t appreciate sailor-level Elvish profanity, if there is any.
You could blaspheme (I wonder if blasheming against Eru/Illuvatar or mentioning Sauron or Melkor/Morgoth would be worse?)
As far as I know, Tolkein didn’t really outline or construct “swear words” for Quenya or Sindarin. Information on the grammar of Elvish languages can be found in the appendices following The Return of the King but the vocabulary itself is generally limited to that found in the songs and poems of the books. It would be interesting to have a look at some of the professor’s notebooks to see how extended a vocabulary he came up with for the Elvish languages.
I don’t think he spent much time considering “swear words” in Elvish. Even when characters in the book speak insultingly or in anger, they do it without swearing.
Tolkein did mention that the Black Speech was “foul and uncouth”: “Much of the same sort of talk can still be heard among the orc-minded; dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigour, save in the ears of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong.” (LotR Appendix F). Orcish languages and the Black Speech appear to be rich in the sort of swearing you’re looking for. An excellent discussion of Orc language and the Black Speech can be found here (although it is an RPG website, this analysis of Tolkein’s Orc language is spot on.)
My goodness, I just have to say this is possibly the geekiest thread since I posted an article from my alumni newsletter on comparative Russian translations of ecclesiastical vocabulary in Tolkien…
Eva Luna I´d be interested in that article (or to be more precise my Russian wife will be interested when I show it to her).
Well, I have to run right now to the airport and won’t be home until Dec. 10th, but it’s from a back issue a few months ago (I can’t remember which month) of the Indiana University Russian & East European Institute’s newsletter (REEIfication). Start off at www.indiana.edu/~reeiweb, and follow the links. It’s in .pdf format.
(Or just do a search on my username and Tolkien; there should only be one or two threads fitting those criteria.)
Even geekier:
This article discussing which is the more authentic language: Quenya or Klingon?
:rolleyes:
Great site, buckle!
That did it; my geekiness meter just hit the peg 
From that site:
You smell like a human:
“Lle holma ve’ edan”
Evil!! 
LOTR is SO much better in the original Klingon…
Brian
What? Nobody’s going to argue with me on Grelvish? I was expecting a little debate here!