# Speaking Elvish for Pentecost **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 17, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235 "2012-05-17T18:14:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/101 "2017-05-25T23:58:46Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > Just say: > > _Ash nazg durbatulak, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!_ > > Ask the sound man for an echo-effect, you can borrow my fog machine. I am picturing that not going over well if anyone recognizes the black speech Oh, not to nitpick but spelling error _Ash nazg **durbatulûk** , ash nazg gimbatul, Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul_ ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/102 "2017-05-26T03:12:55Z")
I’ve been studying Koine Greek, so this year, instead of Korean, I’ll be reading John 20:19-23 in the original. I’ll practise for my instructor, who’s the current pastor of the church I grew up at. But I’m glad he’ll be leading the service there, so he won’t be on hand to critique me at my own church. In the past we’ve had a wide variety of languages spoken. The prettiest _script_(I couldn’t hear the actual speech) was Tamil. Beautiful whorls, circles and curlicues. I haven’t seen the scripts for Quenya or Sindarin ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/103 "2017-05-26T07:43:29Z")
Tengwar, the “pen or brush” form of Tolkienian Elvish writing, is very elegant. Maybe too elegant, as a lot of the characters are built off the same basic shapes and can look similar. On the other hand, the logical pattern of it it does make the script easy to learn. There’s also a runic system, which looks sort of like northern European runes. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/104 "2017-05-30T17:24:00Z")
Yes, I think Tengwar is quite beautiful: [Tengwar - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengwar) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/105 "2017-05-30T17:42:02Z")
Isn’t “Elvish” = Finnish? (Sort of…) So if some vocabulary is missing, you could borrow it from Finno-Ugric, or, better yet, just read the entire passage in Finnish—probably no one will be able to tell the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/106 "2017-05-30T20:41:12Z")
It’s closer to Finnish than it is to any other human language, but that’s still not very, and a lot of what similarity there is in structural, not in vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/107 "2017-05-30T21:07:08Z")
Quenya, or “high elven”, spoken by the Noldor and other elves of the Blessed Realm, was most heavily influenced by Finnish, but also by Latin. Sindarin, the tongue spoken by the Elves of Beleriand, was influenced mostly by Welsh. If you want to know your Tolkienic tongues, check out [Ardalambion](http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/108 "2017-05-31T16:54:28Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > If you were a _real_ nerd, you’d use the secret tongue of the Dwarves. That would be kind of hard as, except for some place names (Khazad-dûm) and a war cry (Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!) Tolkien revealed little about [Khuzdul](http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Khuzdul). > [@wiki](#): > > For The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the linguist David Salo used what little is known of Khuzdul to create a semi-complete language for use in the movies. This is usually referred to as neo-Khuzdul by Tolkienists, which is a fully usable language. _That_ (sniff) doesn’t count, though. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/109 "2017-06-04T17:39:46Z")
The reading this morning went well. The other languages spoken were Czech, English, German, Koine Greek, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, American Sign Language and Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/110 "2017-06-05T12:19:19Z")
We did the same yesterday. Baya (one of the local languages in Cameroon, where my pastor was a missionary for many years), German, French, and Tagalog (one of our members is Filipino). We used to do Norwegian, but that’s not foreign-sounding to many of our members. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/111 "2017-06-05T20:32:19Z")
The Quenya reading reminds me of John 10:16, " I have other sheep, which are not of this fold" which some interpret narrowly as Jesus saying that he needs to preach to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, but which others read as his saying that he’s concerned with life on other worlds. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/112 "2017-06-05T21:13:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > The reading this morning went well. The other languages spoken were Czech, English, German, Koine Greek, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, American Sign Language and Spanish. You know, we have a big enough congregationt hat surely someone knows ASL. Next year I want to try and find someone who can do that. We had only six languages, but it was still good. Spanish, German, Koine Greek, French, Russian, and an African language I didn’t hear named. The speaker is fro Nigeria though. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/113 "2018-05-19T17:46:08Z")
Tomorrow is Pentecost, and I’m doing the Koine Greek again. I forgot about trying to find someone to do ASL. Not sure what other languages will be spoken Sunday. \*\* Elendil’s Heir\*\*, will you be reading tomorrow? ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/114 "2018-05-20T06:13:12Z")
Anyone ever try LOL CAT? [http://lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Acts\_2](http://lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Acts_2) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/115 "2018-05-20T16:30:10Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > … **Elendil’s Heir** , will you be reading tomorrow? Yes! Just a few sentences, Acts 2:7-8, in Quenya (the lector read the preface and the rest of the lesson in English), but it went well. Did it at both the 9 and the 11:15am services this morning. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/116 "2018-05-20T19:26:35Z")
I did Koine Greek again. The other languages were Tagalog, German, French, and Cantonese. The reader did the “these men are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day” in English. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/117 "2018-05-20T22:03:14Z")
Excellent. The other languages at my church today were American Sign Language, Czech, French, German, Japanese, Koine Greek, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/118 "2018-05-21T12:35:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Jesus made 5,000 loaves and 5,000 babelfishes. There’s a new boy working at the fried fish stall, and I could swear he was Elvish. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/119 "2019-05-28T02:47:27Z")
So, it is now 2019. Who is going to be reading this year? I will be going back to Korean, after doing Koine Greek for two years. ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235/120 "2019-05-29T01:49:59Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > But the different words meaning Peter are not the words meaning stone in each language, and there are many languages (English among them) where the name derives from the name in another language and not from the word meaning stone; in the different versions of the Bible I’m familiar with, Peter is only called Stone in the story about where he got his nick. He is occasionally referred to (e.g. by Paul) as “Cephas,” which is the _Greek_ (Κηφᾶς) for “stone”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-elvish-for-pentecost/622235.md?page=7)