LESSON FIFTEEN
- Early Buddhist texts and modern translations. Suttas (sutras) from the Tipitaka (Tripitaka) in Pali, Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan with the Buddha's teachings on mindfulness, insight, wisdom, and meditation.
- The dual plural section of Chapter 5.2 has been updated, and the homework has been edited to match. So, the edits I made last time to the Sindarin plural-mutation lesson (chapter 5 lesson 1) embarked me on an odyssey to find out more. With the help of Roman Rausch on the Google+ community “Languages of Middle-earth” I present to you the.
- 1 Full Sindarin course from sindarinlessons.weebly.com J-M Carpenter (Xandarien) 2020 v.9.1.
Sindarin Lessons Weebly
1 Full Sindarin course from sindarinlessons.weebly.com J-M Carpenter (Xandarien) 2020 v.9.1.
The ending -rya and more about possessive pronominal endings. TheLocative case. Relative sentences. Third Person obscurities.
MORE ABOUT POSSESSIVE PRONOMINAL ENDINGS
(plus a slightly digressive inquiry into the truenature of the combinations ly, ny, ry, ty)
In theprevious lesson we introduced a series of possessive pronominal endings thatcan be added to nouns: -nya 'my', -lya'your', -lva 'our' (incl.) and -lma'our' (excl.); furthermore, there is an ending for dual'our', evidently -mma (but it remains unclear whether it isinclusive or exclusive). Ignoring a strange variant of the ending -lya'your' (-lda, mentioned only in WJ:369), only one of theattested pronominal endings remains to be mentioned: -rya. It occurstwice in Namárië. The first time it is followed by the genitive ending,regularly producing the form -ryo: The relevant word if ómaryo,translated 'of her voice', the genitive form of ómarya'her voice'. The word óma 'voice' is attested byitself elsewhere (Etym., entry OM; VT39:16).
The second time -rya occurs in Namárië,it also has another ending following it, in this case the dual marker -t:the word máryat is translated 'her hands', referring to anatural pair of hands (the word má 'hand' is also attested byitself). Anyhow, the ending -rya is seen to mean 'her', andfrom the Namarië examples it is clear that it can be used and combinedwith other endings just like any of the other pronominal suffixes we havealready discussed and practiced (samberya 'her room', samberyan'for her room', samberyanna 'to her room', samberyallo'from her room', samberyo and samberyava 'of herroom'...and so on with plural and dual forms: samberyar 'herrooms', samberyat 'her couple of rooms/her two-roomapartment', etc. etc.)
For thirty years, from The Fellowship of theRing (with Namárië in it) appeared in 1954 until Christopher Tolkienpublished The War of the Jewels in 1994, 'her' was the soleknown meaning of the ending -rya. In the meantime, we had one moreexample of -rya = 'her' in the Markirya poem, which waspublished in The Monsters and the Critics in 1983 (though in Markirya,'her' does not refer to a person, but to a ship). But when WJappeared in 1994, it became evident that the suffix -rya actually coversnot only 'her', but also 'his': Coarya is shown tobe the Quenya for 'the house of him' or 'his house'(WJ:369, there spelt köarya). Of course, the form coarya as suchcould just as well mean 'her house', and conversely the Namáriëforms máryat, ómaryo could in another context mean 'hishands' and 'of his voice': We have to conclude thatQuenya simply does not make a distinction between 'his' and'her'. Indeed it is entirely possible that -rya covers'its' as well (see below) – so that there is one single ending forthe entire third person singular in the table of possessive pronouns. TheEnglish translation would depend on the context, of course.
There is more to learn from the two examples of-rya in Namárië. Notice the dual form máryat 'her(pair of) hands'. As described in Lesson Three, Quenya developed a system whereby -t isthe normal dual ending, ordinarily replaced by -u only where euphonicconcerns demand this, as when the word that is to receive a dual ending alreadyincludes t or d (Letters:427, footnote). But in Lesson Three we also argued from theexample peu '(pair of) lips' that body-parts occurring inpairs occur in 'fossilized' dual forms, always taking the ending -u– 'reflecting the oldersystem in which only -u denoted a natural or logical pair'.Nonetheless, the student may also remember a parenthetical warning to theeffect that 'the other ending -t may however be used if certainother endings intrude before the dual ending itself; we will return to this ina later lesson'. It is time to have a closer look on this.
It has often been assumed that removing the ending -rya'her' from máryat 'her hands' would simply leave uswith mát '(a pair of) hands'. Yet since the dual form of pé'lip' is attested as peu, we might reasonably assume that thedual form of má 'hand' is likewise mau 'pair of hands',though the latter form remains unattested. If the noun that normally has a dualform in -u is to receive a possessive pronominal suffix, it seems thatthe dual ending -u is suppressed and duality is instead expressed bymeans of the ending -t, suffixed after the pronominal suffix – asin máryat. Though the dual '(pair of) lips' is peu,we can assume that 'her (two) lips' would be constructed by startingfrom the singular form pé 'lip' and adding -rya for'his/her' and then -t for dual number, so that as a parallelto máryat we would see péryat. (It then follows that the genitiveis péryato, the dative péryant, the allative péryanta, theablative péryalto, etc.) Aldu may be the normal dual 'pairof trees', but 'her pair of trees' would perhaps beconstructed from the singular alda with the appropriate suffixes,producing aldaryat. Even so, we may suspect that the dual ending -ucould function as a connectingvowel where one is needed – just as the pluralending -i is known to function in certain instances. The word for'foot' is tál with stem tal-, so perhaps the dual'(pair of) feet' is talu. Adding a possessive pronominalending to tál, tal- would however require a connecting vowelbefore we can even think about adding -t as a dual marker at the end ofthe word. Should 'her pair of feet' perhaps be something like taluryatwith double dual markers, -u- and -t, just like there wouldapparently be double plural markers (-i- and -r) in aplural word like (say) talilmar 'our feet'? If so, this wouldbe an exception to the apparent rule that the dual marker -u is not usedbefore a possessive pronominal suffix. As usual, we lack attested examples, butsince Elendil's Declaration indicates that 'my heirs' is hildinyar,it would not be wildly implausible to assume that a corresponding dual formwould be something very much like hildunyat. (Or maybe the rule that -nya'my' prefers -i- as its connecting vowel would prevail,producing hildinyat, but we might still see -u- as a connectingvowel before other pronominal endings, e.g. hilduryat 'her pair ofheirs'.)
Another thing to belearnt from the Namárië examples máryat 'her hands' andómaryo 'of her voice' has to do with whether ry herecounts as a consonant cluster (r + y) or as a single consonant:palatalized r. What we learn is however somewhat paradoxical. We touchedon these problems already in Lesson One, but a new inquiry may be in placehere, since the combinations in -y (like ry, ly, ny,ty) occur in several of the possessive pronominal endings. Tolkienrepeatedly indicated that ómaryo is accented on the a in thesecond-to-last syllable (in one of his Namárië transcripts in RGEO, heindicated all major and minor stresses in this song, and we also have two orthree actual recordings where he is heard to use this accentuation). Forómaryo to be accented in such a way, ry must count as a consonantcluster, not as a single consonant. If ry were a single consonant, thenormal rules dictate that the stress would not land on the vowel before it, buton the third syllable from the end.
Yet we have repeatedly referred toanother observed rule of Quenya phonology: there cannot be a long vowel infront of a consonant cluster. Thus the long vowel of má 'hand'is logically shortened in the plural allative form mannar'into...hands', attested in Fíriel's Song. **Mánnarwould not be a possible Quenya word. So if ry is also a consonantcluster as we thought we had just established, why is á not shortened inthe form máryat? Why don't we see ?maryat as a parallel tomannar?
Frankly, I can't think of any obvious explanation. Apparently we mustsimply accept that ry – as well as ly, ny, ty –count as consonant clusters for the purpose of stress, but a preceding longvowel does not have to be shortened. Thus we would have márya'his/her hand', mánya 'my hand' and málya'your hand' with the preceding long vowel intact. Before the otherattested pronominal suffixes, it would have to be shortened, since theseendings unquestionably introduce a following consonant cluster: malvaand malma = 'our hand' (inclusive and exclusive). **Málva,**málma would hardly be possible Quenya words. Such variations wouldclosely parallel a couple of attested forms we have referred to earlier, thoughthey involve subject endings (-mmë for 'we' and -nyëfor 'I') rather than the pronominal possessive endings added tonouns: The exclamation vá signifying refusal has its long vowel shortenedbefore the cluster mm in vammë 'we won't', but the longvowel is seem to persist in ványë 'I won't' (WJ:371 –later Tolkien changed the ending -mmë to -lmë, as discussed inthe previous lesson). So we can tell that while mm is unquestionably acluster (as the later lm would also be), ny may well count as asingle consonant – palatalized n like Spanish ñ.
There are only a handful of nouns that can be affected by thesevariations in vowel-length, words of a single syllable that end in a longvowel: Besides má 'hand', only cú 'bow', pé'lip', ré 'day' (24 hours) and lú 'time,occasion' spring to mind – if we don't bring in Tolkien's early'Qenya' material as well. Of course, the long vowels of these wordswould also be shortened before case endings introducing a followingconsonant cluster, as indicated by the plural allative mannar 'intohands' in Fíriel's Song. But 'into your hands'would evidently be mályannar, or mályanta as a dual form – since ly,ny, ry, ty do not count as consonant clusters for thispurpose.
On the other hand, there is also some evidence suggesting that thesecombinations should be taken as clusters. In a Namárië manuscriptreproduced in RGEO:76, Tolkien split the word ómaryo into itsconstituent syllables and seemingly indicated that -ar- and -yoare separate syllables – as if ry is a genuine consonant cluster afterall, not just palatalized r. (Sure enough, r would probably bepalatalized before y, but if y is also to be sounded as adistinct consonant, we would still have a cluster.) Likewise, Tolkien split thewords fanyar 'clouds' and ilyë 'all' into fan/yar,il/yë. If ry, ny, and ly, and by implicationty as well, really are to be taken as consonant clusters when they occurin the middle of words, this would explain the observed stress patterns. Butthen we are left with the problem of why long vowels are not shortened beforethese combinations. Luckily, these seeming inconsistencies cause no problems topeople trying to write in Quenya, since we can simply imitate the systemor systems that Tolkien used.
Even so, I haven't bored the student with the paragraphs above only asan academic exercise, for there remains the problem of how ly, ny,ry, ty occurring in the middle of words should really bepronounced: Are we dealing with single, unitary palatalized consonants, longpalatalized consonants, or single consonants followed by a distinct y?It seems that we can't reach any definite answer based on what has beenpublished so far. When Tolkien in RGEO:76 syllabified fanyar as fan/yar,it seems to demonstrate that he at least can't have the pronunciation **fañ-arin mind, though palatals like ny and ty must always be pronouncedas single, unitary consonants when they occur initially (as Quenya cannot haveconsonant clusters at the beginning of words: SD:416-417). The choiceapparently stands between fañ-ñar (with a long or double palatal ñ)and fan-yar or rather fañ-yar (a distinct y beingsounded). In either case, a word like atarinya 'my father'(that is, atariñña or atariñya) would then logically be accentedon the i according to the normal rules. Why this combination ny,as well as ly, ry, ty, apparently lack the power to make apreceding long vowel become short remains a mystery. If they are pronouncedwith a distinct y, as I tend to think, these combinations may not becounted as regular consonant clusters because y is a'semi-vowel' rather than a quite 'proper' consonant.
Possessivepronominal endings used with infinitives: In Lesson Ten we described how infinitive forms of verbs have anextended form in -ta which is used when the infinitive is to receive asuffix denoting an object pronoun: thus carë (cari-) 'todo', but caritas 'to do it' or 'doing it'.To such an extended infinitive it is also possible to add a pronominal endingdenoting the subject of the verbal action. Our attested example is caritalya(s),which Tolkien translated 'your doing (it)' (VT41:17). 'You'is here the subject of the verbal action (that is, the 'doing'), andthis is expressed as a possessive pronominal ending -lya'your'. A second pronominal ending, denoting the object, maythen be added at the end of the word: caritalyas, 'yourdoing it', tiritanyat 'my watching them'.Such a phrase can probably be used as a noun, functioning, for instance, as thesubject or object of a sentence. Perhaps 'I want you to watch them'would be expressed something like merin tiritalyat, literally 'Iwant your watching them'. The object of the infinitive could certainly bean independent word as well, e.g. merin tiritalya i seldor, 'I wantyou to watch the boys' ('I want your watching the boys').
By their meaning, such infinitiveswould come very close to gerunds, and these Quenya forms in -ta are probablymeant to be related to Sindarin gerunds (ending in -ad or -ed).Indeed we must assume that regular gerunds (in -ië) may also receivepossessive pronominal endings, e.g. tulierya 'his coming' (tulië'coming'). It is, however, uncertain whether a second pronominalending denoting the object may then be suffixed (?carieryas'his doing it').
THE LOCATIVE CASE
In connection with theforms mir, minna 'into' we have referred to the Quenyapreposition mi 'in', which is sometimes combined with thedefinite article to produce the form (mi + i =) mí'in the'. It occurs in Namárië, in the phrase mí oromardi,translated 'in the high halls' (so in RGEO:66, at least – the text inLotR has mi with a short vowel, though this should be a simple'in' with no article incorporated, and indeed the translationprovided in LotR goes simply 'in lofty halls').
Yet Quenya often dispenses withprepositions, using special case forms instead, as when 'to, towards'is normally expressed by the allative ending -nna, whereas 'from'is usually expressed by means of the ablative ending -llo – thoughQuenya does have separate prepositions that could express the same meanings. Itshould be no surprise, then, that Quenya instead of using a preposition like mioften prefers a specific case form in order to express the meaning of'in' (or 'on, upon'). The relevant case is called the locative,marked by the ending -ssë (probably inspired by the Finnish ending -ssa,-ssä of similar meaning). For instance, 'in a house' can beexpressed as coassë, 'in the house' could be i coassë,'in my house' would be coanyassë, etc. (Of course, the stressmoves to the vowel immediately preceding the case ending, since the endingbegins in a consonant cluster.) The locative can refer to 'location'in time as well as space: In an early version of the greeting 'astar shines on the hour of our meeting', Tolkien had the noun lúmë'hour' appearing in the locative case (lúmessë,RS:324).
NOTE1: Students should notice that the ending -ssë is not always alocative marker, meaning 'in' or 'on' wherever it occurs.Sometimes -ssë functions as an abstract ending. We have alreadyintroduced the noun alassë 'joy, merriment'. Entulessëis attested as the name of a ship, said to mean 'Return' (UT:171; entul-would be the verb 'to re-come' = 'to return'). Caimassëcould be the locative form of caima 'bed', but caimassëis also used as a noun 'lying in bed' = 'sickness', andthis is even the basis of the adjective caimassëa 'bedridden,sick' (Etym., entry KAY). Sometimes -ssë as a noun ending isnot abstract, but it is seen to maintain the connotations of localitythat it also has when used as a locative ending: The noun aicassë'mountain peak' is derived from the adjective aica'sharp', so the term aicassë basically refers to some kind of'sharp place'. The ending -ssë also turns up in the names of a couple ofthe months of the Elvish calendar, listed in LotR Appendix D: Víressëand Lótessë, roughly corresponding to April and May. The meaning of theword Víressë is uncertain, but Lótessë certainly connects with lótë'flower' and would seem to mean essentially 'In Flower', afitting description of the month of May. – Whether the locative ending -ssëcould or should be attached to a noun already ending in -ssë isuncertain. Lótessessë does seem like a rather cumbersome way ofexpressing 'in May', and aicassessë for 'on a mountainpeak' is not much better. Instead of adding the locative ending to nounsof such a shape, it may be better to use the preposition mi'in': Mi Lótessë, mi aicassë. But in the PlotzDeclension, Tolkien does seem to indicate that lassessë would be anacceptable locative form of lassë 'leaf'. Yet the preposition miwould always be a valid alternative to the ending.
NOTE2: As we remember, the allative case in -nna does not alwaysdenote motion towards something, but may also express the idea of 'on,upon'. In some contexts, it would perhaps be permissible to use either thelocative or the allative, resulting in pretty much the same meaning (caitancaimanyassë = 'I lie in my bed' / caitan caimanyanna 'I lie onmy bed'). Yet Tolkien sometimes translated a Quenya locative form usingthe English preposition 'upon'. An example of this is ciryassë'upon a ship' (MC:216, there spelt kiryasse); cf. also mahalmassenbelow.
In the plural, the simplelocative suffix -ssë is expanded with the same plural element -nthat is also seen in the plural forms of the endings for genitive (-on)and ablative (-llon). Thus, plural locative forms end in -ssen.The plural locative of mahalma 'throne' occurs in Cirion'sOath, where the Valar are referred to as i hárar mahalmassen mi Númen,'those who sit upon [the] thrones in the West'.
The dual locative ending isformed by substituting the dual element t for the first of the s'sof the ending -ssë. The resulting ending -tsë is not attested inany actual Quenya composition by Tolkien, but he listed it in the Plotz letter,so presumably we can have forms like sambetsë 'in a two-roomapartment' or ciryanyatsë 'on my [two sister] ships'.(These words may be seen as the simplest dual forms sambet, ciryanyatwith the locative ending -ssë attached, though it is simplified to -sëto avoid the impossible combination **-tssë.)
Of course, endings like -ssë, -ssen,-tsë can never be added directly to a noun ending in a consonant withoutproducing impossible consonant clusters. In the original version of thiscourse, I wrote regarding this:
Lacking attested examples, we can only assume that connecting vowelswould be fitted in by much the same rules as the ones that are seen to apply inthe allative and ablative cases: -e- is used as a connecting vowel inthe singular, whereas plural forms have -i-. Hence presumably elenessë'in a star', elenissen 'in stars'. The dual'in a couple of stars' might prefer the connecting vowel -e-(?elenetsë). Contracted forms may also turn up, e.g. elessë for elen-ssë.The directions Formen, Hyarmen, Númen, Rómen =North, South, West, East would almost certainly surrender their final -nin the locative, just as they are seen to do in the allative and ablativecases. Hence probably Formessë 'in the North', etc. Fíriel'sSong has Númessier for 'they are in the west'. Thisstrange form seems to include the ending -ië 'is', pl. -ier'(they) are' which Tolkien probably dropped later. Even so, anunderlying locative form Númessë 'in the West' must in anycase be presupposed here. Since the noun Númen 'West' alsoappears in the shorter form Númë, we cannot be certain that a final -nhas dropped out here, but this locative form may be noted all the same.
(Unquote myself.)Since I wrote this, new relevant evidence has turned up. Cemessë'on earth' (VT43:16) as one locative form of cemen'earth' could be seen as a certain example of a final -ndropping out before the ending -ssë . However, cemessë mayactually be meant to have evolved from cemen-së, with a shorter versionof the locative ending, ns in this instance becoming ss byassimilation. In his various drafts for a Quenya version of the Lord's Prayer,Tolkien is seen to be struggling with the question of what the locative formsof menel 'heaven, sky' and cemen 'earth'should be. One version has menelzë and cemenzë, the locativeending -ssë being shortened to -së and voiced to -zë bycontact with the voiced consonants l, n preceding it (VT43:9).However, forms like menelzë, cemenzë cannot belong to the kind ofQuenya used in Middle-earth in the Third Age; in Appendix E to LotR we are toldthat 'the z-sound did not occur in contemporary Quenya'.Tolkien eventually settled on the forms meneldë and cemendë(VT43:11, 12), apparently suggesting a development ls > lz> ld and similarly ns > nz > nd. (Whetherthis would render obsolete the form cemessë, apparently presupposing adevelopment ns > ss instead, is of course unclear.) Nounsending in the consonants -l and -n may thus have locative formsin -dë (in the plural presumably -den, corresponding to theregular ending -ssen). Nouns in -s and -t may simply havelocative forms in -së (compare the dual locatives in -tsë, whichis simply the dual ending -t + the shortened locative ending -së).Phonetically, words in -r would be excepted to have locative forms in -ssë(e.g. Ambassë as the locative form of Ambar 'world'),since the group rs historically becomes ss (for instance, thename Nessa is said to descend from neresâ, evidently via anintermediate form nersâ: WJ:416).
However, there also seems to be a much simpler system: one may use thefull ending -ssë 'everywhere', slipping in a connecting vowel-e- before it where it would otherwise follow a consonant. In one of theLord's Prayer versions, Tolkien in the phrase 'our Father in heaven'translated 'in heaven' by the adjectival form menelessëa,which is clearly based on menelessë as yet another locative form of menel(VT43:9, 13). This use of -e- as a connecting vowel before -ssëcorresponds to one of my suggestions in the original version of this course. Soas the locative form of a noun like elen 'star' there may beat least three more or less equally valid alternatives: elessë (droppinga final consonant before the ending -ssë, or -ssë may beconsidered an assimilated form of -nsë here), elenessë (slippingin a connecting vowel -e- before the locative ending, probably -i-in the plural) or elendë (using the ending -dë for older -zë,in turn from -së). Writers may pick their choice, but generally one ofthe two latter alternatives would probably be the best solution. For the sakeof clarity, the locative form of a noun like Ambar should probably be Ambaressërather than (Ambar-së >) Ambassë, which could just as well beformed from a noun **Amba.
Would nouns with dual forms in -u also form their dual locativesin -tsë, or does this ending occur only where we are dealing with nounsthat have nominative dual forms in -t? We may well wonder what thelocative form of Aldu 'Two Trees' would be. Aldussëwith the simplest ending -ssë, because duality is already sufficientlyexpressed by -u? Aldatsë formed from the uninflected form alda?Aldutsë with double dual markers, -u and -t-? Personally Ilean toward Aldussë, but I would like to see a Tolkien-made example.
The locative ending(s)can of course be combined with possessive pronominal endings just like theother case endings we have discussed. The Markirya poem has ringa súmaryassë for 'inher coldbosom' (ringa 'cold', súma 'bosom'; thereference is to the 'bosom' of a ship).
RELATIVE SENTENCES
In LotR, there is onesingle example of a Quenya locative. The ending -ssen for plurallocative occurs in Namárië, in the phrase Vardo tellumar..., yassentintilar i eleni = 'Varda's domes..., wherein [or, inwhich] the stars twinkle...'
The word ya 'which',here appearing with the locative ending -ssen to imply 'inwhich', is a relative pronoun. It can be used to build relativesentences, that is, sentences embedded in other sentences as a kind ofdescriptive phrases. Two sentences like 'the treasure is great' and'you found it' can be combined as 'the treasure which youfound is great'. Notice that the pronoun 'it' of thesentence 'you found it' is replaced by 'which'. Thisrelative pronoun is capable of referring back to the words 'thetreasure', and 'which I found' now becomes a descriptive phraseproviding extra information about 'the treasure'. The probable Quenyaequivalents of these examples:
I harma ná alta 'thetreasure is great'
+ hirnelyes 'you foundit'
= i harma ya hirnelyë náalta 'the treasure which you found is great'
As a relative pronoun,English may also use 'that' ('the treasure that youfound...')
In German, the definite articles der,das, die (all = English 'the', for various genders andnumbers) are also used as relative pronouns. The Quenya article i maylikewise take on this function. This is evident from Cirion's Oath, the lastwords of which exemplify i used first as article, then as relativepronoun: ...i Eru ior ilyë mahalmar ëa tennoio, 'the One who is above all thrones forever'. Since'the One' (Eru, God) is a person and not a thing, the relativepronoun must here be translated 'who' rather than 'which'.In the original version of this course, I suggested that if there is anydistinction in meaning between i and ya used as relativepronouns, this may indeed be it: i refers back to a person (English'who'), while ya refers back to a thing or a situation(English 'which'). Notice, by the way, that these glosses havenothing to do with the question-words 'who' and'which': The word i cannot be used for 'who' in aquestion, like 'who are you?' The Quenya word for 'who' inthis sense is quite different (man).
Material that has been published laterhas muddied the picture somewhat. In VT42:33 we have the sentence lá caritas i hamil mára alasaila ná,which Tolkien translated 'not to do what you judge good [is] unwise'.While i hamil mára is here translated 'what you judgegood', it seems that this phrase means, more literally, '[that] whichyou judge good'. According to the theory I was leaning towards, I wouldhave expected ya rather than i here, but it seems that ias well may refer to a thing or a situation (English 'which') ratherthan to a person (English 'who').
Yet another interpretation of apossible distinction between i and ya as relative pronouns wentlike this:i is used when the relative pronoun is the subject of the relativesentence, while ya is used when it is the object. By thisinterpretation we could have sentences like Elda i tirë Nauco'an Elf who watches a Dwarf', but Elda ya tirë Nauco'an Elf whom a Dwarf watches' (English uses 'whom'as the object form of the relative pronoun 'who'). However, as Icautiously warned in the first version of this course: 'We need moreexamples before we can pick the right interpretation with confidence.' Itnow seems that i, at least, can function as a relative pronoun whetherit is the subject or the object of the relative sentence (subject: i Eru iëa 'the One who is', object: lá caritas i hamilmára... 'not to do [that] which you find good'). As it nowappears, there may be no significant distinction in meaning between iand ya used as relative pronouns. Just like one may use both'which' and 'that' as relative pronouns in English('the ship which I saw' = 'the ship that I saw'), so onemay perhaps use either i or ya in Quenya (i cirya i cennen= i cirya ya cennen???)
However, in one respect i and yaare evidently not interchangeable. The word i is in Quenya the'indeclinable article 'the' (Etymologies, entry I).That is, i = 'the' cannot be declined; it cannot receive anycase endings. We must assume that this is still true when i functions asa relative pronoun 'who, which' instead. However, ya isperfectly able to receive case endings, as indicated by the example yassen'in which' from Namárië. The locative ending is plural becausethe relative pronoun refers back to a plural word, tellumar'domes'; in the case of a single telluma or 'dome',the relative pronoun referring back to it would likewise be singular: yassë.Likewise with other nouns: coa yassë 'a house in which...',but plural coar yassen... 'houses in which...'
Besides the form yassen in Namárië,we have one more example of ya occurring with a case ending. An earlyElvish poem by Tolkien includes the words tanya wende...yar i vilya anta miqilis, translated 'thatmaiden...to whom the air gives kisses'(MC:215, 216). This is not quite LotR-style Quenya, so I don't regularize thespelling, but the form yar 'to whom' is interesting. The final-r here suffixed to ya seems to be the old allative ending, as inmir 'into'; hence yar ='whom-to', 'to whom'. The examples yassen'in which' and yar 'to whom' suggest that if youneed a relative pronoun to receive case endings, such endings are alwaysattached to ya-. We must assume that ya can receive all thevarious endings for number and case, being inflected like a noun in -a,as in these examples:
¤ DATIVE: i nér yan ánen annanya 'the man to whom I gave mygift', plural i neri yain... 'the men to whom...' (The attested form yar'to whom', occurring in a context involving the verb'give', may evidently also take on dative-like functions – but yaris properly an archaic allative, and generally I think yan, pl. yain,is to be preferred.)
¤ GENITIVE: i nís yo yondo cennen 'the woman whose [= who's] son I saw'(we must assume that ya + the genitive ending -o would produceyo, a final -a being displaced as usual), plural i nissi yaron... 'thewomen whose [= who's]...'(for a form like yaron, cf. aldaron as the plural genitive of alda'tree')
¤ POSSESSIVE: iaran yava maltamapuvan 'the king whose [= who's] gold I will seize', plural i arani yaiva... 'thekings whose [= who's]...'
¤ ALLATIVE: icoa yanna lenden'the house to whichI went / the house whither I went / the house that I went to', plural icoar yannar...'the houses to which...'
¤ ABLATIVE: i coa yallo tullen 'the house from which I came/ the house whence I came / the house that I came from', plural i coar yallon[alternatively, yallor]...'the houses from which...'
¤ LOCATIVE: icoa yassë marin'the house in whichI live / the house that I live in / the house where I live', plural icoar yassen...'the houses in which...'
In the nominative singular, the simpleform ya is of course used: i parma yaetécien, 'the book which I havewritten'. It may be that this would become yar (with the pluralending -r) when referring back to a plural word: i parmar yar...'the books which...' (Distinguish the attested relative pronoun yar'to whom', MC:215, 216; this form includes the old allative ending -rinstead.) Where i is used as a relative pronoun, it receives no pluralending, since i is indeclinable: Eldar i lindar 'Elves whosing'.
We have listed no dual forms,but they would presumably be quite regular: nominative yat (e.g. ipeu yat... 'the [pair of] lips that...'), dative yant(e.g. i veru yant... 'the [married] couple to/for whom...'),genitive yato, possessive yatwa (?), allative yanta,ablative yalto, locative yatsë (e.g. i sambet yanta/yalto/yatsë...'the two-room apartment to/from/in which...')
It should be noted that in somegrammatical contexts, a case ending that could have been added to ya maybe omitted and understood. For instance, given that the word for'night' is lómë (lómi-), we could presumably have asentence like lómissë yassë cennenyes 'in [the] night inwhich I saw it' = '(in/on) the night when I saw it', but itis also permissible to let ya occur by itself: Lómissë yacennenyes, a construction paralleling English 'in [the] night thatI saw it' (very frequently, English would drop the initial 'in',but in Quenya the locative ending should probably be included).
Notice that the article may in such a case bedropped before the first noun (lómissë in our example); it is perhapssufficiently determined by the following relative phrase. Tolkien employed sucha construction in his Quenya translation of the Hail Mary. He paraphrased'in the hour of our death' as 'in [the] hour that we shall die':lúmessë ya firuvammë (VT43:28 – here the ending for exclusive'we' is still -mmë, later revised to -lmë).
Usually, arelative pronoun refers back to a noun so that the following relative sentenceprovides information about that noun, as in all the examples above. Notice, however,the example i carir quettar 'those who form words', quoted asa description of the Elves (WJ:391). I carir quettar by itself is arelative sentence, and we could certainly connect it with a noun and let therelative sentence refer back to it, e.g. Eldar i carir quettar'Elves who form words'. However, it appears that i canbe put in front of a verb to express 'the one who' (if the verb issingular) or 'those who', 'the ones who' (if the verb isplural, marked by the ending -r). Cirion's Oath provides anotherexample: i hárar mahalmassen mi Númen 'those who sit upon thrones in theWest'. We canprobably feel free to build sentences like these:
I túla ná nís '[the one]who is coming is a woman'
I hirner i malta nar alyë'[the ones] who found the gold are rich'
Hiruvan i suncer limpenya'I will find [the ones] who drank my wine' (singular ...i suncëlimpenya, '[the one] who drank my wine')
In theoriginal version of this course, I wrote at this point:
If ya can also be used in suchconstructions, and we are right to assume that i signifies'who' while ya means 'which', there may bedistinctions in meaning like ecénien i túla 'I have seen [the one]who is coming' vs. ecénien ya túla 'I have seen what iscoming' (literally, 'I have seen [that] which is coming'). Thesentence 'what I want is wine' would perhaps translate something likeya merin ná limpë (i.e., '[that] which I want is wine').
Laterpublications have muddied this nice little scenario, since it now appears that iand ya may be largely interchangeable. In the exercises below and theirkeys, I have however maintained the distinction that ya is used in theimpersonal sense of 'which', whereas i refers to persons:'who(m)' (except when the relative pronoun is to receive some ending;then ya- must be used anyway). It would be a useful distinction, even ifTolkien didn't think of it...!
Wordorder: Somelanguages employ a special word order in relative sentences. German insists onplacing the verb last, so that we have constructions like 'the man whothere stands' (der Mann der dort steht) for 'the man whostands there'. For a while I wondered if Quenya employed a similar system;the verb ëa 'is, exists' appears near the end of the relativesentence concluding Cirion's Oath: i or ilyë mahalmar ëa tennoio,literally 'who over all thrones is forever'. However, as wesee, the verb is not absolutely final; an entirely 'German' wordorder would require 'who over all thrones forever is'.
In Namárië, the verb actually followsimmediately after the relative pronoun in the relative sentence yassentintilar i eleni 'wherein the stars twinkle',literally 'in which twinkle the stars'. We might think thatthis is just a 'poetic' word order, but Tolkien did not change it inthe prose Namárië in RGEO:66-67. Does it make any difference that thisis a relative pronoun with a case ending attached? Would it be wrong tosay yassen i eleni tintilar, with the subject of the verb precedingrather than following the verb? We cannot tell. Especially in the case of yasse(n),yanna(r), yallo(n) 'in/to/from which', Iwould imitate our attested example and let the verb immediately follow therelative pronoun: I osto yassë marë i nér 'the city in whichthe man dwells', i tol yanna círar i ciryar 'theisland whither the ships are sailing', i nóri yallon tuliri ohtari 'the lands whence the warriors come'. Otherwise,I will not try to make out any hard-and-fast rules for what word order Quenyarelative sentences should have.
THIRD PERSON OBSCURITIES
Above we introducedthe possessive pronominal ending -rya, covering 'his' and'her'. So what is the corresponding subject ending, meaning'he' and 'she'?
Since the ending -lya'your' is known to correspond to an ending -lyë'you', many researchers, starting from -rya 'her',have extrapolated an unattested suffix -ryë as the subject ending ='she'. If, as indicated by Namárië, the Quenya for 'youwill find' is hiruvalyë, 'she will find' would then be hiruvaryë.Nancy Martsch uses this extrapolated ending -ryë 'she'throughout her Basic Quenya – and it may well be correct. Now that it isknown that -rya covers 'his' as well as 'her', wewould have to assume that -ryë may similarly signify 'he' aswell as 'she'.
The subject endings of the ThirdPerson Singular – the endings for 'he', 'she', and'it' – however belong to one of the more obscure parts of the Quenyapronoun table. In material closely related to Fíriel's Song, one endingfor 'he' is seen to be -ro. It occurs in the form antaváro'he will give', attested in the question e man antaváro?'what will he give indeed?' (LR:63). Antáva as the simplefuture tense 'will give' occurs on the same page (and in the fulltext of Fíriel's Song as printed in LR:72). This may not be quiteLotR-style Quenya; as we argued in Lesson Seven, the future tense of anta-should perhaps be antuva rather than antáva according to thesystem Tolkien decided upon later. Even so, the form antaváro nicelyillustrates one apparent property of the ending -ro: For some reason,the vowel immediately preceding this ending is lengthened, antávabecoming antaváro when -ro is added (and the original longvowel of antáva is shortened to avoid the form **antáváro:It may be that Quenya cannot have a long vowel in the syllable immediatelypreceding the vowel receiving the main accent except when this syllable is alsothe first syllable of the word). Should we update antaváro to somethinglike antuváro in LotR-style Quenya?
This ending -ro also turns up in a 'Qenya' poemreproduced in MC:220, there added to a couple of verb forms including thepast-tense ending -në, and again the vowel preceding -ro islengthened so that it receives the accent. One of them is laustanéro,which would seem to be a verb lausta- 'make a windy noise'(cf. MC:216) + the past tense ending -në + the ending -ro'he' (and 'it'?) The whole phrase goes súru laustanéro,translated 'the wind rushed' (literally perhaps '[the] wind,he/it [-ro] rushed'). Since this is 'Qenya' rather thanLotR-style Quenya, we shouldn't put too much emphasis on the details, butTolkien does seem to be using an ending -ro, that may mean'he' (but also 'it'?), and that has the strange power ofmaking the preceding vowel long. It has been suggested that the vowel rather remainslong in this position because Tolkien imagined it to have been long inPrimitive Elvish. If so, the vowel -i- seen in the aorist of primaryverbs (e.g. tulin 'I come') should not be lengthened,since this vowel was never long (?tuliro rather than ?tulíro for'he comes'). It is also possible that such lengthening only occurswhen -ro is added to a word ending in two short syllables thatare not by themselves the entire word (so that the new long second-to-lastsyllable can attract the stress: laustanë > laustanéro;without the lengthening the stress would fall on -ta- after thesuffixing of -ro, resulting in a somewhat awkward pronunciation). Itwould be interesting to know whether, say, 'he made' would be carnéroor carnero; I now tend to think that there would be no lengthening when-ro is added to a word of such a shape.
Where would this ending -ro for 'he' come from, andwhat is the ending for 'she'? The entry S- in the Etymologiesthrows some light on what Tolkien imagined. Various Elvish words for 'he,she, it' are there discussed. One primitive word for 'he' iscited as sô or so, 'cf. -so inflection of verbs'– apparently meaning that the primitive Elvish language might express'he' by means of an ending -so added to verbs. This -socould be the origin of the Quenya ending -ro, for in Quenya, -s-occurring between vowels was normally voiced to -z-, which later became-r- (the sound z merging with original r). In the Etymologies,Tolkien went on to cite one primitive word for 'she' as sê or se,'cf. -se inflexion of verbs'. If -so produces -roas a Quenya ending for 'he', we would have to assume that -sesimilarly yields -rë (earlier -zë) as an ending for'she'. This -rë is possibly directly attested in the'Qenya' phrase kirya kalliére, translated 'theship shone' (MC:220, 221) – literally '[the] ship, she shone'?Turning the form kalliére into LotR-style Quenya would probably takemore than just altering the spelling to calliérë, but it may be notedthat the ending -rë, like -ro, seems to prefer the company of a longvowel in the preceding syllable. Again, this may happen only when it is addedto a word ending to two short syllables (probably kallië in thiscase).
Sindarin Dictionary
Many writers have used the endings -ro = 'he' and -rë= 'she', so students of Quenya should certainly memorize them – butas far or short as we know, they are only attested in material predating thewriting of LotR. In 1994, there finally turned up a tiny scrap of evidenceregarding Tolkien's post-LotR ideas about the pronominal ending for 'he,she'. In the essay Quendi and Eldar, in the discussion of thetense-less verb equë 'said, says', Tolkien noted that whilethis form normally does not receive endings of any kind, it may occur withcertain pronominal endings. He cited two examples of this: equen,translated 'said I', and also eques, translated 'said he/ she' (WJ:414) or 'said he, said someone' (WJ:392). So here wehave an ending -s that covers both 'he' and 'she'(and even 'someone'). In the post-LotR period, Tolkien demonstrablyused the ending -rya for both 'his' and 'her', so itis not surprising that he might have decided that Quenya used one ending forboth 'he' and 'she' as well (cf. also the Finnishgender-neutral pronoun hän). Actually this ending -s must alsocover 'it', for it can hardly be kept apart from the ending -sthat we have already met in object position – as in tiruvantes 'theywill keep it' (Cirion's Oath) or caritalyas'your doing it' (VT41:17). So eques could probably mean'it said' just as well as '(s)he said'. Conversely, -smay probably refer to people in object position as well: Perhaps tiruvantesmight also mean 'they will keep [or, watch] him/her'.
A form like tulis would have to be translated either 'hecomes', 'she comes', or 'it comes' depending on thecontext. The existence of such an ending does not necessarily contradict thereferences Tolkien made to primitive '-so inflexion' and'-se inflexion' of verbs in the Etymologies: Normally,the final short -o and -e of primitive Elvish have been lost inQuenya, so primitive forms like tuli-so 'he comes' and tuli-se'she comes' might well merge as tulis '(s)he comes'.Where this would leave the longer, gender-specific endings -ro and -rëfound in early material is unclear. Tolkien may have meant them to descend fromvariant endings with long vowels (-sô and -sê), final -ôand -ê becoming -o and -ë in Quenya. Perhaps thegender-specific endings would be used where the short, general 3rd personending -s 'he, she, it' is not specific enough? But there isevery reason to believe that Tolkien repeatedly changed his mind about thedetails; we can't even rule out the possibility that the long endings -ro'he' and -rë 'she' were dropped altogether.
Anyhow, if -s is to be the ending for '(s)he', wheredoes this leave the unattested ending -ryë that some students have(plausibly) extrapolated from the possessive ending -rya 'his,her'? The ending -ryë may still be valid. Perhaps the ending for'(s)he' alternates between -s and -ryë just like theending for 'I' may appear as either -n or -nyë; theending for 'you, thou' likewise alternates between -l (as in hamil'you judge', VT42:33) and -lyë. (While the endings -sand -ryë may seem less similar than -n vs. -nyë and -lvs. -lyë, it should be understood that -ryë would come fromearlier -sye: Following a vowel, the combination sy turns into zyand then ry. Cf. the Etymologies, entry SUS; from thisroot, Tolkien derived the Quenya word surya 'spirantconsonant', which must be understood to come from susyâ in theprimitive language.) The longer ending -ryë would be used primarily whena second pronominal ending denoting the object is to be added, e.g., tiriryet '(s)he watches them'– whereas '(s)he watches' by itself could be either tiris or tiriryë,but more commonly the former. But writers who want to avoid the unattestedending -ryë may opt for the gender-specific endings -ro and -rëinstead, to bring in a connecting vowel: tirirot 'he watchesthem', tiriret 'she watchesthem'.
In the exercises below, we will however avoid all speculative endingsand constructions and concentrate on the only known facts we have at ourdisposal regarding the 3rd person singular of the pronoun table: In Quenya asTolkien had come to see this language in the post-LotR period, the ending -smay be used for 'he, she, it', whereas -rya covers'his' and 'her'. (We may plausibly assume that -ryacovers 'its' as well: Notice that in the phrase ringa súmaryassë'in her cold bosom' cited above, the reference is actually toa ship, so 'its bosom' would seem to be an equally appropriatetranslation.) The long endings -ro and -rë are not used in theexercises or the keys, since their status in LotR-style Quenya is slightlyuncertain (not that I necessarily discourage writers from using them).
Summary of Lesson Fifteen: The Quenya pronominal possessive ending for 'his, her' is -rya,behaving like the other endings of this kind (endings for number or case may beadded after it). If a dual noun is to receive a pronominal ending, itsduality is indicated by -t added to this ending (cf. máryat'her [pair of] hands' in Namárië), apparently even in the caseof nouns that would otherwise receive the alternative dual marker -uinstead. – The extended infinitives in -ta which may receive pronominalendings denoting the object (e.g. caritas 'to do it')may also receive possessive pronominal endings denoting the subject,e.g. caritalya(s) 'your doing (it)'. –Nouns ending in a long vowel, e.g. má 'hand', would shortenthis vowel before a consonant cluster; thus the plural allative is attested as mannar(for the impossible form **mánnar). Curiously, long vowels are notshortened before ry, ly, ny, ty, though thesecombinations do count as consonant clusters for the purpose of stress. – TheQuenya locative case has the basic ending -ssë, plural -ssen,and dual -tsë (at least in the case of nouns with nominative dual formsin -t; nouns with nominative dual forms in -u may simply add -ssë).When added to a noun that ends in a consonant, the locative ending may appearas -dë following -l and -n, and perhaps as -sëfollowing -s and -t. (However, a final consonant may also bedropped before the ending -ssë is attached, or a connecting vowel may beslipped in before the ending.) These endings express the idea of'in', 'on', 'upon', e.g. ciryassë'(up)on a ship', coassen 'inhouses'. – Quenya relative sentences may be formed using therelative pronoun ya 'which, that'. Ya may also receiveendings for case and number, cf. the plural locative yassen 'inwhich' or 'wherein' occurring in Namárië (plural becauseit refers back to a plural word). The article i 'the' may alsobe used as a relative pronoun, cf. i Eru i or ilyë mahalmar ëa tennoio, 'the One who is above all thrones' in Cirion's Oath,but i apparently cannot receive endings for case or number. In front ofa verb, i can be used by itself to express 'the one(s) whodo(es)' whatever the verb expresses, e.g., i carir quettar'the ones/those who form words'. – The pronominal endings for 'he' and'she' are somewhat uncertain. Early material contains verbs with theendings -ro 'he' and apparently -rë 'she'. Inpost-LotR material, we have one attestation of -s as an ending coveringboth 'he' and 'she', and since the same ending is attestedwith the meaning 'it' elsewhere (as object), we may assume that -sis a general ending covering the entire 3rd person singular, as subject orobject. One educated guess has it that this -s alternates with a longerform -ryë (plausibly extrapolated from the possessive ending -rya'his/her'), but only the attested ending -s is used in theexercises below.
VOCABULARY
tatya 'second' (The original nameof the Second Clan of the Elves was Tatyar, literally 'Seconds,Second Ones', though the Eldarin branch of that clan would later be calledNoldor instead [WJ:380-381]. A variant form of tatya is atya[attested, compounded, in VT41:10], which connects more clearly with the basicnumber atta 'two'. As will be explained in Lesson 17,'second' was later expressed as attëa, but students shouldknow the archaic form tatya as well, and we will use this form here.)
mar- 'to dwell, abide'; to'live' somewhere in the sense of dwelling there (cf. Elendil'sDeclaration: sinomë maruvan = 'in this place will I abide')
ya relative pronoun 'that,which', often with case endings; as relative pronoun alternating with i(but i apparently cannot receive case endings)
aurë 'day' (the actualdaylight period, not a full 24-hour cycle)
veru '(married) couple, man andwife, pair of spouses' (an old dual form apparently lacking any singular;there are only the gender-specific words verno 'husband' and vessë'wife' from the same root)
má 'hand'
pé 'lip', nominative dual peu(soaccording to VT39:9, reproducing a post-LotR source. Earlier, in the entry PEGof the Etymologies, the word pé had been glossed'mouth' instead – which would be pure plagiarism of the Hebrewword for 'mouth'! But Tolkien apparently thought better of it: inLotR Appendix E, the Quenya word for 'mouth' is given as antoinstead, which word we introduced in Lesson Eleven.)
mallë 'road, street' (nominative pl. maller,LR:47, 56; SD:310 – as we theorized in Lesson Two, nouns in -lë mayregularly have plural forms in -ler rather than -li.)
hrívë 'winter'
apa preposition 'after' (cf. Apanónar'the Afterborn' as an Elvish name of Men, the Elves themselves beingthe Firstborn – see the Silmarillion, near the beginning of chapter 12.VT44:36 confirms that apa also appears by itself in Tolkien's notes.)
Hyarmen 'the South'
hyarya adjective 'left'
NOTE: As suggested by their shapes, the words for 'south' and'left' are closely related. As explained by Tolkien in LotR AppendixE, the four directions Númen, Hyarmen, Rómen, Formen= West, South, East, North were normally listed in that order, 'beginningwith and facing west' – apparently because that was the direction of theBlessed Realm. It may be no coincidence that the directions are listedcounterclockwise so that the North is named last, for in the First Age whenthis convention was presumably established, North was the direction ofMorgoth's stronghold (Angband or Thangorodrim). Our imaginary speaker facingthe West would have the South on his left hand, and Tolkien explained that Hyarmenmeans basically 'left-hand region'. As Tolkien also noted, thissystem is 'the opposite to the arrangement in many Mannish languages',which tend rather to use the East (the direction of the sunrise) as thestarting-point 'faced' by the speaker. Thus the words for'south' and 'right' may be associated or identical – cf.for instance Hebrew yamîn.
EXERCISES
1.Translate into English (the pronominal ending -s may have variousEnglish equivalents):
A. Tuluvas i tatya auressë.
B.I hrívessë rimbë aiwi autarmarien Hyarmessë; apa i hrívë autantë Hyarmello ar tulir nórelvanna. [Here, Hyarmessëcould also be Hyarmendë.]
C.Hiritarya malta i orontissen ánëalassë lieryan, an hiritaryas carnë lierya alya.
D.Tatya hrívessë ya marnes icoassë hirnes harma nu i talan.
E. Quetis lambelva, an marisnórelvassë.
F.Eques: 'Cennen macil iohtaro hyarya massë.'
G. I nér i hirnë i harma nurtuva iengwi yar ihíries samberyatsë.
H.I ambossë cenis i veru yatitíries coaryallo, ar yant ánes annarya.
2.Translate into Quenya:
I. She saw a couple in the street.
J. I found the woman who lives in thehouse between the rivers, and I watched her lips (dual) and her hands (dual);in her left hand I saw a book.
K. I saw his cup in his hands (dual),the cup from which he poured wine into his mouth.
L. The ones who dwell in the towersto which the man is going are warriors.
M. His drinking the wine was not agood idea, for what he did after his drinking it was not wise.
N. After we (excl.) went away[pa.t. of auta-] from our (excl.) land in the South, we have seenmany Dwarves on the roads.
O. The towers on the hills are great;the one who owns [harya = possesses] the greatest tower, from which one[quen] can see the Elven-land [Eldanórë], is the richest man inthe city.
P. A people whose king is wise willdwell in peace in a good land which they will love deeply.
With early childhood classrooms becoming increasingly diverse, it's essential for educators to know how they can work with dual language learners and foster effective communication in the classroom. Dual language learners may seem scared or overwhelmed, stay silent during class, play by themselves, or have trouble working in pairs or groups. In Connecting Right from the Start, Jennifer J. Chen, EdD, uses her teaching experiences and personal insight to provide several teaching strategies for educators to use when working with diverse children.
- Work on cultivating a caring and respectful learning environment in which all children can feel comfortable, motivated, and confident in what they do. One way to begin doing this is by helping children learn each other's names (and their meanings) as well as some general greetings and polite phrases.
- Create developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate activities that capitalize on your students' intellectual strengths in learning to communicate effectively. You'll want to assign DLLs to activities that match their developmental levels and learning needs. For example, you can engage Milo, a Spanish-speaking student from Mexico, in a game on the computer that requires him to match simple Spanish words with their corresponding English words.
- Pair or group DLLs with more linguistically advanced peers when working on hands-on activities (such as building something with blocks or engaging in an art project) that do not require extensive or advanced language skills. This will encourage collaboration and cooperativeness among the children. Make sure you prepare in advance by teaching children simple words they can use during each particular activity.
- Make an effort to observe and attend to a child's unique communication behavior and cues and then respond to them accordingly. If a DLL has limited English or language delays, try watching his or her nonverbal behavior to figure out what the child is saying. A few strategies to practice include giving the DLL your undivided attention, kneeling down to the child's level, making eye contact if it is appropriate for the child (eye contact is not desired in some cultures), and asking questions to show your care and interest in what the child is communicating.
- Provide images of a variety of emotions or emotion words in the DLL's native language. This will help a DLL with limited expressive language or emotional skills to show how he or she feels about something.
- Whether it's drawing, writing, acting out, gesturing, or using props, accept and encourage multiple modes of communication and expression. This will help DLLs to build confidence, motivation, and appreciation for aesthetic expression. For example, you could ask a new student from Japan to point to certain illustrations to demonstrate his or her favorite part of the story. Asking a Spanish-speaking child with some English proficiency to talk about his or her favorite part of the story in English while allowing the child to use Spanish to express what he or she doesn't know is another option.
Check out the articles in the Inclusive Classroom category of our Insights and Inspirations section for additional tips and resources on how you can help DLLs and students with special needs be successful in the classroom.
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Connecting Right from the Start - Paperback