Here is a song in German about Silmarils

[bunn]

And the chorus SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE THE NAME OF ONE OF MY CATS.

Does Yamamaya mean something in German, or is it Quenya?

Comments

[hhimring]

This is said to be the text--apparently German and Elvish alternate.
I could try to translate the German, if you'd like...


SILMARIL - SCHÖNER ALS DIE STERNE SONGTEXT

Aus Feuer und Wasser aus Wind und Stein gemacht
Im dunkeln erschaffen vom ersten Licht entfacht
Ein Funkeln von Leben die ganze Welt blüht auf bis in den Himmel hinauf

Menel langa Menel langa Menel lang' i Silmaril
Ya na maira ya na maira ya na mair' ep' eleni
Cala menna cala menna cala menn' i Silmaril
Ya ráta ily' eleni

Ela ela Eldalie
Ela ela enyalien


Wir füllen die Erde mit Licht und Lebensgeist
Wir folgen den Strahlen die uns der Morgen weist
Geschaffen aus Träumen leicht wie ein Flügelschlag
von allen Göttern bewacht

Menel langa Menel langa Menel lang' i Silmaril
Ya na maira ya na maira ya na mair' ep' eleni
Cala menna cala menna cala menn' i Silmaril
Ya ráta ily' eleni

Ein Funkeln von Leben die ganze Welt blüht auf bis in den Himmel hinauf

Menel langa Menel langa Menel lang' i Silmaril
Ya na maira ya na maira ya na mair' ep' eleni
Cala menna cala menna cala menn' i Silmaril
Ya ráta ily' eleni

Ela ela Eldalie
Ela ela enyalien

[I just friended you over on Dreamwidth. It doesn't mean I'm part of the great exodus, though.]

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I should probably try to find my Dreamwidth password and mirror my more recent things over...

My creaky, rusty German can more or less blunder through the German bits, but the bit that goes 'Ya na maira ya na maira ya na mair' ep' eleni' is the bit that sounds like my cat's name!

I wonder what it means?

[hhimring]

The last bit seems to be "before or until the stars" but the rest beats me. Unless it really is a cat's name! But I don't really know Quenya.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Me neither (Quenya).

What lightweight fans we are :-DDD

[hhimring]

Someone less lightweight than us has tackled it for us, here:
https://www.elbisch.ch/galerie/aeria/

ETA: it looks as if this guy is actually the source of the Elvish in the song texts, not just the translator!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

So 'Ya na maira' is something like 'is more beautiful than...'

He'll be so smug about that :-D

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

I've known Qenya some 20 years ago, and I have Q-En-Ru dictionary now. So, playing the role of google-translate, I've got this:

Heaven swallows? the Silmaril
which is smth-horsey(galloping?) after stars
shine/light "menna" the Silmaril
which hunt? all stars

Look, [people of] Elves
look in remembering

It looks like some old text, written with maybe no more than LOTR and "Monsters and Critics" in hand, when the author knew only a few Qenya words and bent them to fit the meaning he needed. And I haven't find "menna" anywhere.
UPD: If this guy thinks that "maira" is beautiful, he has thought it up himself. But I just have noticed that in the last sentence it's "ela", not "ele". So it might mean not "look", but anything else.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that there wasn't enough Quenya extant to really do this sort of thing without making stuff up. but I thought perhaos more had surfaced.

Sounds like he just made things up - perhaps influenced by the movies? Not that I remember those having much Quenya.