Another "help me with my translation"-post

[FleaBane]

Hi all!

So I have a friend who lost her sight and wants a translation for a tattoo she'd like to get.
(Before you say it: I know. I know. But it's her choice.)

So her quote is:

"Keep looking for a light in the darkness and hope will never die."​

Now my Sindarin is shoddy at best and I'm trying to translate this; but I'm not sure.
So please rate my translation:

"Himtirio galad nefuin, a estel ú-gwannatha"
​

The things is that I'm not sure which of these is the most accurate, as some of these have alternate translations:

• Himtirio / hemtirio
• nefuin / nedûr
• ú-gwannatha / ú-firtha / ava-fir / ava-gwanna / thel ú-gwanna fir / thel ú-fir / ú-firtho

Apart from that, I may have stuffed up word order, failed to conjugate nouns according to case (if Sindarin even uses such a thing), neglected lenition or any number of other things.
Any help is appreciated. If she's putting permanent ink on her body; I want to be sure that my translation is accurate.

Thanks in advance for all your help! <3

 

[Elthir]

Hullo. Though I'm not an expert in the Elvish tongues, my Neo-sindarin suggestion would be...

tiro chim an ngalad vi fuin ah estel ú-wannatha

(or ú-firitha)

notes on my choices

Since this seems (to me) to be like a "saying", I chose an imperative inflection tiro, along with lenition of the following adverb (him). I think the imperative works here, but anyway my second decision's based on Tolkien's published edro hi (open now), although lenition of the adverb in this position isn't the case in every example.

an ngalad "for light" (ngalad here pronounced ñalad "light") using galad.

ú-wannatha lenited gwannatha

vi fuin (in darkness) this decision with respect to "in" took a lot of wandering/wondering, so for brevity, I'll just say I ultimately chose it [min, vi(n)].



ah based on Tolkien's Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth, in case ah is used before a vowel.

Just to add the obvious, if you're especially concerned with accuracy my suggestion would be to choose something written by Tolkien himself, although I realize that's more limiting.

I'm fairly confident in an ngalad and ah estel ú-wannatha... at least