Crafting an 🧝Elvish phrase for a vintage press's ornamentation

[Will Whitfoot]

Here's an inscription question: We are working on restoring an 1897 Ferracute E-52 coining press. It is a bit unusual... one of the earliest of the up-acting knuckle-type presses manufactured in the United States, and becoming quite rare. I want to make it something of a showpiece. It will be a working press, but I'm trying to do something a little special on the paintjob. The restoration is nearly complete. In its former life it made clarinet key parts at a musical instrument factory in Elkhart Indiana... where they worked the poor thing nearly to death. We took it from a pretty sorry looking rusty broken down mess to something almost museum worthy! The rather lovely arch-top frame suggested the doors of Durin, and I did nod to that with a hammer and anvil painted on the upper die-holder... but clearly the verbatim inscription from the doors of Durin would not be appropriate here. We have come up with:
Speak Your Dreams - Then Enter Them
Which seems quite lovely... now I need to cast that into Elvish. It would be very easy to simply transliterate the English into Tengwar... but that seems cheesy... much better would be to actually figure out the Elvish phrase. There is a lovely genuine restored nameplate at the top of the press, and I have painted it such that there are two black bars arching up and past that nameplate. The idea would be to try to balance the inscription in two segments to inscribe (in metallic silver of course) around that arch. But... Alas... I am no linguist! Anyone care to help? I can offer a free example of the first coin struck from the press.

 

[Elthir]

Edit: Ach! Part of your post said "Elvish" and mentioned the Doors of Durin (Sindarin), but I only now notice that the thread title specifically says Quenya!

Apologies!

 

[Will Whitfoot]

If Sindarin would be more appropriate to the inscription on a piece of Dwarfish equipment, I am more than happy to go that direction. I like to think of myself as a Hobbit... but I do love this old equipment. Perhaps it is an appreciation that only dwarven blood can attest. I guess I'm more a Sandyman than a Gamgee and I suspect that one of my great grandmothers must have had a dalliance with a passing dwarf.

 

[Elhath Reborn]

One way of translating "speak your dreams, then enter them" into Quenya would be

á (ete)quetë olorelyar, tá átë mitta

when assuming that for the expression "enter them" the verb mitta- governs the accusative case (like in English) instead of the allative "into" (as in Finnish) in which case one would translate it as "tá á mitta tienna".

For the Tengwar transcription, I recommend Måns Björkman's Online Tengwar Transcriber. Just remember to choose "quenya" under "mode (input lang.):" first!

 

[Will Whitfoot]

I suppose the intent

One way of translating "speak your dreams, then enter them" into Quenya would be

á (ete)quetë olorelyar, tá átë mitta

when assuming that for the expression "enter them" the verb mitta- governs the accusative case (like in English) instead of the allative "into" (as in Finnish) in which case one would translate it as "tá á mitta tienna".

For the Tengwar transcription, I recommend Måns Björkman's Online Tengwar Transcriber. Just remember to choose "quenya" under "mode (input lang.):" first!

I think the intent is to essentially issue a command.... where "Then Enter Them" is simply short for "Then Enter Into Them". Is that what you mean by the "alliative"? (an unfamiliar term. Also, unsure what is indicated by the "(ete)" in parentheses... Have I bitten off more than I can chew here?

 

[Elhath Reborn]

Accusative and allative are grammatical cases / case endings. Quenya is a heavily inflected language which relies on cases more than prepositions :
tien "for them"
*tiessë "in them"
*tienna "unto/into them"
etc.

Et(e)- means essentially "forth".

Due to the late co-meaning "insert" of the verb mitta-, I am now more inclined towards á (ete)quetë olorelyar, tá á mitta tienna.