Help with accurate 🧝Elvish translation for a tattoo

[Kamaxaku]

Hello everyone,

I’m looking for help with a translation into one of Tolkien’s Elvish languages — preferably Sindarin — for a tattoo I’m planning. The phrase I want to translate is:

"One vow is to find you. One vow is to love you. Through death, I will follow you."

I’ve tried using AI and automatic translators, but the results often seem inconsistent or inaccurate. Since this is for a tattoo, it’s very important to me that the translation is both grammatically correct and true to the original meaning.

I’d also love the phrase to look stylistically similar to the inscription on the One Ring — that flowing, elegant Tengwar script — but of course, not in the Black Speech, rather in Sindarin. I’m aiming for the visual aesthetic of the Ring’s inscription, but written in a true Elvish language.

I genuinely love the world Tolkien created — its depth, sadness, beauty, languages, and quiet heroism. Though to some of you I may seem like just another "poser" wanting a "pretty tattoo", I truly come here with respect and sincere intent to do this right.

If anyone knowledgeable in Tolkien’s languages could help me with a faithful translation of this phrase into Sindarin — I would be incredibly grateful.

Thank you so much in advance!

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Welcome, @Kamaxaku.

You may need to be patient until one of our language mavens swings by. Be sure to keep checking in for the next few days. 🙂

 

[Elthir]

I realize this will likely be annoying, but why not (for repetition of "I" all the way through): "I swear to find you. I swear to love you. Through death, I will follow you."

If you like that, Didier Willis, for example, once wrote (using *gwesta- "swear"): Gweston le, meleth ú-thinnatha: I swear thee, love won't fade

In any case, I'm not a language maven,
but I did swing by!

 

[Ent]

I did swing by!

"Well. There it is." (Jeffrey Jones, Emperor Joseph II, Amadeus.)

 

[Elhath Reborn]

Hello everyone,

I’m looking for help with a translation into one of Tolkien’s Elvish languages — preferably Sindarin — for a tattoo I’m planning. The phrase I want to translate is:

"One vow is to find you. One vow is to love you. Through death, I will follow you."

My suggestion: Min 'west thêl hired gin. Min 'west thêl meled gin. Trî ngurth, aphadathon gin.

Notes:
- The assumption is that "you" here indicates a familiar single person that one considers at best an equal. For a more reverential "you", use len instead of gin.
- I've put the number min "one" in front of the noun (as in Menegroth and N. lheben teil) and assumed that it causes Soft Mutation due to its descent from Old Sindarin *minè. (Sadly, Eldamo still doesn't have any content in the Sindarin > Grammar > numbers page...)
- Thêl literally means "means" here; I've used it replace the "invisible" verb "to be" which isn't often used in the present tense ("is, are") in Sindarin.
- I'm personally still a bit fond of the Noldorin infinitive ending -i (due to its distinctiveness), but I've used here -ed (in light of nidhin mened "I intend to go" [PE22:165]) which is probably considered by most people now to be the infinitive as well in mature Sindarin.