Elvish languages of Middle-earth

J. R. R. Tolkien began to construct his first Elvin tongue c. 1910–1911 while he was at the King Edward's School, Birmingham and which he later named Quenya (c. 1915). At that time, Tolkien was already familiar with Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and three ancient Germanic languages: Gothic, Old Norse, and Old English. He had invented several cryptographic codes such as Animalic, and two or three constructed languages including Naffarin. He then discovered Finnish, which he described many years later as "like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me."^{[T 2]} He had started his study of the Finnish language to be able to read the Kalevala epic.

The ingredients in Quenya are various, but worked out into a self-consistent character not precisely like any language that I know. Finnish, which I came across when I first begun to construct a 'mythology' was a dominant influence, but that has been much reduced [now in late Quenya]. It survives in some features: such as the absence of any consonant combinations initially, the absence of the voiced stops b, d, g (except in mb, nd, ng, ld, rd, which are favoured) and the fondness for the ending -inen, -ainen, -oinen, also in some points of grammar, such as the inflexional endings -sse (rest at or in), -nna (movement to, towards), and -llo (movement from); the personal possessives are also expressed by suffixes; there is no gender.^{[T 3]}

Tolkien with his Quenya pursued a double aesthetic goal: "classical and inflected".^{[T 4]} This urge, in fact, was the motivation for his creation of a 'mythology'. While the language developed, he needed speakers, history for the speakers and all real dynamics, like war and migration: "It was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues".^{[T 5][1]}

The Elvish languages underwent countless revisions in grammar, mostly in conjugation and the pronominal system. The Elven vocabulary was not subject to sudden or extreme change; except during the first conceptual stage c. 1910–c. 1920. Tolkien sometimes changed the "meaning" of an Elvish word, but he almost never disregarded it once invented, and he kept on refining its meaning, and countlessly forged new synonyms. Moreover, Elven etymology was in a constant flux. Tolkien delighted in inventing new etymons for his Elvish vocabulary.^[2]

From the outset, Tolkien used comparative philology and the tree model as his major tools in his constructed languages. He usually started with the phonological system of the proto-language and then proceeded in inventing for each daughter language the many mechanisms of sound change needed.^[2]

I find the construction and the interrelation of the languages an aesthetic pleasure in itself, quite apart from The Lord of the Rings, of which it was/is in fact independent.^{[T 6]}

Tolkien stated that he intentionally designed Sindarin to be in relation to Quenya as medieval Welsh is to Latin. Nelson Goering analysed this claim, finding it broadly reasonable, if the relationships are allowed to be of different kinds.^[3]

In the early 30s Tolkien decided that the proto-language of the Elves was Valarin, the tongue of the gods or Valar: "The language of the Elves derived in the beginning from the Valar, but they change it even in the learning, and moreover modified and enriched it constantly at all times by their own invention."^{[T 7]} In his Comparative Tables, Tolkien describes the mechanisms of sound change in the following daughter languages: Qenya, Lindarin (a dialect of Qenya), Telerin, Old Noldorin (or Fëanorian), Noldorin (or Gondolinian), Ilkorin (esp. of Doriath), Danian of Ossiriand, East Danian, Taliska, West Lemberin, North Lemberin, and East Lemberin.^{[T 8]}

In his lifetime J.R.R. Tolkien never ceased to experiment on his constructed languages, and they were subjected to many revisions. They had many grammars with substantial differences between different stages of development. After the publication of The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), the grammar rules of his major Elvish languages Quenya, Telerin and Sindarin went through very few changes (this is late Elvish 1954–1973).^[2]

The linguistic papers published in Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon are listed in the Bibliography of this article.

Two magazines (Vinyar Tengwar, from its issue 39 in July 1998, and Parma Eldalamberon, from its issue 11 in 1995) are exclusively devoted to the editing and publishing of J.R.R. Tolkien's gigantic mass of previously unpublished linguistic papers, including those omitted by Christopher Tolkien from "The History of Middle-earth".^[4][5]

The Elvish languages are a family of several related languages and dialects. In 1937, Tolkien drafted the Lhammas and The Etymologies, both edited and published in the 1987 The Lost Road and Other Writings. They depict a tree of languages analogous to that of the Indo-European languages that Tolkien knew as a philologist.^[2][6]

 

This was internally consistent, but for one thing. Central to the story was the history of the Noldor. Their language, Noldorin, evolved very slowly in the changeless atmosphere of Valinor. Tolkien had developed its linguistics in some detail. With their return to Beleriand, the language was evidently sharply distinct from Qenya, implying rapid change. As Tolkien worked on The Lord of the Rings, starting soon after The Hobbit was published in 1937, the matter troubled him. He came up with a radical solution: the Noldor adopted the local language, Sindarin, as spoken by the Sindar or Green-Elves, when they settled in Beleriand.^[8] That allowed Noldorin to be, more plausibly, a scarcely-altered dialect of Quenya; and it freed up his linguistically-developed material to be rebadged as Sindarin, which would have had a long time to evolve in Middle-earth. This was to some extent an awkward solution, as Sindarin had quite different origins, and should have developed rather differently. Tolkien reshaped his "Tree of Tongues" accordingly.^[9][10]

•  
  Elvish language evolution as described in the Lhammas and assumed in The Etymologies, 1937
•  
  Elvish language evolution once Tolkien had The Lord of the Rings under development, 1938 onwards. Sindarin has replaced Noldorin. The 'new' Noldorin is just the Noldor's not very distinct dialect of Quenya.

The Etymologies is Tolkien's etymological dictionary of the Elvish languages, contemporaneous with the Lhammas. It is a list of roots of the Proto-Elvish language, from which he built his many Elvish languages, especially Quenya, Noldorin and Ilkorin. The Etymologies, never meant to be published, does not form a unified whole, but incorporates layer upon layer of changes. In his introduction to The Etymologies, Christopher Tolkien wrote that his father was "more interested in the processes of change than he was in displaying the structure and use of the languages at any given time."^{[T 9]}

 

The story of the Elvish languages as conceived by Tolkien from when he began working on The Lord of the Rings is that they all originated from Primitive Quendian or Quenderin, the proto-language of all the Elves who awoke together in the far east of Middle-earth, Cuiviénen, and began "naturally" to make a language. With the sundering of the Elves, all the Elvish languages are presumed to be descendants of this common ancestor, including the two languages that Tolkien developed most fully, Quenya and Sindarin, as shown in the tree diagram.^{[T 11]}

In detail, Tolkien invented two subfamilies (subgroups) of the Elvish languages. "The language of the Quendelie (Elves) was thus very early sundered into the branches Eldarin and Avarin". These further subdivided as follows:^{[T 11]}

• Avarin is the language of various Elves of the Second and Third Clans, who refused to come to Valinor. It developed into at least six Avarin languages.
• Common Eldarin is the language of the three clans of the Eldar during the Great March to Valinor. It developed into:
  • Quenya, the language of the Elves in Valinor (Eldamar) beyond the Sea; it divided into:
    • Vanyarin Quenya or Quendya, colloquial speech of the Vanyar, the Elves of the First Clan;
    • Noldorin Quenya (and later Exilic Quenya, when the Noldor moved from Valinor to Beleriand), colloquial speech of the Noldor, the Elves of the Second Clan.
  • Common Telerin, the early language of all the Teleri
    • Telerin, the language of the Teleri, Elves of the Third Clan, living in Tol Eressëa and Alqualondë in Valinor.
    • Nandorin, the language of the Nandor, a branch of the Third Clan. It developed into various Nandorin and Silvan languages.
    • Sindarin is the language of the Sindar, a branch of the Third Clan, who dwelt in Beleriand. Its dialects include Doriathrin, in Doriath; Falathrin, in the Falas of Beleriand; North Sindarin, in Dorthonion and Hithlum; Noldorin Sindarin, spoken by the Exiled Noldor.

 

A tradition of philological study of Elvish languages exists within the fiction of Tolkien's frame stories: ^{[T 13]}

The older stages of Quenya were, and doubtless still are, known to the loremasters of the Eldar. It appears from these notices that besides certain ancient songs and compilations of lore that were orally preserved, there existed also some books and many ancient inscriptions.^{[T 13]}

Elven philologists are called the Lambengolmor; in Quenya, lambe means "spoken language" or "verbal communication." Known members of the Lambengolmor were Rúmil, who invented the first Elvish script (the Sarati), Fëanor who later enhanced and further developed this script into his Tengwar, which later was spread to Middle-earth by the Exiled Noldor and remained in use ever after, and Pengolodh, who is credited with many works, including the Osanwe-kenta and the Lhammas or "The 'Account of Tongues' which Pengolodh of Gondolin wrote in later days in Tol-eressëa".^{[T 14]}

 

Tolkien wrote out most samples of Elvish languages with the Latin alphabet, but within the fiction he imagined many writing systems for his Elves. The best-known are the "Tengwar of Fëanor", but the first system he created, c. 1919, is the "Tengwar of Rúmil", also called the sarati. In chronological order, Tolkien's scripts are:^[12][13]

1. Tengwar of Rúmil or Sarati
2. Gondolinic runes (Runes used in the city of Gondolin)
3. Valmaric script
4. Andyoqenya
5. Qenyatic
6. Tengwar of Fëanor
7. The Cirth of Daeron

• Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien
• A Elbereth Gilthoniel

• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The War of the Jewels. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-71041-3.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1987). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Lost Road and Other Writings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-45519-7.

This section lists the many sources by Tolkien documenting Elvish texts.

See also Douglas A. Anderson, Carl F. Hostetter: A Checklist, Tolkien Studies 4 (2007).

• Elvish.org FAQ – Article by Carl F. Hostetter. Succinct citations of Tolkien's own views of the purpose, completeness and usability of his languages.
• The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship: Publishes the journals Parma Eldalamberon, Tengwestië, and Vinyar Tengwar