Elvish languages (Middle-earth)


many Elvish languages. These were the languages spoken by the tribes of his Elves. Tolkien was a philologist by profession, and spent much time on his constructed languages. The Elvish languages were the first thing he imagined for his secondary world of Middle-earth. Tolkien said that his stories grew out of his languages. Tolkien also created scripts for his Elvish languages, of which the best known are the Sarati, the Tengwar, and the Cirth.

External history

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. At that time, Tolkien was already familiar with Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and several ancient Germanic languages, Gothic, Old Norse and Old English. He had invented several cryptographic codes, and two or three constructed languages. 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." He had started his study of the Finnish language to be able to read the Kalevala epic.
Tolkien with his Quenya pursued a double aesthetic goal: "classical and inflected". 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".
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.
From the onset, 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 languages the many mechanisms of sound change needed.
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." In his Comparative Tables Tolkien describes the mechanisms of sound change in the following daughter languages: Qenya, Lindarin, Telerin, Old Noldorin, Noldorin, Ilkorin, Danian of Ossiriand, East Danian, Taliska, West Lemberin, North Lemberin, and East Lemberin.
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, the grammar rules of his major Elvish languages Quenya, Telerin and Sindarin went through very few changes.

Publication of linguistic papers

Two magazines are exclusively devoted to the editing and publishing of J.R.R. Tolkien's gigantic mass of previously unpublished linguistic papers. Almost each year, new Elvish words are published and the grammar rules of the Elvish languages are disclosed. Access to the unpublished documents is severely limited, and the editors have yet not published a comprehensive catalogue of the unpublished linguistic papers they are working on.

Internal history

The Elvish languages are a family of several related languages and dialects. Here is set briefly the story of the Elvish languages as conceived by Tolkien around 1965. They all originated from:
Tolkien invented two subfamilies of the Elvish languages. "The language of the Quendelie was thus very early sundered into the branches Eldarin and Avarin".
The acute accent or circumflex accent marks long vowels in the Elvish languages. When writing Common Eldarin forms, Tolkien often used the macron to indicate long vowels. The diaeresis is normally used to show that a short vowel is to be separately pronounced, that it is not silent or part of a diphthong. For example, the last four letters of Ainulindalë represent two syllables, rather than the English word dale, and the first three letters of Eärendil represent two syllables rather than the English word ear.

Internal development of the Elvish word for "Elves"

Below is a family tree of the Elvish languages, showing how the Primitive Quendian word kwendī "people" was altered in the descendant languages.

Fictional philology

There is a tradition of philological study of Elvish languages within the fiction. Elven philologists are referred to by the Quenya term Lambengolmor. In Quenya, lambe means spoken language or verbal communication.
Known members of the Lambengolmor were Rúmil, who invented the first Elvish script, 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".
Independently of the Lambengolmor, Daeron of Doriath invented the Cirth or Elvish-runes. These were mostly used for inscriptions, and later were replaced by the Tengwar, except among the Dwarves.

Pronunciation of Quenya and Sindarin

Sindarin and Quenya have a very similar pronunciation. The following table gives pronunciation for each letter or cluster in international phonetic script and examples:
Vowels
Letter / DigraphPronunciationIPAFurther comment
aas in father, but shorter.never as in cat
áas in father.
â as in father, but even longer.
ae the vowels described for a and e in one syllable.Similar to ai
aia diphthong, similar to that in eye, but with short vowelsnever as in rain
aua and u run together in one syllable. Similar to the sound in housenever as in sauce
aw a common way to write au at the end of the word.
eas in pet.
éthe same vowel lengthened S:, Q: Rural Hobbit pronunciation allows the sound as in English rain
ê the vowel of pet especially lengthenedRural Hobbit pronunciation allows the sound as in English rain
eias in eightnever as in either
eu e and u run together in one syllablenever as in English or German
ias in machine, but shortnot opened as in fit
ías in machine.
î as in machine, but especially lengthened.
iu i and u run together in one syllablelater by men often as in English you
oopen as in sauce, but short.
óthe same vowel lengthened S:, Q: Rural Hobbit pronunciation allows the sound of "long" English cold
ô the same vowel especially lengthenedRural Hobbit pronunciation allows the sound of "long" English cold
oi as in English coin.
oe the vowels described for o and e in one syllable.Similar to oi. Cf. œ!
œ as in German Götterin published writing, has been incorrectly spelt oe, as in Nírnaeth Arnoediad. Later became e.
uas in cool, but shorternot opened as in book
úas in cool.
û the same vowel as above, but especially lengthened.
y as in French lune or German süß, but shortnot found in English; like the vowel sound in "eat", but with rounded lips.
ý as in French lune or German süß.
ŷ as in French lune or German süß, but even longer

Consonants
Most samples of the Elvish language done by Tolkien were written out with the Latin alphabet, but within the fiction Tolkien 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.

List of known Elvish scripts devised by Tolkien

In chronological order:
  1. Tengwar of Rúmil or Sarati
  2. Gondolinic Runes
  3. Valmaric script
  4. Andyoqenya
  5. Qenyatic
  6. Tengwar of Fëanor
  7. The Cirth of Daeron

    Internal history of the scripts

Prior to their exile, the Elves of the Second Clan used first the sarati of Rúmil to record their tongue, Quenya. In Middle-earth, Sindarin was first recorded using the "Elvish runes" or cirth, named later certar in Quenya. A runic inscription in Quenya was engraved on the sword of Aragorn, Andúril. The swords inscriptions were not revealed in the movie trilogy, nor in the book.

Primary

Secondary