Domain: elvish.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to elvish.org.
Comments · 12
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Re:Soo ...
Other than a single chapter in Silmarillion (Of the Fall of Doriath) which he was forced to write with Guy Gavriel Kay because the only completed version of that story was from a wholly different phase of the the development of the mythos, and utterly incompatible with the later conceptions. In fact, he didn't even admit this until something like ten years after the Silmarillion was published, and to some Tolkien scholars, there's a suspicion that the entire History of Middle Earth series, with every iteration of the Silmarillion released and carefully analyzed (CJRT's role in these books as an editor and commentator) is one very large apologetic for why he was forced to compose the Fall of Doriath so that the Silmarillion could be published.
From the Silmarillion right on down to the Children of Hurin (which looks to be the last of the books of his father's writings that CJRT will ever produce), everything is credited to JRR Tolkien.
Of course the commentaries, which are written by Christopher Tolkien, are owned by him, but that's no different than any other scholarly work. He did, after all, write those notes and analytical pieces, and he put an incredible amount of effort into pouring over his father's writings. These writings, after JRRT's death, were spread in three places; the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Marquette University in Wisconsin (this is where the LotR manuscript is located) and Tolkien's own papers, which, as JRRT's Literary Executor, Christopher Tolkien has full access to.
Of course, Christopher Tolkien isn't the only working on scholarship. Vinywar Tengwar's scholars have access to the rather large and largely unpublished linguistic works that Tolkien began even prior to the first conceptions of a mythology. The Annotated Hobbit is rather like the History of Middle Earth series, and is by Douglas A. Anderson, who has done what Christopher Tolkien did for LotR and the Silmarillion in producing a commentary on the evolution of The Hobbit from the 1930s through the second and third editions.
So the long and the short is that Christopher Tolkien isn't a fiction writer. He held his father's seat at Oxford, so I'm sure he has plenty of scholarly works in his name, but I know of no fiction of any kind. -
Slashdot Recommendation: New Icon
/. needs to add a new MS Specific Icon for any and all MS Specific posts that include the word "mouthpiece" in the post body or are by known MS shills such as Didio and co.
After all... Bill the Borg gets lonely sometimes. -
Re:If they make a book about this language....
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Re:Any experience is valuable
Where is this language documented?
Have a look at this page. The first significant pieces of information concerning elvish languages (Quenya, Sindarin, etc.) were published in the Lord of the Rings, appendices E and F to the third volume in particular. Since then, many readers wrote letters to Tolkien, asking for more information, and he answered. Some info was thus published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Then you have the posthumous works (The Silmarillion with a linguistic index by Christopher Tolkien, based on his father's notes, The Unfinished Tales, the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, ...). Most significant is volume 5 from the History of Middle-earth: "The Lost Road and other Writings", which includes The Etymologies, ie. more than fifty pages of elvish roots, and the way they evolved in words in the various elvish tongues (all elvish tongues, and Quenya and Sindarin in particular, are related. All come ultimately from the "Common Elvish"). What's more, most of the names in Tolkien's world have a known meaning.
As for now: Christopher Tolkien (Tolkien's son) sent photocopies of most of his father's papers that are related to the languages of Middle-earth to a group of people who had been editing a fanzine (Vinyar Tengwar) on this topic for several years, with the authorization for them to publish all the material. Thus more and more information is being published concerning Tolkien's languages. "Small" works are published in Vinyar Tengwar, while more comprehensive ones are published in Parma Eldalamberon (most notable are issues 11, 12, 13 and 14. Issue 11 includes the so called "Gnomish Lexicon", Gnomish being an "early version" of Sindarin, and issue 12 the "Qenya Lexicon", Qenya being an "early version" of Quenya, though this is an over-simplification). There are thousands of pages waiting to be published, including detailed grammatical descriptions, etc.
Where is the dictionary, verbs conjugations, grammatical constructs, gender treatments etc etc?
The website Ardalambion given in another comment will give you this kind of information, though it represents the view of its author (Helge Fauskanger), which are sometimes subject to controverse. There is a comprehensive Sindarin dictionary compiled by Didier Willis, which you can download on his website Hisweloke (DragonFlame 2.0 is the best way to get the latest version, but it's a Windows program. However, it uses QT and is licensed under the GPL so anyone is welcomed to port it to Unix).
To what degree can complex and subtle nuances be expressed in this one-man made up language?
Tolkien himself wondered how much poetry, etc. an invented language could really reach (see The Monsters and The Critics). But he was of course technically able to build quite complex sentences, with subtle nuances, etc. "one-man language", yet the work of more than half a century (he started devising these tongues in the second decade of the century, and refined them until his death in 1973). However, it's virtually impossible for anyone else to compose a "new" complex elvish sentence, ie a sentence about which one could say "this is true elvish". One reason for that is that Tolkien always changed his mind, his languages were not fixed in any way (though he felt "bound" by the published material). But even if all the published material was "consistent", there would still be huge lacunes in the available knowledge. This may change when more material is published in Vinyar Tengwar / Parma Eldalamberon... But note that most "experts" don't consider "movie-elvish" as genuine. Some even call this neo-Sindarin "mishmash"... -
Re:Reality check.Well, okay: having been reminded by looking at posts that appeared while I was writing this, I'll concede that some of these people are disturbing.
Please note (I'm talking to you, Boris and Olga, if you do actually exist) that Tolkien loved his native language (and studied it for a living) and that he gave his children good, Catholic names like John and Christopher.
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dear god please let this not be realdear god please let this not be real,
On June 16, 2001 Elenhil Laiquendo (Boris Shapiro) and Elgaladna Findilauriel (Olga Kukhtenkova) got married in a catholic church in Russia. Boris is an amateur linguist and a beginner lambengolmo. He is fond of Tolkien and his languages and he specializes (to a certain extent) in Quenya and in Middle-earth calendars; he has complex ideas about Tolkien's world and Christianity and the Elder Days of our oikoumene; his beloved, Olga is an artist, a dramatic actress, a theatre costumier, she loves drawing fairies and elves and illustrating Tolkien, she also specializes in the history of arts and culture and loves mythology and collects cosmogonical mythos. They both are elves: his name is Elenhil Laiquendo and her one is Elgaladna Findilauriel.
so elves do get laid,
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Sanskrit is too recent
Hey, consider who you're talking to! Certain other languages have a higher priority.
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Re:I only hope.....To quote Tolken. "Its ELVEN you fool, not elfish."
I know you were joking and I was quoting.
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/faq01.html#elvish
Elvish seems to be fairly acceptable. It's even in the jargon file somewhere. Now that's canon!
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Latin vs. Tengwar
I just finished Kindergarten, where we learned our ABC's, and I've invented an alphabet that can be read 7 times as fast, with only one third the effort. Why didn't some PhD come up with this before?
There are alphabets that are better than Latin in some respect. Take Tengwar for instance. The script is designed along sound phonological principles (no pun intended): voiced consonants, fricatives, and nasals have a predictable change in shape from the basic voiceless stops (p, t, c, q). It's been adapted to at least English, Sindarin, Quenya, Polish, Lojban, Esperanto, and Toki Pona. On the other hand, some people have expressed increased dyslexia due to use of Tengwar.
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Re:Perspective Via Elvis
Does that mean we all have to learn Elvish?
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Lord of the Rings
Ash nazg durbatulúk,
ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk
agh burzum-ishi krimpatulInteresting that they've had some serious linguists working on the film though - here's the discussion site for their languages.
I gave up waiting for their merchandise, and just had the ring poem printed on some of my own-design T-shirts. Much cooler than having corporate-inspired stuff!
I am very tempted by the replicas of Sting. Unfortunately they weigh far too much to fight with, and they're really easy to dint. Oh well...
maegnass ess nin, dagnir yngyl im (my name is Sting, I am slayer of spiders)
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JRRT's Work On LanguageIf there's anyone out there with an interest in languages, they really should look at JRRT's work (in that area). http://www.elvish.org is a good place to start.
There's a very good book "An Introduction To Elvish" (Ed. Jim Allen), that I used to borrow from my University library....
Tom.