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Development of the Linguistics of Tolkien's Elvish Languages

© Michael Martinez

Many linguists and fans devote time to studying J.R.R. Tolkien's constructed languages, particularly Elvish. These languages have been growing throughout the years as the Tolkien linguistic community has proposed new names, devised new words, or attempted to deduce roots and cognates in various dialects.

Understanding the History of Elvish

To fully understand how the Elven languages evolved, one needs to read through the entire History of Middle-earth series. Most of the information is provided in only a few books, but there are tidbits scattered throughout.

Elvish began as undistinguishable from the "nonsense words" many present-day fantasy novels resort to. However, they possessed what Christopher Tolkien said was an underlying "sophisticated and phonetically intricate historical structure."

The names from the first phase are derived from a language Tolkien called "Qenya" and another he called "Goldogrin" (from The Book of Lost Tales). Tolkien devised two lexicons for these early languages. There are some words from these early languages which were carried forward, but many of the names appear somewhat crude or primitive when compared to later names in Quenya and Sindarin: "Bronweg" became "Voronwë" in Quenya, for example.

Christopher Tolkien provides appendices for these names in volumes I & II of The History of Middle-earth, The Book of Lost Tales, Part One and Part Two.

Tolkien Expands His Early Languages

Tolkien then expanded upon the early languages, which is documented in The Lost Road and Other Writings, volume V of The History of Middle-earth. The two primary sources of information here are "The Lhammas," a history of how the Elven languages branched out from one another as the Elves migrated, and "The Etymologies", the ultimate source for the most developed versions of Qenya and Noldorin.

Noldorin was the language spoken by the Exiles, the Noldor who returned to Middle-earth in rebellion. But Tolkien subsequently decided that they should be speaking Sindarin and devised historical reasons for the shift.

"The Lhammas" provides both historical and linguistic information. The accompanying narrative history appears in the related text "Quenta Silmarillion," which was Tolkien's first attempt to redefine his early mythology and its geographical ties to England.

"The Etymologies" is more of a bridge work between these early works and The Lord of the Rings.

Elvish in The Lord of the Rings

Quenya and Sindarin developed as Tolkien prepared for the publication of The Lord of the Rings. Although Tolkien completed the bulk of the story by 1948, he made subsequent revisions to the texts over the next 4-5 years, particularly to the linguistic and historical traditions in the  LOTR appendices. Somewhere in the 1940s JRRT stopped emending "The Etymologies", so his Elven languages were now evolving without an authoritative reference.