Languages

Various languages are used in J.R.R. Tolkien's writings about Middle-earth, including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and The Silmarillion. The creation of the mythology that manifests in those works began with Tolkien's passion for language in general The Philosophy of Tolkien, ch. 9: "The Philosophy of Language", pg. 155 and for philology, which is the branch of knowledge dealing with the structure, historical development, and relationships of existing languages. Creating languages was a major early pastime of Tolkien's, ever since his years as a youth.
When discussing the languages of Middle-earth, it is necessary to consider two aspects: their "primary-world" history, namely their literal development by Tolkien as a linguist, and their "secondary world" history, their imagined historical development in the history of Middle-earth.
==Background==
Tolkien's pursuit of language-creating occupied much of his life. He is known to have constructed his first languages at a little over thirteen years of age, and continued to ponder upon his creations until his death more than sixty-five years later. Language invention had always been tightly connected to the mythology that Tolkien developed, as he found that a language could not be complete without the history of the people who spoke it. Animalic and Nevbosh ("New Nonsense") were the first languages that Tolkien invented during his youth and from the latter he developed another language called Naffarin (inspired by and ).
Tolkien became a professional linguist and specialist in the Old English language, but was also interested in many languages outside his field. For example, he started to create and then abandoned Mágol (or Mágo), based on and conceived it as Mannish and then Orkish language.The History of Middle-earth, Vol. IX: Sauron Defeated, Part Two: "The Notion Club Papers"
He found special love for the (he described the finding of a Finnish grammar book as "entering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before"The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 214). Finnish morphology, particularly its rich system of inflection, gave rise in part to Quenya. Another of Tolkien's favorites - features of Welsh phonology found their way to Sindarin. Numerous words were borrowed from existing languages, but less and less obviously as Tolkien progressed.
Although the Elvish languages Sindarin and Quenya are the most famous and the most mature languages that Tolkien invented for his mythology, there were others. All belonged to a family of Elvish dialects originating in Common Eldarin, the language common to all Eldar, which in turn originated in "Primitive Quendian", the common root of the Eldarin and Avarin languages. In addition, there is a separate language-family spoken by Men, the most prominent member of which was Westron (derived from the Númenórean language, Adûnaic) or the "Common speech" of the peoples of The Lord of the Rings. Most Mannish tongues showed Elvish influences. Several independent languages were drafted as well, like Khuzdûl, of the Dwarves, and Valarin (the tongue of the Valar). Other languages include the Black Speech, created by Sauron during the Second Age.
===Elvish scholarship===
Although the study of Tolkien's languages is as a rule not taken seriously by mainstream linguistics, a number of serious scholars have worked on compiling all that can be recovered about their histories and grammars.
An early book dedicated to Eldarin is An Introduction to Elvish and to Other Tongues by James D. Allan (published by Bran's Head Books), written before the publication of The Silmarillion in 1977 and therefore mostly outdated.
There are several journals dedicated to the subject:
* Quettar, Bulletin of the Linguistic Fellowship of the Tolkien Society, edited by Julian C. Bradfield, the oldest Eldarin publication.
*Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon are published by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship.
*Tyalie Tyelellieva is published by Lisa Star.
*Mythlore is published by the Mythopoeic Society.
*Beyond Bree is published by Nancy Martsch.
*Tolklang, Elfling, and The Lambengolmor List are mailing lists dedicated to Tolkien linguistics.
==Secondary-world history==
See also Lhammas and Elvish.
In the fictitious history of Middle-earth, the tongues of the Elves are separated as part of the speakers emigrate to Aman while others stay behind, leading to a split of Quenya (High-Elvish, or "Elf-Latin") and Sindarin.
===Middle-earth linguistics ===
The invention of writing is attributed to Rúmil, who first invented an alphabet: the Sarati (literally "letters"). Fëanor later enhanced and further developed this alphabet into the Tengwar, which were spread to Middle-earth by the Ñoldor and remained "commonly used in the West-lands" by the Third Age.The Lord of the Rings, Appendix E: Writing and Spelling, II: "Writing", i. "The Fëanorian Letters" Daeron of Doriath, independently of Rúmil and Fëanor, had invented the Cirth runes, but these were only used for inscriptions, and otherwise were replaced by the use of tengwar, except for among the Dwarves.
An important source of Middle-earth linguistic scholarship is Pengolodh of Gondolin, a lore-master who wrote in Quenya and in Sindarin.The History of Middle-earth, Vol. XI: The War of the Jewels, Part Four: Quendi and Eldar, Appendix D., pg. 396 He is the author of Quendi and Eldar, the Lhammas (by attribution), and the Ósanwe-kenta; and was the last of the Lambeñgolmor.The History of Middle-earth, Vol. XI: The War of the Jewels, Part Four: Quendi and Eldar, Appendix D., pg. 397
In Quenya, lambë, the chief root of the term "Lambeñgolmor", is the term for spoken language or verbal communication. tengwesta is a more abstract term for a system or a code of signs and may be translated as "grammar".
==Writing and spelling==
Sindarin and Quenya are often written in the tengwar script, which Tolkien especially devised for them, or alternatively in the rune-like cirth. When Middle-earth languages are written with the Latin alphabet, either acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú) or circumflex accents (â, ê, î, ô, û, ŷ) mark long vowels depending on language or other convention. The diaeresis (ä, ë, ö) is normally used to mark 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 should be sounded as if spelled dah-leh in English rather than as dale and the first three letters of Eärendil represent eh-ahr rather than the English word ear. (But occasionally, especially when writing proto-Eldarin forms, Tolkien used the macron to indicate long vowels and the dieresis on ä, ö, and ü as in German to indicate i-modification or e-modification.)
In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien adopted the literary device of claiming to have replaced the original Westron with English.The Lord of the Rings, Appendix E: Writing and Spelling, I: "Pronunciation of Words and Names" This device of rendering an imaginary language with a real language he carried further, rendering Rohanese, related to an older form of Westron, by Old English, and names in the tongue of Dale in the north of Rhovanion by Old Norse forms, thus mapping the genetic relation of his fictional languages on the existing historical relations of the Germanic languages. A natural consequence of this is that Tolkien never worked out the languages thus ‘‘replaced’’ in any detail because they never appeared in the texts.
==List of languages==
#Elvish languages:
#*Primitive Quendian
#**Avarin languages (at least six languages)
#**Common Eldarin
#***Quenya
#****Vanyarin Quenya
#****Ñoldorin Quenya
#*****Valinorean Quenya
#*****Exilic Quenya
#******Gondolidhren
#***Common Telerin
#****Telerin of Valinor (considered a dialect of Quenya)
#****Sindarin
#*****Doriathren
#*****Falathren
#*****Mithrimin
#****Nandorin languages (influenced by Avarin)
#Mannish languages (all showed influence by Avarin tongues as well as Khuzdûl):
#*Languages of forefathers of the First and Third Houses of the Atanatári
#**Taliska (two dialects)
#***Adûnaic
#****Language of the Black Númenóreans
#****Westron (influenced by Sindarin, and languages of Eriador)
#*****Hobbit-speech (influenced by languages of Northmen)
#******Bucklandish (influenced by the language of the Stoors)
#******Shire-speech
#**Languages of Men of Eriador during the Second Age
#**Northern languages
#***Language of Dale
#***Rohanese
#*Language of forefathers of the Second House of the Atanatari
#**Halethian language
#***Dunlendish
#***Languages of Forodwaith and the Lossoth
#**Drúadan (language of the Drúedain)
#*Many tongues of Haradrim
#*Many tongues of Easterlings
#Tongue of Dwarves:
#*Khuzdûl
#Language of the Ents:
#*Old Entish
#Languages of the Ainur (Valar and Maiar)
#*Valarin
#**Black Speech, created by Sauron
#Orkish languages 
#*Various debased forms of the Black Speech and regional dialects influenced by Westron
#Primitive methods of communication
#*Language of the Trolls
#*Wolf-language of the Wargs
==References==
==External links==
*Ardalambion, a site containing much knowledge about Tolkien's languages and questions surrounding them
*Glǽmscrafu – Tolkien’s linguistic cellar
*The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
*The Tolkien language mailing list
*Tolkien information: Languages, Elves, the Ainur, and the Valar
==See also==
*Neo-Languages
*Tolkien research
 
fr:Langues et écritures inventées par Tolkien