DISCLAIMER: This article is preliminary research on the part of its author (Paul Strack) and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the owner of this site. Since the source material is complex and its interpretation can be subjective, multiple conclusions are possible. Sindarin was originally the native language of
New Series: Sindarin Grammar
Now that I’ve wrapped up Quenya Grammar (for now), I’m starting a new series on Sindarin. Like the Quenya series, this information will eventually be collected in Eldamo: https://eldamo.org/content/grammar-indexes/grammars-s.html The series will be similar to the Quenya one, in that I intend to examine both the Sindarin of the 1950s
Quenya Grammar is done for now
The Quenya Grammar series is done for now. The content is collected in the Eldamo site, which is downloaded as usual: https://eldamo.org/ See: https://eldamo.org/content/grammar-indexes/grammars-q.html
Eldamo 0.7.7 Released
I’ve released Eldamo 0.7.7: https://eldamo.org/ The main change in this release is the collected and complete(ish) Quenya Grammar: https://eldamo.org/content/grammar-indexes/grammars-q.html
Quenya Grammar P94: Subordinate Clauses
A subordinate or dependent clause is one that is not a sentence on its own, but modifies the larger context in which it appears: “the man who came here yesterday was very angry”. Many subordinate clauses begin with relative pronouns, as in the previous example: “who”. In English relative pronouns
Quenya Grammar P93: Numerals
Tolkien wrote a series of essays on Elvish numbers in the late 1960s. One of those essays, Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi (ELN), gave a set of numbers that many Neo-Quenya writers now use (VT48/6): er or min “one”. atta “two”. nelde “three”. canta “four”. lempe “five” ¹. enque “six”. otso
Quenya Grammar P92: Prepositions
Like most head-initial languages, Quenya uses prepositions to express various relationships between words: i falmalinnar imbe met “on the foaming waves between us” (LotR/377), or ilye mahalmar “above all thrones” (UT/305), ve maiwi yaimie “like gulls wailing” (MC/222). The preposition appears at the beginning of the expression, followed by the
Quenya Grammar P91: Adverbs
Like many languages, Quenya has adverbs whose primary function is to modify verbs, in much the same way that the primary function of adjectives is to modify nouns. In English, there is the suffix “-ly” which can be used to turn adjectives into adverbs, as in “the quick man ran”
Quenya Grammar P90: Comparison
In Tolkien’s later writing, Quenya did not have a direct equivalent of English’s comparative “-er” suffix. In linguistic notes from 1966-67, Tolkien said that “A is brighter than B” is expressed using the preposition lá “beyond”: A (ná) calima lá B (PE17/90), where the copula ná- “to be” is optional
Quenya Grammar P89: Adjectives
Adjectives in Quenya generally (but not always) precede the noun they modify and generally (but not always) are inflected into the plural when they modify plural nouns. As Tolkien described it in Common Eldarin: Noun Structure from the early 1950s: Adjectives were not distinguished inflexionally from nouns in Eldarin. But