Looking to learn Elvish . . .

O

One Ringer

Tol Eressea
. . . I've been to some random websites lately, learning some random Elvish phrases, but I was wondering if anyone knew if there are any real in-depth sites, or something, that teaches the Elvish language. The help is very much appreciated! [:)]
 
The two sites recommended here offer quite different theories of what you should expect when you start to explore the linguistic details of Quenya. I recommend you read both Hostetter's FAQ on the The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship website, and Fauskanger's Introduction to his Quenya Course.

Hostetter and Fauskanger are not exactly mortal enemies, but they do hold diametrically opposite views about the possibility of "learning Quenya" in any meaningful way.

Broadly speaking, Hostetter says it's impossible because: 1) Tolkien did not invent Quenya for that purpose, 2) he never settled on a coherent grammar or vocabulary but instead constantly tinkered with it, and 3) there are not enough attested examples of Quenya writing to draw conclusions about a globally "correct" syntax and vocabulary for any original composition.

Fauskanger acknowledges Hostetter's theoretical objections, and breezes past them: he thinks that there is enough consistent and accurate information about Quenya that real progress in composition can be made by a diligent and respectful student.

I would note that both men characterize original Quenya composition as the linguistic equivalent of "fan-fiction" -- but Hostetter feels such activity is ridiculous and meaningless while Fauskanger regards it as rewarding and intellectually enriching. I see in this dichotomy another, though very technical, manifestation of the interesting relationship between academic-style "Tolkien Studies" and fan-driven "Middle-earth Studies".

Good luck with your enquiries! I would love to hear what you think about this long-running debate in Tolkien language studies, as you become more familiar with the underlying issues.
 
I think trying to write Quenya would be a very good way of learning the character of the language, much better than just reading it respectfully and avoiding using it, out of a fear that what you write may not be "correct".

I can understand that the "Tolkien Studies" folks are trying to earn mainstream academic respect for Tolkien, but somehow their attitude makes me think that they are exactly the kind of academics who would have despised Tolkien's own efforts to put his learning into the form of fairy-stories. I say use it, play with it, don't treat it with kid gloves. The greatest "respect" you can give to someone else's ideas is to try to build something of your own from them, not to preserve them as sacred relics.
 
...of those two camps that I've read.

I stumbled upon the yahoo group, Elfling, when I was looking for Elvish lyrics from the movie. I would look through the posts every couple of days looking for one pertaining the lyrics. I was a bit surprised at the amount of fighting that seemed to be going on. I had to do some real digging to determine what was behind it all. They may not be mortal enemies but it was hard to tell that, sometimes, from the animosity expressed in the posts.

I think, beyond thinking that composing in Elvish is 'ridiculous and meaningless', some think it's a violation of copyright and will defend that position with vigor. I believe even Elvish word lists and dictionaries were considered copyright violations by some.
 
Good point! I tend to follow Hostetter's lead on this, but then I've also used Fauskanger's Ardalambion site to try to cobble together some phrases in Elvish from time to time. In fact as Hostetter says to this Frequently Asked Question:

Q. So, is it pointless to try to compose in Quenya and Sindarin?
A. No, there is nothing wrong with it per se, and it can certainly be both fun and instructive (even this editor has done so on occasion...) But it must always be borne in mind by composers and readers alike that such compositions are not authentic.​
I too found the exercise fun and instructive! That is, it was after trying to write in Elvish, including looking up information in the Etymologies, etc., that I began to see Hostetter's point about how inauthentic such an exercise is.

And that is his point, I think. Too many people tell themselves they are authentically "writing in Quenya" or "learning Quenya" as if it is a consistently conceived and workable language that Tolkien was developing for many years but left sadly unfinished. They may say they are extending the language; or metaphorically "composing new music" in a definitive musical style that was devised by Tolkien. But they don't actually know if they are doing it "right" in any sense.

The problem with Fauskanger's "Quenya Course" is that the term "Course" implies that one can learn the language the way one might learn German through a correspondence course: imperfectly but as correctly as possible pending better instruction. You will certainly learn a lot about Quenya from Mr. Fauskanger! (Although I suspect he imposes an artificial consistency on his terms and definitions that Hostetter would say is quite unwarranted). After reading his "Course", you will be able, perhaps, to compose writing samples that more or less cohere with Tolkien's conceptions about Quenya's syntax and vocabulary. But the details will become more and more maddening with every additional thought you might wish to express, because it remains sadly but inevitably true that there are just no answers from Tolkien about so much of what we take for granted in a language.

To continue my metaphor above, we might say someone who writes in bad, self-taught German from a textbook can eventually be corrected by someone fluent in German. There is no one who is fluent in Quenya, because the language was never invented to a level of detail that would permit fluency to be achieved.

All Quenya writers, no matter how well read they may be in Tolkien's linguistic papers, are in the same boat: even if they try to restrict themselves to aspects of the language that are "attested" by Tolkien, they will still be trapped by the fact that he changed the language every time he sat down to extend it with further invention. And he never went backwards to revise past definitions and documents to ensure linguisted consistency.

Here's an imagined example for illustrative purposes: you may combine a verb form from a 1933 example with a noun form from a 1965 example, because those are the only attested examples of those words -- but how can we know that that 1933 verb form is what he still had in mind by 1965? Especially when there is a noun, whose etymology is closely related to your 1965 example, that appears in the 1933 source along with that old verb, but that was explicitly changed in 1951 - suggesting that the 1965 noun form is probably not appropriate to use in the same sentence as the 1933 verb?

Again, this is not to say one can't "play" with Quenya! Tolkien might or might not have approved, just as he was of two minds about others adding to or extending any aspects of his mythology, but luckily for much of what we fans do, Tolkien's not around just now to tell us what he thinks of us!

Hostetter is arguing, coherently I think, that attempts at composition in Tolkien's Elvish languages are fine to "play at" but must not be taken "seriously" or represented as being "authentic" extensions of Tolkien's creation. And I would guess he is so vociferous about this because so many Tolkien language fans are not content to accept the fragmentary nature of Quenya and Sindarin, but rather do assert exactly those things.
 
Certainly in a modern language, I don't see how you'd pin it down. Is a non-native speaker's attempt to communicate in English "inauthentic"? Is a dialect speaker "inauthentic"? Is someone deliberately writing in a style not their own natural one (such as Tolkien using archaic expressions) "inauthentic"? For a living language at least, looking for "authenticity" strikes me as a category error.

For a "dead" language like Latin or Anglo-Saxon, perhaps you do run into questions of "authenticity". Just as in your example of Tolkien's Quenya changing between 1933 and 1965, you are going to run the risk of using words from different periods in the life of the language. And, unless you want to simply repeat the ideas in the texts we already have in those languages, you are going to run into the need to coin new words (again, just like in Quenya). People do still translate into Latin - I think the Harry Potter books have been translated for example - but you could say the translations aren't "authentic", because of course they will contain many words that no native Latin speaker ever knew.

The same can be said of Anglo-Saxon, although the problems would be greater than for Latin because there are far fewer texts and probably therefore many more gaps in our understanding of vocabulary and grammar rules (and probably a lot of variation in dialect and time-dependent changes too). But that didn't stop Tolkien himself from "playing the game" of translating into Anglo-Saxon - he wrote a number of original Anglo-Saxon poems, I believe, not with any claim to "authenticity", but just for his enjoyment and the enjoyment of those who could appreciate the game.

So although I certainly agree with you that anyone who claims to "know" Quenya, or to be able to judge its "authenticity" is overstepping their authority, I don't see any problem with following in Tolkien's own footsteps and playing the game of composing one's own work in this "dead language". It's a way of getting closer to the language (our Latin teacher once got us to write a Latin poem instead of just reading them, and boy did it give me a better understanding of what Latin poetry is all about!), and stretching one's understanding. It's not about authenticity, it's about exploration and enjoyment, and ultimately just another level of subcreation. And after all, what's wrong with that?

[:)]
 
I enjoy languages but am only fluent in EME, British English, and SAE. I love Latin and am currently working to learn the Medieval form/ the Vulgate, but when I do the achevements of arms for the new members in my reenactment group, I put aside my inhabitions and do the translations for the mottos. I enjoy it, I might have some errors, but I love it just the same. From time to time I even have to do them in German, Early Modern English, French, or Spanish (all the early/medieval forms), depending on the personae of the people. Translation is an art, and the search for "authenticity" can overshadow that.
 
The book is "Languages of Tolkien's Middle Earth" by Ruth S. Noel ISBN: 0-395-29130-5

Its a great book!

It might be a good hand held reference book that you could alwsys use.
 
...is generally held to include significant flaws, so I have heard, and the older but more diligent Introduction to Elvish by Jim Allan is usually recommended in its place.
 
You can study Elvish; you can learn about Elvish. But I think that "learn Elvish" would generally be taken to mean "learn to speak Elvish", i.e., use it as a fully-formed language capable of the same level of expression as one's native tongue. And nobody has ever learned to do that - including J.R.R. Tolkien, who - when C.S. Kilby suggested he write a book in (or perhaps on; accounts differ) Elvish, was said to have replied that he 'didn't know enough Elvish'. Certainly he was changing the language constantly and was not particularly interested in achieving a 'final' form for it.

The danger with Helge Fauskanger's neo-Quenya efforts, and also with David Salo's 'Gateway to Sindarin' reconstruction – and what I think most irritates Carl Hostetter – is that they create a false sense of authoritativeness and authenticity, even where none is intended. Even simple phrases like Salo's 'Hannon le' for 'thank you' (heard in the Fellowship film) work themselves into the fannish mind in a way that puts them on an even footing with 'Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo'. But of course the former is David Salo's educated guess; the latter is Tolkien's own (revised!) creation

Tolkien was so skilled in creating the illusion of a real Middle-earth that it is easy to forget that questions like, "what was the Quenya word for 'pepper'," are as unanswerable (and perhaps even meaningless) as fannish questions like, "did Legolas have a sister?" (which we saw a few times on Green Books during the run of the film; usually from someone writing Mary Sue fanfic). There isn't a 'real Elvish' out there that we can approximate.
 
This ended up down the reply tree because I was initially going to respond to the Ruth Noel recommendation. Do. Not. Use. Her. Book. Even when it first appeared, those who had studied such matters recognized that it was a botch job - she got many words wrong and appeared to misunderstand the relationship between Sindarin and Quenya. Really. Not good, except maybe for the Tengwar and rune stuff (I no longer remember). Jim Allen's book was better, but pre-dated the Silmarillion and is no longer the best information available. The materials from elvish.org are much better (and include otherwise unavailable Tolkien writings which are interesting even if you are not an Elvish scholar).
 
I'm coming to this late (I've been moving into a new house), but the following is my omnibus reply to several of your (pl.) interesting posts. It seemed better than peppering the thread with half a dozen small replies, all by me, one after the other. I like my picture, but not that much! Or is this looong message worse? Hmm.

If I call your name, please stand up. [;)]

Squire.

The two sites recommended here offer quite different theories of what you should expect when you start to explore the linguistic details of Quenya. I recommend you read both Hostetter's FAQ on the The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship website, and Fauskanger's Introduction to his Quenya Course.
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Yes. And another essay which I think should be essential reading for anybody embarking on the study (or use) of Elvish in any of its flavors is Carl Hostetter's "Elvish as She Is Spoke". The essay appeared in the Proceedings of the Blackwelder Conference, but it's also available online in its entirely. Hostetter summarizes the problems inherent in trying to "speak Elvish" very well. There is also a mammoth essay by him in Volume 4 of Tolkien Studies, in which he tackles the entire history of Tolkienian linguistics. Long, deep, dense reading, but well worth it to anyone serious about studying Elvish.

I would note that both men characterize original Quenya composition as the linguistic equivalent of "fan-fiction" -- but Hostetter feels such activity is ridiculous and meaningless while Fauskanger regards it as rewarding and intellectually enriching.
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I think "ridiculous and meaningless" is overstating it a bit. And you want to be careful that others don't pick up this phrase and apply it directly to Hostetter after the fact, as if firmly established as his genuine opinion. Your second post better reflected your viewpoint (and Carl's, by quoting his own FAQ), but at least one poster did pick up and use the blunt instrument of "ridiculous and meaningless."

Ostadan.

The danger with Helge Fauskanger's neo-Quenya efforts, and also with David Salo's 'Gateway to Sindarin' reconstruction – and what I think most irritates Carl Hostetter – is that they create a false sense of authoritativeness and authenticity, even where none is intended. Even simple phrases like Salo's 'Hannon le' for 'thank you' (heard in the Fellowship film) work themselves into the fannish mind in a way that puts them on an even footing with 'Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo'. But of course the former is David Salo's educated guess; the latter is Tolkien's own (revised!) creation.
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Absolutely! This is precisely my own concern, and I think you are right that Carl feels the same way about it. Helge makes all the correct disclaimers in his work, and he takes the subject extremely seriously, but his course and other writings nevertheless do appear to convey a sense of authenticity to many would be Elvish students. Neo-Quenya and Neo-Sindarin are fannish, exactly as you say. To be quite honest, I really don't see why one would want to speak them (even if it were possible), unless it is part of a RPG or something similar — which endeavors are, again, fannish in exactly the way that has led so many to dismiss Tolkien as nothing more than escapism (in a denigrating sense). I have nothing against RPG's or fan fiction per se, although they do nothing for me personally; but it is certainly not difficult to see why they hinder the goal of getting the academic world to take Tolkien seriously.

To look at it from a slightly different angle: I read Old English, but I don't try to speak it. Ditto Latin, Old Norse, Old French. I don't try to speak or compose original writings in any of them. And I approach Tolkien's languages in the same way.

FarFromHome.

Certainly in a modern language, I don't see how you'd pin it down. Is a non-native speaker's attempt to communicate in English "inauthentic"? Is a dialect speaker "inauthentic"? Is someone deliberately writing in a style not their own natural one (such as Tolkien using archaic expressions) "inauthentic"? For a living language at least, looking for "authenticity" strikes me as a category error.
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It's not odd at all to look for authenticity in a language. Native English speakers easily recognize bad English, just as native Germans recognize bad German. A dialect speaker is not inauthentic, but that's beside the point, because fannish Neo-Elvish is not a dialect of "genuine" Elvish. A dialect has to go through more than a few dozen years to attain its status as such. Admittedly, the question of dialect in an artificial language is a grey area, but in any event, not nearly enough time has passed, nor is the "user community" nearly large enough.

Look at Esperanto, which has been around for at least a quarter century longer than the earliest forms of Tolkien's languages — still no dialects after more than a century of scattered use. Dialects emerge because of use, not as a way to stimulate of facilitate use. To me, while it may sound weird, authenticity is merely synonymous with good and accurate usage of an artificial language.

The same can be said of Anglo-Saxon, although the problems would be greater than for Latin because there are far fewer texts and probably therefore many more gaps in our understanding of vocabulary and grammar rules (and probably a lot of variation in dialect and time-dependent changes too). But that didn't stop Tolkien himself from "playing the game" of translating into Anglo-Saxon - he wrote a number of original Anglo-Saxon poems, I believe, not with any claim to "authenticity", but just for his enjoyment and the enjoyment of those who could appreciate the game.
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Setting on one side the question of ownership of an invented language and the author's possible wishes regarding same ... There's a very great difference between engaging in "the game" with Latin or Old English and engaging in it with Quenya or Sindarin. As much less attested as Old English is in comparison to Latin, the Elvish languages are the merest tithe of what's known about Old English. Not only that, but Old English developed into Modern English through a series of well understood linguistic processes; not so Elvish. Playing the game in Elvish should not be compared to doing so in Old English or Old Norse or even Gothic, as Tolkien did; rather, a more accurate comparison might be playing the game in Etruscan. And how easy — or accurate — do you think that would be? Hahae.

So although I certainly agree with you that anyone who claims to "know" Quenya, or to be able to judge its "authenticity" is overstepping their authority, I don't see any problem with following in Tolkien's own footsteps and playing the game of composing one's own work in this "dead language". It's a way of getting closer to the language (our Latin teacher once got us to write a Latin poem instead of just reading them, and boy did it give me a better understanding of what Latin poetry is all about!), and stretching one's understanding. It's not about authenticity, it's about exploration and enjoyment, and ultimately just another level of subcreation. And after all, what's wrong with that?
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Agreed. There's nothing inherently wrong with doing so purely for the sake of enjoying and appreciating Tolkien's work all the more. It is just a little bit strange, though, isn't it? You don't see this kind of thing very often. Outside of the whole Klingon phenomenon, which is perhaps even more fannish than Neo-Elvish, I can't think of other cases of an author's fans wanting to immerse themselves so totally. You don't see Burgess's fans speaking Nadsat, for example.

Anyway, there's my two cents. (And as some of you may know, I've been involved personally in those contentious arguments on the Elfling list. Interested parties can read a longer and more belligerent version of my opinion in a series of screeds I posted there. What can I say? I love to argue.)
 
if it weren't for the faint whiff of intellectual snobbery that I always sense around these arguments.

I don't see how you can have it both ways - either Quenya is a language with enough development to be studied - and potentially used - as a language (in which case, why discourage people from learning it?), or it's just an elaborate game that Tolkien indulged in. In which case, why deny others the pleasure in indulging in it too?

I do understand that the "academic world" wants to ringfence Tolkien as much as possible from all those embarrassing, eager, naive fans. But Tolkien himself chose to bypass the academic style of narrative and to write instead in a style that speaks to everyone, not just to intellectuals. Does that make him somehow less respectable than all those "difficult" writers that academia finds it so much more appropriate to love? It may make it harder in the short run to achieve "the goal of getting the academic world to take Tolkien seriously", but in the long run Tolkien may join the ranks of many now-classic writers who were popular with mass audiences in their own day while being frowned upon by academia. How long does it take to turn a Jane Austen or a Charles Dickens or a JRR Tolkien from a purveyor of popular literature into a member of the literary establishment? And does academia help or hinder the process?
 
I'd probably agree with you if it weren't for the faint whiff of intellectual snobbery that I always sense around these arguments.
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That's certainly fair, and I've been as guilty as any of that. There should be a middle ground (or perhaps a middle-earth? :) between composing bad verse in worse Elvish on the one hand and treating Elvish as a remote and untouchable artifact, worthy of only distant admiration, on the other. I think scholars sometimes overcompensate with too much serious-mindedness for "those embarrassing, eager, naive fans" (what Tolkien called his "deplorable cultus").

I don't see how you can have it both ways - either Quenya is a language with enough development to be studied - and potentially used - as a language (in which case, why discourage people from learning it?), or it's just an elaborate game that Tolkien indulged in. In which case, why deny others the pleasure in indulging in it too?
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I think you can have it both ways. I think it's both "a language with enough development to be studied" and "an elaborate game that Tolkien indulged in." Why shouldn't it be both? However just because there's enough development for study does not automatically mean there's enough development (or consistency) to actually speak it. Unless you're content to make only the most facile observations about mainly anachronistic things. Your own post, for example, which I daresay is a pretty typical example of everyday English, would immediately present serious problems for translation into Quenya or Sindarin. There's also a big difference between neologisms in Latin (for, say, the purposes of translating Harry Potter) and neologisms in the Elvish languages.

As to denying others the pleasure, I don't. But it does bother me a bit when people cavalierly say, "I speak Quenya," or "Here's a poem I translated into Sindarin." Because it conveys that sense of authenticity about which Ostadan and I spoke.

I do understand that the "academic world" wants to ringfence Tolkien as much as possible from all those embarrassing, eager, naive fans. But Tolkien himself chose to bypass the academic style of narrative and to write instead in a style that speaks to everyone, not just to intellectuals. Does that make him somehow less respectable than all those "difficult" writers that academia finds it so much more appropriate to love?
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I'd say this is a bit off the main point of Tolkien's linguistic inventiveness, and the appropriateness (or not) of using his languages outside his fictive world, so I won't engage in what would largely be a rhetorical argument — since I'm sure we both agree that Tolkien is worth taking serious, but also worth enjoying, and that the "critics" will be proven wrong sooner or later.
 
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