On Learning Tolkien’s Languages

If you’ve read this far, you probably don’t need me to justify why you should learn one of Tolkien’s languages. On the other hand, I may owe you some explanation of what exactly it means to do so. Learning Elvish is not like learning to speak French or Spanish or any other living language, so if you’ve studied a foreign language before, you might be surprised at what you’ll find (and won’t find) within these pages.

A typical language course will start off with common phrases, like please, thank you, and goodbye—indispensable words, if you’re going to travel in a foreign country. Yet Sindarin has no equivalent for any of these¹. The language course will also list the pronouns: I, you, he, she, etc. But Sindarin pronouns are a point of great contention: would you believe that people are still trying to figure out what the Sindarin word for he is? In spite of these and many other difficulties, various people have tried to write language courses in Sindarin. While their efforts are impressive in their own right, I think that to approach Sindarin as if it were a living language of Earth is misguided. Sindarin is fundamentally unlike earthly languages in its purpose and execution, and deserves a different approach if we are truly to understand it.

Alert readers should smell a paradox here: Tolkien is renowned as a master linguist, a passionate philologist, and a pioneer of the art of language creation. He worked on Sindarin (or at least, on languages of a similar style) for his entire adult life. How could he just forget to write down the Sindarin equivalents of please and thank you? I will devote the rest of this essay to resolving the paradox, but the summary is this: the lack of such conversational niceties among Tolkien’s linguistic papers shows that he wasn’t particularly interested in that aspect of language. His goal was not to make another Esperanto², but to commune with his own linguistic muse to create something of great beauty. Measured against that goal his languages are a triumph. Against any other, they will inevitably fall short. Our proper course is not to patch up their supposed faults, nor to dismiss them as unworthy, but to understand why they are the way they are. They are not that way by accident!

Tolkien’s views on language creation are revealed most fully in the essay A Secret Vice. The vice in question is of course his peculiar hobby, which he calls secret because it can earn no prizes, win no competitions (as yet) – make no birthday presents for aunts (The Monsters and the Critics, hereafter MC, p. 207). But as his argument unfolds it becomes clear that the vice, to him, is no mere hobby, but an art-form as worthy as music or literature. This may take some of his audience by surprise, so to dispel any preconceptions they might have about what this art-form is, he first describes what it isn’t.

First on the not it list is Animalic, a language-game invented by his childhood acquaintances, which substituted animal names for ordinary English words. Dog nightingale woodpecker forty meant you are an ass. Crude, notes Tolkien, in the extreme (MC p. 200). However, he excludes Animalic from the ranks of true linguistic art not for mere crudeness, but because it was not primarily concerned at all with relations of sound and sense and was in fact wholly practical—in the sense that it served only the needs of communication and secrecy, not the desire for aesthetic pleasure (MC p. 201).

A later childhood language, Nevbosh, was a bit less primitive, but still fell short of Tolkien’s later artistic aspirations. It was invented mainly by one of Tolkien’s friends, though the young JRRT also contributed some words. The bulk of it consisted of distorted English, French, and Latin, and the words were strung together with English syntax:

Dar fys ma vel gom co palt, ‘hoc Pys go iskili far maino woc? Pro si go fys do roc de Do cat im maino bocte De volt fac soc ma taimful gyróc!’ MC p. 203

(A full translation is not given, but it must be: There was an old man who said, how / can I possibly carry my cow? / For if I were to ask it / To get in my basket / It would make such a terrible row!)

Tolkien translates many of the Nevbosh words in his essay, but draws attention to one in particular: lint quick, clever, nimble, which curiously enough seems to have been transplanted into his Elvish languages. When Galadriel sang of yéni ve lintë yuldar (years like swift draughts) she must have little suspected that her speech was Nevbosh-influenced! However, lint is interesting to Tolkien not because it inspired a Quenya word³, but because it was a rarity in Nevbosh: a word invented out of thin air and treasured (at first) for the pleasure in the association of its sound and meaning. I say at first because Tolkien is quick to note that the ‘word’ once thus established, though owing its being to this pleasure, this sense of fitness, quickly became a mere chance symbol dominated by the notion and its circle of association [. . .] (MC p. 205). It seems that use of the word obscured its beauty and distorted its sense—a refrain that Tolkien repeats elsewhere, and to which I will return.

In any case, lint is exceptional. Most Nevbosh words were not created or enjoyed for their beauty, and because of this Tolkien places Nevbosh low on the linguistic totem pole. But this raises another question: if lint gave the Nevbosh-creators particular pleasure, why did they not make more words like it? That is, what prevented Nevbosh from becoming an art-language on the level of Sindarin or Quenya? Tolkien has a ready answer:

Nevbosh represented the highest common linguistic capacity of a small group, not the best that could be produced by its best member. It remained unfreed from the purely communicative aspect of language—the one that seems usually supposed to be the real germ and original impulse of language. But I doubt this exceedingly; as much as one doubts a poet’s sole object, even primary one, being to talk in a special way to other people. MC p. 208

What a telling choice of words—unfreed from the purely communicative aspect! In Tolkien’s mind, Nevbosh was a lesser language than Quenya because it was the thrall of communication, and because it had to serve a multitude it was essentially designed by committee. In light of this statement, it starts to become clear why Sindarin is lacking in so many of the vital particulars of living languages—it was never Tolkien’s aim to create a purely communicative language. For him, communication (when it was considered at all) had to be secondary to the creation of beauty, in order for that creation to achieve its highest form.

A language that can’t be used for communication is arguably not a language at all, and even Tolkien acknowledges this point, admitting that [t]he crude Nevbosh was a ‘language’ in a fuller sense than the things we are coming to [i.e. the Elvish tongues]. Of course, within the fictional world, Quenya and Sindarin certainly are complete languages. But if we approach them with our feet firmly planted on our own Earth, we have to consider them as works of art created by one man, and for that purpose we may want a term other than language—maybe glossopoesis will do for now⁴. But Language implies communica­tion, and so misrepresents Tolkien’s real intentions.

But maybe simply admiring Sindarin from afar is not your goal. Maybe you want to bring it fully to life, to forge fellowship in the voices of Lórien, or make merry in Mirkwood’s speech. But before you set your heart on that, I should caution you that using Sindarin for such a purpose may not even be accurate within Tolkien’s canon. For Sindarin was not (in the Third Age at any rate) the daily language of the majority of Elves! I’ll let Tolkien explain:⁵

The Elves far back in the Elder Days became divided into two main branches: the West-elves (the Eldar) and the East-elves. Of the latter kind were most of the elven-folk of Mirkwood and Lórien; but their languages do not appear in this history, in which all the Elvish names and words are of Eldarin form. [. . .] The Exiles, dwelling among the more numerous Grey-elves, had adopted the Sindarin for daily use; and hence it was the tongue of all those Elves and Elf-lords that appear in this history. For these were all of Eldarin race, even where the folk that they ruled were of the lesser kindreds. The Return of the King Appendix F, pp. 405-6

Since Sindarin was by the Third Age used mainly by the Eldarin nobility, it’s possible that Tolkien imagined it to be a language of lore and ceremony. The attested Sindarin texts agree with this: Sindarin is rich in poetry, inscriptions, incantations, and formal greetings, but poor in dialogue. For mundane matters most Elves would probably use a different language. But Tolkien wrote very little about the languages of the East-elves—the Avari and Nandor as they were called in Quenya. This seeming lack actually gives us an opportunity to create fan-art languages that imagine what Avarin or Nandorin might have been like. Such languages would not, of course, be part of Tolkien canon, but they could reasonably borrow as much as their creators liked from the Eldarin languages, since in their fictional context they would be in close contact with Sindarin (and, to a lesser extent, Quenya).

As far as I know, only one attempt has been made to base a Tolkien fan-language on an Avarin or Nandorin tongue, and that is David Salo’s Silvan language, published in Other Hands issue 28. While the language is based on Eldarin and clearly Elvish in form, the majority of it is Salo’s invention, and other interpretations of Silvan are possible. I consider the field of Nandorin linguistics still wide open.

But fan-art languages are not the subject of this text—Sindarin is. And if we are to study Sindarin, it must be as glossopoesis and not language. What, then, is the substance of glossopoesis? What remains of language when the purely communicative aspect is sublimated away? We can see a hint of the answer in the dead languages of our own Earth, still utterable but uncommunicative in the absence of living speakers. Tolkien knew well how rich and romantic such ancient languages could be. To him they were delightful precisely because their daily, fluent use was impossible:

Certainly in the case of dead languages no scholar can ever reach the full position of a native with regard to the purely notional side of the language he studies [. . .]. His compensation remains a great freshness of perception of the word-form. Thus [. . .] our appreciation of the splendour of Homeric Greek in word-form is possibly keener, or more conscious, than it was to a Greek, much else of other elements of poetry though we may miss. MC p. 206

This preempts another question that may occur to us—why did Tolkien not aim for both communicative capacity and beauty of form in his languages? After all, these concerns do not at first appear to be opposed. Yet Tolkien argues that they are opposed, that when communication in a language becomes second nature, the contemplation of word-form is neglected, and the perception of beauty dulled by familiarity. Ancient Greek would certainly be more useful alive than dead, but not (to Tolkien’s mind) more beautiful—its mystery and grandeur would be gone, replaced by conversational trivia like how to ask the time of day and the word for telephone book.

To be sure, not all of my readers will share Tolkien’s tastes, and some will find his fascination with dead languages to be overly romantic. The state of the glossopoetic art has changed since Tolkien’s day, and the great majority of the practitioners I have met are more interested in how living languages are actually used than in the contemplation of mere words. They will find little of interest in Tolkien’s languages, but fortunately for them the advent of the Web has sparked a glossopoetic renaissance, and there are now many many other constructed languages created with a more communicative aim in mind. Mark Rosenfelder’s languages are especially well-crafted, and somewhat popular, and his Language Construction Kit is an indispensable resource if you feel the urge to make a language of your own.

Those who do share Tolkien’s tastes are hopefully still interested in learning Sindarin, and I think I have now collected enough data to give them some conclusions about the nature of Tolkien’s Elvish tongues. There is some good news, and some bad news. The bad news is that you can’t learn to speak Sindarin the way you currently speak English—it’s simply not designed for that, and intentionally so. The good news is that Tolkien couldn’t speak his languages either, but despite that fact (and even because of it) he found beauty in his languages and kept working on them, which means there’s hope for us who want to study them. We can relish Sindarin the same way Tolkien did, and even revel in its incompleteness, if we are drawn by the same beacons that first attracted him: the harmony of sound and meaning; the nostalgia for a world that never was; the ache of unknowable loss. It was a feat of nigh-Fëanorian prowess that Tolkien achieved when he caught these great lights with his words and made them imperishable.

I am aware that my poetical ramblings may not be particularly helpful to the hopeful student of Elvish. I have so far offered nothing concrete on what it is like to study an Elvish language from an angle that respects Tolkien’s intentions. What can you actually learn about Sindarin from reading the rest of my rather verbose website? And perhaps closer to the heart of the matter: what can you do with Sindarin? What can you tell your friends about it? For while new glossopoetic works must be created by solitary toil (otherwise you end up with Nevbosh), the finished products can and should be shared.

Although you can’t expect to hold conversations entirely in Sindarin, you can still use the language for some things. Poetry, inscriptions, names, expressions of deeply-felt sentiment—these are the things that Tolkien used his languages for, and they will be the focus of the lessons in subsequent chapters. Also, just because Sindarin is not designed for conversation does not mean that it can never be uttered aloud—it would be a shame if a language designed with such attention to euphony was never heard by human ears. In bygone days my friend and I used to greet each other with a hearty mae govannen, and while we amused ourselves with this private form of greeting, the fitness of sound to sense was also in our minds.

Now, before I let you loose on the lessons, there is one other point that I want to address. I have so far talked about the ways in which Sindarin is incomplete, but there is another factor that makes it difficult to study: Tolkien changed his mind about his languages constantly. A prime example (though from Quenya, not Sindarin) is the word lá. Bill Welden, in the article Negation in Quenya, cites two sources from Tolkien’s notes: In a 1960 wordlist, lá meant yes; in 1970, lá meant no (Vinyar Tengwar #42, p. 32). Tolkien’s revision of his languages wasn’t carried out slowly or isolated to a few words, either: Christopher Tolkien describes parts of one manuscript (the Etymologies) as a maze of forms and cancellations [. . .] so dense, and for the most part made so quickly, that one cannot be sure what [JRRT's] final intention was: in these parts he was working out potential connections and derivations on the spot, by no means setting down already determined histories (The Lost Road p. 380).

Even the finality of publication did not wholly quell Tolkien’s revisionist tendencies. We know, for example, that Tolkien considered no fewer than three alternative explanations for the greeting mae govannen well met: a verb covad- meet, with mutation of c to g yielding govannen; a verb govan-, with no mutation; and a verb govan- with the initial g disappearing under the effect of a prefix ci you, itself mutated and abbreviated to g’, yielding g’ovannen. The problem (for us students) is that even after LotR was published and the phrase mae govannen set in stone, Tolkien could and did change his mind about the underlying words and grammatical rules that produced it. And that means that none of the possible interpretations of mae govannen can be picked out as the right one.

Any attempt to describe Tolkien’s languages will have to confront this frustrating fluidity, either by picking one version and sticking to it, or by listing all the alternatives that Tolkien considered and letting the reader choose. I lean towards the second option—where I have to. Actually, my preference is for a third option, which is to avoid the frequently-revised sections of the language until the stable parts have been thoroughly described. And there are stable parts. Some elements of Sindarin remained constant from Tolkien’s first Gnomish grammar to The Lord of the Rings and beyond—like the word gloss white. Personally, I believe that the stable parts of the languages were those that Tolkien felt the strongest affection for anyway—why else would they have lasted through countless rounds of revision? My guess is that the elements of Elvish can be roughly divided into two categories: those discovered through inspiration (and consequently treasured), and those added out of necessity (and so disposable at a whim). For our present purpose, which is to glimpse the beauty that Tolkien wanted to convey through his languages, the products of inspiration are no doubt more interesting. And that is fortunate, because it means we are focusing on the parts of the language about which we can be most certain.

This work is called A Ranger's Guide to Sindarin because of the peculiar nature of Elvish, even among invented languages. Calling it A Student's Primer in Sindarin or An Introductory Sindarin Grammar would not do—learning Sindarin is not a textbook exercise. It is more like exploring the wilderness. There are treacherous paths; there are monsters. But there is also great beauty, if you know how to see it. My goal with the Ranger's Guide is to map the territory (tree-tangled as it is) of Tolkien’s Sindarin. I will not try to cut a path, but I hope to teach you to live among the trees.