Sounds and Spelling

Quenya Grammar 1, Chapter 1 said that Quenya has Latin and Finnish behind it. Both show in how it sounds: clean vowels, few consonant clusters, and a stress rule borrowed from Latin. This chapter gives you the sounds and the spelling so you can read every later example aloud. The facts are from Wikipedia's account of late colloquial Noldorin Quenya; see the box on sources at the end.

Vowels

There are five short vowels, a e i o u, and five long ones, written with an acute accent: á é í ó ú. The exact quality of the vowels is not known. Wikipedia reports one scholar's view (Pesch) that a, i and u sound the same short and long, while short e and o are more open than long é and ó; the page also says the pronunciation is likely close to Italian and Spanish.

The diaeresis: ë

A diaeresis (two dots) over e marks a vowel that is not part of a diphthong, as in ëa and ëo. It also marks a final e as pronounced, not silent: lassë "leaf" has two syllables, with a spoken final vowel. Wikipedia does not give a fuller rule for when the diaeresis is written, so this course follows the spelling of each source.

Diphthongs

A diphthong is two vowels in one syllable. Late Noldorin Quenya has six: iu eu ai au oi ui. All are "falling" (the first vowel is the stronger) except iu, which is "rising" and sounds like yu. In the older language all of them were falling.

Consonants

The consonant inventory is small and regular. The table groups the letters Wikipedia lists for Noldorin Quenya.

Plain b d g do not occur on their own. They appear only inside the groups mb nd ld rd ng (and one other), and only between vowels. Vanyarin Quenya, the dialect of the Vanyar in Valinor, kept two sounds, th and z, which Noldorin Quenya replaced with s and r.

Special spellings

A general rule from the same source covers these: a cluster with a second y is palatalised, one with a second w is rounded, and one that begins with h is breathy and unvoiced.

Which Consonant Groups Are Allowed

• Doubled consonants occur inside words: pp tt cc mm nn ss ll rr. The page gives effírië "death" as an exception with a doubled f.
• At the end of a word only n r l s t and nt are allowed. Final m became n.
• At the start of a word single consonants are used (p t c f s h m n v l r y w and a few more), plus the groups x ps ty ny ly qu (and ñw, which became nw in Noldorin).
• Inside a word there is a long list of two-consonant groups, such as ld mb mp nc nd ng nt, and only twelve three-consonant groups.
• Two different stops cannot sit next to each other (one turns into a fricative), and ft is avoided.

Stress

Stress is predictable, and it follows the Latin rule. First count the syllables:

• Two syllables: stress the first.
• Three or more: stress the second to last syllable if it is heavy; otherwise stress the third to last.

A heavy syllable contains a long vowel, a diphthong, or ends in a consonant (including the first half of a cluster such as ld or ss). Everything else is light.

There is also a weaker secondary stress, and the page notes that stress matters in verse.

Reading a Word Aloud: a Procedure

1. Split the word into syllables, treating a vowel with a diaeresis as its own syllable and each diphthong as one syllable.
2. Say the vowels as in Italian or Spanish, long if accented.
3. Say each consonant as above (c is hard, qu is "kw", hy is like "ch" in German ich).
4. Apply the stress rule.

Hands-On Exercises