After Tolkien
Tolkien's Languages
Course 1 · Chapter 10 · After Tolkien
Tolkien died in 1973, leaving most of his language work unpublished. The story of Elvish did not end there. This last chapter looks at the scholars who edit his papers, the fans who use and extend the languages, the films, and where you can keep learning. It ends with a recap of the whole course.
The Scholars
Most of what is known about the languages beyond the published books comes from Tolkien's papers, edited and printed after his death. The main publisher is the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, founded in 1988 and a special interest group of the Mythopoeic Society. It publishes two journals you have already met:
| Journal | What it publishes |
|---|---|
| Parma Eldalamberon | Complete texts of Tolkien's linguistic manuscripts, such as the early lexicons |
| Vinyar Tengwar | Shorter pieces, notes and discussion |
The editors named in the sources include Christopher Gilson, Carl Hostetter, Arden Smith, Bill Welden and Patrick Wynne. Much of the material came from photocopies supplied by Christopher Tolkien, Tolkien's son and literary executor, and from notes taken in the Bodleian Library.
The Fans
Tolkien left a vocabulary of about 25,000 published Elvish words (as of 2008, counting all stages), but no modern concepts: there is no Elvish word for "telephone". Fans have written in Sindarin since the 1970s and have added words and phrases to make the languages usable. These additions are not Tolkien's, and good fan work labels them as such (Chapter 1).
Elvish has also spread to other fiction. Later authors created their own elf-languages, some borrowing sounds and forms from Tolkien: the Ancient Language of The Inheritance Cycle, Eltharin in Warhammer, and Darnassian in Warcraft are among them.
The Films
For the film adaptations, David Salo wrote the sung and spoken Elvish dialogue for Peter Jackson. Salo also proposed a more detailed system of Sindarin mutation than the one in the older sources (Chapter 6). Film Elvish is therefore a performance built on a scholar's interpretation, not a direct quotation of Tolkien.
Where to Keep Learning
| Resource | What it offers |
|---|---|
| Eldamo | A dictionary and word database that cites the source of every form; also an introductory Quenya course |
| Parf Edhellen | An online Elvish dictionary |
| Elvish Linguistic Fellowship | The journals and the scholarly community |
| The Lord of the Rings and its appendices | The texts published in Tolkien's lifetime |
The forms in this course were taken from introductory sources and flagged where they were built by rule. Before using any in real writing, check them in one of these.
Course Recap
What Tolkien's Languages covered
- Chapter 1: Tolkien the philologist; why he invented languages; Quenya and Sindarin; Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo and Mae govannen
- Chapter 2: the Elvish family tree and the other languages of Middle-earth
- Chapter 3: sounds: Finnish and Welsh models, vowels, spellings, the stress rule
- Chapter 4: Tengwar, Cirth and the Ring verse
- Chapter 5: Quenya: plurals, the article, cases, verbs and suffixes
- Chapter 6: Sindarin: mutation, plurals by vowel change, verbs
- Chapter 7: reading names: Mithrandir, Imladris, Legolas, calques
- Chapter 8: Khuzdul, the Black Speech, Adûnaic and Westron
- Chapter 9: the history of the languages: Qenya, Gnomish, Noldorin, Sindarin
- Chapter 10: scholars, fans, the films and where to learn more
Hands-On Exercises
Name the two journals of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship and say what each publishes. Explain why a learner should prefer a form that comes from them over one from a fan site.
📄 View solutionWrite a short passage using only forms from this course: greet someone in Quenya, say a Sindarin greeting, and name two places or people with a meaning from Chapter 7. Mark which forms came from Tolkien and which were built by rule.
📄 View solutionExplain in your own words three things you learnt about Tolkien's languages that surprised you, and say how you would check an Elvish phrase before using it.
📄 View solution