Quenya at a Glance
Tolkien's Languages
Course 1 · Chapter 5 · Quenya at a Glance
This chapter is a sketch, not a full grammar: just enough Quenya to see how the language is built and to read a sentence with understanding. The full treatment belongs to the planned Quenya Grammar 1 course. What you will take away is the shape: words carry endings where English uses small words.
Nouns
Plural
The plural depends on how the word ends. This is the "first" plural, used for a general group.
A second plural, -li, means "many" or a partial group. Quenya also has a dual for pairs, which we will not use here.
"The" and "a"
Quenya has a word for "the", i, and no word for "a". An unmarked noun is indefinite, and one-of-a-kind things such as the sky need no article.
Cases: Endings That Do the Work of Small Words
Quenya has about ten cases, which are endings for a noun's job in the sentence. These are the ones to meet first:
| Ending | Job | Example |
|---|---|---|
| -o | genitive: "of" | anga "iron" → ango "of iron"; mindon "tower" → mindono "of a tower" |
| -va | possessive: roughly "'s" | owner and thing owned |
| -sse | locative: "at, in" (rest) | where something is |
| -nna | allative: "to" (movement toward) | where it goes |
| -llo | ablative: "from" (movement away) | where it comes from |
The place endings come from Finnish, which has the same idea: where English says "in the house" or "to the house", Finnish and Quenya add a case ending to the noun.
Adjectives
Adjectives can come before or after the noun and agree in number with it. Common endings are -a or -ë, with a plural in -ë, -i or -ië. An adjective can also stand for a noun: vinya "new" gives vinyar "news".
Verbs
Two Present Tenses
Quenya separates what is always or habitually true (the aorist) from what is happening now (the present), a distinction English handles with the word "-ing".
Who Is Doing It: Subject Suffixes
The person is shown by an ending on the verb, so Quenya mostly needs no separate pronoun.
My, Your, His: Possessive Suffixes
The same idea works on nouns: -nya "my", -lya "your", -rya "his or her", with a linking vowel where needed. So elen "star" gives eleninya "my star", and macil "sword" gives macilya "his or her sword".
"To Be"
The verb "to be" is ná. With a long ending it shortens to na-, as in nanyë turca "I am strong" and nalyë linquë "you are wet". With a noun, Quenya often omits it: i elda turca "the elf [is] strong".
Reading a Whole Sentence
The basic order is subject, verb, object. Here is the Quenya greeting from Chapter 1, taken apart.
Count what the endings do: the allative says "on the hour", the possessive says "our", and the genitive says "of". English needs five small words for what Quenya puts inside two. Early printings of the book have a slightly different form of "our" (omentielmo), a reminder that the text itself was revised.
- "Quenya has a word for every English word." The vocabulary is limited (Chapter 1).
- "The subject pronoun is always needed." A suffix on the verb shows the person.
- "Elvish plurals add -s." They are -i, -r or -li, depending on the word.
Hands-On Exercises
Give the plural of atan "man", elda "elf" and aiwë "bird", and say which rule applies to each. Then say what ango and mindono mean and what the ending does.
📄 View solutionTranslate lorin, lóran, tíralyë, samis and orcor matir aiwi. Explain the difference between lorin and lóran, and say which part of each form shows the person.
📄 View solutionBreak Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo into stems and endings, and explain what each ending does. Then say what you would expect macilya to mean, and why.
📄 View solutionChapter 5 Quick Reference
- Plural: consonant + -i, vowel + -r, -ë → -i; "the" = i, no "a"
- Cases: genitive -o, possessive -va, locative -sse, allative -nna, ablative -llo
- Verb: aorist (norë, lorin) and present (nóra, lóran); person ending -n I, -lyë you, -s he/she
- Possessives: -nya my, -lya your, -rya his/her
- "To be": ná, often omitted; order: subject, verb, object