A History Behind the Words

Tolkien's Languages

Course 1 · Chapter 9 · A History Behind the Words

The Elvish of The Lord of the Rings is not the Elvish Tolkien began with. He started in his schooldays and kept changing his languages for more than fifty years. This chapter follows that history, so you can tell why one source gives a different word or ending from another, and why the careful approach in earlier chapters (checking where a form comes from) matters.

The idea in a box
There is not one "Tolkien's Elvish". There are stages, and the forms of an early stage may be abandoned or reused for something else in a later one. Good learners ask which stage a form belongs to.

A Timeline

PeriodWhat happens
c. 1910–1911Tolkien, a schoolboy in Birmingham, begins his first Elvish language. He later calls it Qenya.
1910sA second, Welsh-like language takes shape, called Gnomish or Goldogrin. Its Lexicon, compiled in 1917, has about 3,000 entries.
1920s–1930sThe Gnomish line becomes Noldorin. In the early 1930s Tolkien rewrites Noldorin's grammar (called "late conceptual Noldorin").
1937He writes the Lhammas ("Account of Tongues"), the family history of the languages, in the same period as the Etymologies.
Late 1930s–1940sThe Noldorin of the Etymologies and Lhammas is the working Elvish of the story as it is first drafted.
c. 1951 onwardTolkien adopts the name Sindarin: the old Noldorin becomes Sindarin, and a new "Noldorin" becomes a dialect of Quenya.

The Name Swap

The most confusing change is a swap of names. In the earlier documents, Noldorin means the grey-elven language. Later, Tolkien decided that this language would be called Sindarin, and that "Noldorin" would mean the Quenya spoken by the Noldor in exile. A reader of an early document who meets "Noldorin" is reading about what the later books call Sindarin.

# the swap earlier writing later writing Gnomish / Goldogrin → the early form of Sindarin Noldorin → Sindarin (new) Noldorin = the Quenya spoken by the exiled Noldor

The Key Documents

  • The Gnomish Lexicon and the Qenya Lexicon: the early word-lists, published long after Tolkien's death in the journal Parma Eldalamberon.
  • The Etymologies: a large word-list of Elvish roots, written in the 1930s. It reflects an earlier stage than The Lord of the Rings, so its words are not always valid for the later Sindarin.
  • The Lhammas: an account of the language family. It appears in The Lost Road and Other Writings.
  • The Lord of the Rings and its appendices: the texts published in Tolkien's lifetime, and so the safest base.

Why It Matters

Three practical consequences follow for anyone who writes or reads Elvish:

  1. A word may be valid for one stage only. An entry in the Etymologies can describe a Noldorin word that never became Sindarin.
  2. Grammar changed too. A paradigm from the early 1930s may not fit the late Quenya of Chapter 5.
  3. Editors matter. Scholars have edited Tolkien's papers for the journals, and their notes tell you which stage and date a form belongs to.
Watch out: an old source is not a wrong source, but it is a different stage
Treat a word from the Gnomish Lexicon like a word from an earlier language, not like a mistake. Nothing in this course depends on the earliest stages, but fan dictionaries often mix stages without saying.
Watch out: dates differ between sources
Sources disagree on the exact dating of some stages. Where this chapter gives a year it follows the most commonly cited one, but treat dates as approximate.
Common myths
  • "Tolkien finished his languages." He kept revising them for most of his life.
  • "Noldorin and Sindarin are two different languages." In the old writings, Noldorin is the earlier name of what became Sindarin.
  • "The Etymologies is the dictionary of Sindarin." It reflects an earlier stage, so it must be used with care.

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise 1

Draw a timeline from memory with at least four stages of Tolkien's Elvish languages, and mark the name swap between Noldorin and Sindarin.

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Exercise 2

A fan website lists a word from the Etymologies as "Sindarin". Explain what could be wrong with that label and what you would check.

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Exercise 3

Explain in your own words how Tolkien's constant revising is both a strength and a difficulty for a learner. Give one example of each from this chapter.

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Chapter 9 Quick Reference

  • c. 1910: Qenya; 1910s: Gnomish; 1920s–30s: Noldorin; c. 1951: Sindarin; Quenya refined throughout
  • Name swap: the old Noldorin becomes Sindarin; the new Noldorin is a dialect of Quenya
  • Key documents: Gnomish and Qenya Lexicons, Etymologies, Lhammas, The Lord of the Rings
  • The safest base is what Tolkien published in his lifetime
  • Always ask: which stage does this form belong to?
Coming next
Tolkien's Languages, Chapter 10 is the last: what has happened to Elvish since Tolkien, the scholars and fans who work on it, where to keep learning, and a recap of the course.