Languages and Scripts in Tolkien's World

Tolkien's world
characters
Regions and places
Languages and scripts
Objects

JRR Tolkien developed for he created mythology numerous partly fictional, partly in fact he constructed languages and scripts .

Many only know Tolkien as a writer , but he was primarily a philologist and as such was professionally concerned with the origin of languages and words ( etymology ). He had knowledge of many languages, from old Germanic languages such as Old Icelandic and Gothic to non-Germanic Finnish and developed something like a "sound taste" (literal translation of the Quenya word he called lámatyávë ), which prompted him to create languages , which should have the perfect sound for him. Now as a philologist he was of the opinion that language needs an origin and a history, and for this fundamental purpose he invented Arda and its history. Important facets of this world such as individual figures, objects as well as regions and places are described in separate articles.

“In his academic field, Tolkien was a linguistic historian - that is, he was concerned with the history of words, whereby words were not seen in isolation but always in their cultural context. And words, as Tolkien himself said, created stories in his mind. "

- Helmut W. Pesch : The figure of Arda - a geographical fiction

If there are deviations between the two German translations of The Lord of the Rings, the spelling of proper names and some other contexts is based on the older one by Margaret Carroux , as this was created in collaboration with Tolkien. The differences to the translation by Wolfgang Krege are indicated in some cases.

languages

There are several languages developed by JRR Tolkien in the stories about Middle-earth , some of which are described in more detail below. These languages include:

the Valarin der Valar (gods)
the Eldarin of the elves who lived in Valinor. This is also known as Eldarissa 'language of science'. It evolved into Vanyarin, Noldorin, and Telerin.
the Quendin , better known under the name Quenya , the language of the scholars', and was the Greek or Latin later used similar for us in the Middle Ages.
the Vanyarin or Amanyarin of the Vanyar elves, which is only spoken in Valinor.
the Noldórin of the Noldo elves, also called Noldorissa 'language of inventors'. Noldo means clever or skillful.
the Telerin of the Telerielife, from which Sindarin , Nandorin and Lindarin developed.
the Sindarin of the Sindar Elves, which was initially used by the Elves as a common language, particularly in Doriath, but later in all of Middle-earth.
the Avarin or Umanyarin of the elves of Middle-earth who never went to Valinor. One of these is probably the wood elf's laiquendin.
the Indya or Irindya the generic term for the languages of the people, with Adûnaic, Westron and Rohirrisch.
the khuzdul of the dwarves.
the orquin of the orcs and Uruk-Hai.
the Entish , possibly called Onodrin, for an Onod is an Ent.

In addition, there was also the Parmalambië 'language of books', i.e. the written language, a sign language Matengwië 'language with the hands', which the dwarves call Iglishmêk , and secret languages such as B. the black language of Sauron or a communication in the field of telepathy, such as Galadriel uses to read the minds of others.

Elven languages

Development of the Elvish

The most important languages in Tolkien's world are without a doubt the languages of the Elves. Their historical development is as follows: Originally, when the Elves were all still living together, they used a common language, which Tolkien simply called Primitive Elvish (original Elvish). In this language the simple sentence “The man speaks” would probably have been (i) ndêro kwêtâ . However, by the time a large part of the Elves began their voyage west, the language had already evolved and people spoke what Tolkien called Common Eldarin (Common Elvish). There were several dialects , such as the Common Telerin or the Common Enya ; however, the Common Telerin became Amanya Telerin west of the sea . In Middle-earth, on the one hand, the old Sindarin developed from this , and on the other, the Nandorin , which, however, has not been handed down well enough to reconstruct the example sentence above. As an example of this language here: golda dac yrc - "A Noldo kills orcs". For comparison: In Sindarin it would be called golodh dâg yrch .

The old Sindarin went through various stages of development in different dialects in the constantly changing Middle-earth; In the first age one differentiates at least between the dialects of the coast, of Doriath, Mithrim, Noldor and Edain (people), which in turn can all be divided into older and more modern forms (one could e.g. from Middle Mithrim -Speaking in Indarin etc.). In the second age, however, it is primarily the dialect of the coast to survive, to which the more general Sindarin of the third age can largely be traced back. Since the beginning of the third age, however, predominantly "New Sindarin" has been spoken in Middle-earth, which has developed from the original "Old Sindarin" and is spoken by most of the Eldar, at least those who stayed in Middle-earth until the fourth age .

As an example here the sentence "the man speaks" :

Primitive Elvish	Common Eldarin	Common Enya	Quenya	Common Telerin	Aman Telerin	Old Sindarin	Common Sindarin	New Sindarin
(i) ndêro kwêtâ	i ndêr kwêtâ	i nér quéta	i nder queta	i ndêr pêtâ	i dēr pēta	i ndêr peta	i nîr pêd	i ner pēd

In Sindarin and Quenya, phonetic signs are used in written form, unlike, for example, in German, where letter combinations are used. Tolkien et al. a. because for a long time in Europe, too, words were written the way they sounded. Today you can often see this in novice writers. This also explains why, for example, the name Meier (Maier, Mayer, Meyer, Meyr, Meijer ...) exists in different spellings despite the identical pronunciation.

Quenya

Emergence

The Quenya was not the first language Tolkien invented (he had previously about an evolution of the Gothic tried), she was but the first of those languages, which he later integrated into its mythology. In 1912 Tolkien discovered the Finnish language . He was so impressed by the experience of reading the Finnish national epic Kalevala that he decided to invent his own language based on Finnish phonetics , which he found particularly beautiful. "Basically," wrote Tolkien, "you could say that it is composed on a Latin basis, with two other (main) ingredients that give me a 'phonesthetic' pleasure: Finnish and Greek."

According to ISO 639-3, the language abbreviation for Quenya is qya .

Linguistic development

Quenya is the language of those Elves who went to the Immortal Lands (Valinor) in the distant past and some of whom later returned to Middle-earth. The language is similar to Finnish in sound and grammar in some ways , but not in vocabulary. Tolkien has by far the best documented Quenya of all his invented languages, so it is relatively easy to reconstruct.

In the Third Age of Middle-earth, Sindarin almost completely supplanted Quenya as a spoken language; Quenya practically only exists in ancient literature, similar to Latin in Europe or Sanskrit in India. The term "High Elvish" for Quenya refers to its status as a learned language.

Characteristic

In contrast to its successor Sindarin , Quenya can be described as an inflectional language that is inspired by Finnish. It knows ten cases and four numbers and thus has more pronounced declensions than the original Indo-European language . With five tenses , no distinct passive and only syntactically or particle-indicated mode , verbal morphology is severely limited compared to Indo-European.

Sindarin

Example of Sindarin Tengwar -special

Sindarin was the language of the Sindar (Gray Elves , Teleri ) in the first age and later spread among the other Elves. Tolkien left less written material on Sindarin than on Quenya, so today only the basics of Sindarin can be clarified.

According to ISO 639-3 , the language abbreviation for Sindarin is sjn .

Language history

Sindarin is related to Quenya , but not a direct descendant of that language. It evolved from the language of those Teleri who stayed in Beleriand during the Great Migration of the Eldar westward. Because Elu Thingol (King of Beleriand) forbade Quenya (spoken by the others) because of the blood acts of the "immigrants" on their relatives, the language was later adopted by the Noldor who had returned to Middle-earth and some human tribes.

History (external)

JRR Tolkien liked the Welsh language . Some grammatical and especially phonological features of Sindarin can be traced back to Welsh. For example the initial mutations, which are an innovation of the island Celtic languages within the Indo-European language family. The language can, however, be described as "real", since Sindarin also has a predecessor language from which all its roots can be derived.

Human languages

Adunan

Adûnaic was the language of those people who came to Beleriand in the first age and did not ally with Melkor (dark ruler). After the first age these people (the Dunedain = western people) were given an island as a reward by the Valar: Númenor . There Adûnaic continued to be the mother tongue of most people, and towards the end of Númenor it was again declared the first and only language; The kings also got Adunanic names again after they had previously had Quenya names. Adûnaic is derived from Quenya, but like Khuzdul (and the Semitic languages) it is based on three-consonant word roots. However, a “characteristic vowel” belongs to these, which generally stands between the first and second consonants: z. B. gml + i for terms related to “star”; accordingly, the correspondences to “star” in different cases and numbers are gimli, gimlê, gimlîya . For related words, the vowel can also be used e.g. E.g. wander in front of the consonant group: i gmil stands for "star-shaped". At the same time, Adûnaic remains an inflectional language. Adûnaic has a vocabulary of around twenty words. According to the Silmarillion, a circumflex (^) in Adûnaic indicates a long vowel.

Westron

The Westron was in the Third Age of Middle-earth the accepted lingua franca . It was spoken by almost all peoples, including many as a mother tongue. In the Lord of the Rings , this language is rendered as English in Tolkien's fiction . The only language certificates can be found in the appendix to the Lord of the Rings, in which the narrator explains that for narrative reasons he recreated names of persons and places using the English language, so that Meriadoc Brandybock's actual name was Kalimac Brandagamba . It is questionable and cannot be clarified whether Tolkien only created these "originals" later for reasons of completeness. Westron has a vocabulary of around 200 words.

development

One of the many ports maintained by the Númenórians in Middle-earth was Pelargir , which later belonged to Gondor . By incorporating many elements of the native languages, a strong Adûnaic dialect had formed there. This was an early Westron, but was later expanded to include many Elvish elements by the Númenorians who came in the wake of Elendil and his sons. The language spread first along the coasts and later, with the expansion of Gondor and Arnor, very widely, so that it could become a common language.

Language of the Rohirrim

The language of the people of Rohan , the Rohirrim, was still related to Adûnaic and thus also to Westron , since the Edain people were related to those of the Rohirrim. Tolkien reproduces this language with Old English so that the relationship with the Westron (which is reproduced as English) is recognizable. Although the hobbits have given up their own, original language and adopted Westron as their colloquial language, there are numerous ancient terms that are very closely related to the Rohirrim language.

Other languages

Khuzdul (dwarfish)

Khuzdul is the language of the dwarves , which is written in the runic script Angerthas . It seems - similar to the Semitic languages - to be built around word roots consisting of three consonants: kh-zd , bnd , zgl . Not much is known about this language as the dwarves kept it to themselves, with the exception of a few names and their battle cry Baruk Khazâd! Khazad ai-mênu! which means “axes of dwarves! Dwarfs over you! ”Means.

Among the languages of Middle-earth, Khuzdul is unique in that it belongs to a separate language strain and is not related to the Elven languages . Nevertheless, there are several similarities between Khuzdul and the original languages of the people , such as Taliska , the language of the first and third house of the Edain , which is due to the fact that they were used in the early days of Middle-earth, even before the humans over the mountains moved to Beleriand, maintained contact with the dwarfs of the Blue Mountains and further east. Thus Taliska went the Adûnaischen , the language of the Númenóreans, and directly derived standard language Westron advance.

The dwarf language sounds very similar to Hebrew . In fact, Tolkien noted a few similarities between dwarfs and Jews : both were "native and foreign to their habitat at the same time, speaking the languages of their respective countries, but with an accent, since they use their own language". The choice fell on Hebrew as the basis for Khuzdul, as it is dissimilar to the European languages and foreign enough to show western ears how different the dwarven language is compared to the Elven languages.

The Silmarillion records that the dwarves learned their language from Aulë , its creator, and that he invented the khuzdul , which implies that khuzdul is technically, in reality and fiction, a constructed language .

For the film trilogy The Lord of the Rings , the linguist David Salo used what little was known about the khuzdul to create a language sufficient for the filming. It seems that the name Neo-Khuzdul has become established among Tolkien fans.

Entisch

After learning to speak from the Elves , the Ents also invented their own language. Like the Ents themselves, this is very slow and sonorous with constant repetition of words and cannot be learned by any other people than the Ents, as it is very complicated and time-consuming. a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lindor-burúme is probably the only attempt to write down part of an entic sentence. Treebeard , the oldest Ent, says in The Two Towers that the Entic usually tells not only a description, but also the story of an object or being, and that is why the words are so long. For this reason, simple label terms such as mountain are seen as hasty by the Ents in their speech .

There are two examples of a shortened Entic place name used by the Ent Treebeard. Once for Lothlórien 'Laurelindórenan lindelorendor malinornélion ornemalin', which means 'Goldenliedlandtal Lieddäumendland der goldentäumendland der goldentäumen so tree-golden', and for the Fangorn forest 'Taurelilómea-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurea Lómeanor', which means ' forest -shaded deep valley'.

Black language / Orcish

The black language exists except for a few individual words (such as ghash = fire, sharku = old man) and several proper names almost only in the ring inscription.

Origin of the "black language"

When Sauron first came to power, he invented the black language for all of his subjects . But Sauron was defeated and the language was forgotten even among the orcs, although many orc words were still derived from it. When Sauron came back to power, it became the language of Mordor again .

After the orcs were created from the Elves by Melkor , the first evil ruler, they picked up words from different languages and defaced them to become the Orc language . But this was so primitive that it was of little use other than scolding and insulting.

So many different dialects soon developed among the many orc tribes that the orcs could no longer communicate with other tribes. For these reasons, many orcs learned Westron , and it became a mother tongue for some tribes. Orcish was a language that was dying out at the end of the Third Age (in the Lord of the Rings ).

Language examples

In contrast to the case of the Elven languages, only a few fragments of the black language exist. The best known and most complete is the One Ring inscription.

The inscription of the one ring
Black language	German translation	Representation in Tengwar characters
"Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul." - JRR Tolkien	"A ring to enslave them, to find them all, to drift into darkness and to bind them forever." - Ebba-Margareta von Freymann

Words of the ring saying and their meaning
Black language	German	annotation
agh	and	Connective word
ash	an	Numeral
-at	doing something, doing something	Assignment of a property (searching, finding, ruling ...)
-atulûk	to ... all of them	correspondingly - endowed with a power or quality that affects everyone equally
búrz	dark, gloomy	Noun : burzum - darkness, darkness, the dark
durb-	force, dominate	durbatulûk - correspondingly - to conquer them all, to dominate them all
gimb-	discover, find out	gimbatul - analogously - to discover it, to find it
ishi	in, within	Preposition : burzum-ishi - in the dark
crimped	tie	krimpatul - analogously - to bind them, binding them
nazg	ring	noun
thrak-	forcibly bring in, drag down	thrakatulûk - analogously - to procure them all, bringing them all here (comparable to the attraction of a magnet on iron)
-ûk	the whole, all	adjective
-ul	she	Pronouns : 3rd plural
-around	-ness, -ness, -nis, -ung	Suffix for nouning

Consonants
	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
nasal	[⁠ m ⁠]			[⁠ n ⁠]		[⁠ ŋ ⁠]
stl. plosive	[⁠ p ⁠]			[⁠ t ⁠]		[⁠ k ⁠]
sth. plosive	[⁠ b ⁠]			[⁠ d ⁠]		[⁠ ɡ ⁠]
stl. fricative		[⁠ f ⁠]	[⁠ θ ⁠]	[⁠ s ⁠]	[⁠ ʃ ⁠]	[⁠ x ⁠]		[⁠ h ⁠]
sth. fricative				[⁠ z ⁠]		[⁠ ɣ ⁠]
Vibrant							[⁠ ʀ ⁠]
Liquid				[⁠ l ⁠]

Vowels
	front		back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
closed	[ iː ]			[ uː ], [⁠ u ⁠]
open			[ ɑː ], [⁠ a ⁠]	[ oː ]
variable	[ ɑi ], [ au ]

Other language certificates are place names and personal names, such as Lugbúrz , the name of the Dark Tower in the Black Language.

Despite the extremely limited language material, some plausible statements can be made about the basic features of the black language. So it follows the principle of the agglutinating language structure , which fundamentally differs from the Elven languages, which are based on the inflected language structure . Basic units of the black language are almost exclusively monosyllabic word stems such as durb , nazg , gimb , burz . The meaning of these is modified by one or more suffixes. In the case of durb-at-ul-ûk, for example, there are three suffixes: -at denotes intention (“in order to”), -ul denotes the object of the action (“she”) and -ûk denotes completeness or completion of an action. In particular, the fact that the object of the transitive act is expressed by a verbal suffix has given rise to speculation that Tolkien was inspired by the Hurrian language . On the other hand, it was objected that these may not be real suffixes, but rather stand-alone words that were simply written together. In addition, the lexic shows striking similarities to the Hurrian language.

In addition to suffixation, the formation of compound words from two word stems appears as the most common method of word formation: Lug-burz (literally: tower-dark), designation of Barad-dûr in the black language.

Another noticeable feature of the language is the lack of articles and a grammatical identification of the number using suffixes . So nazgûl always appears in the same form, regardless of whether one or more ringwraiths are being used.

The only complete sentence in Tolkien's work is a curse by the orc captain Grishnakh against his rival Uglúk in Saruman's service:

"Uglúk u bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai"

Tolkien himself gives two translation variants:

“Uglúk in the cesspool, sha! the crap-filth; the great Saruman idiot, skai! "

"Uglúk into the dung pit with the stinking Saruman dirt, pig intestines, gah!"

Linguistic work has mostly understood the black language and the orc language as one language.

Fonts

The writings in JRR Tolkien's stories about Middle-earth are based initially on the runic writing of the Germanic tribes - this is called Futhark . The characters appearing in the book The Hobbit are still very similar to these runes. There they are only used by the dwarves in this form and are therefore referred to as dwarf runes . These are sometimes called moon runes when they have been magically made invisible. For example, the hidden runes on Thorin Eichenschild's card can only be read on a certain day and in the light of a moon that has the same shape as the day they were written. However, the rune rows of the Cirth differ significantly from these dwarf runes. Although they still look like runes, they represent a writing system developed by Tolkien himself.

Cirth

This panel from Appendix E to The Lord of the Rings shows the Cirth des Angerthas Daeron and Angerthas Moria .

The Cirth , notched character 'outwardly resemble still the Germanic runes , but only a few meet them actually still. As with the Germanic characters, writing in Middle-earth has developed further. Here Tolkien closely followed the scientific facts in the history of the Germanic runic writing.

The Cirth were developed by the Sindar of Doriath in the First Age. Just like the runes, they were intended for inscriptions in wood, stone or metal.

The oldest characters consist of a “trunk” and a “branch”. The branches are attached to the trunk. If there were branches on one side of the trunk, it was mostly on the right. It was not uncommon for the branch to be attached to the other side. But this had no phonetic meaning.

Daeron, the minstrel and scholar of King Thingol, gathered the letters, presumably under the impression of the tengwar , and arranged them in rows called angerthas . The basic signs consist of a stem and a branch on the right. They stand for voiceless sounds. If another branch is added on this side, the rune stands for the corresponding voiced consonant. Reversing the Cirth to the left means opening to a fricative. If the trunk carries the branch on both sides, this symbol stands for the voiced nasal. In this form the cirth was used by the Sindar in Beleriand.

Later, the Noldor of Eregion added some new characters to the runic alphabet to represent sounds that did not appear in the language of the Gray Elves. The result of this reorganization was called Angertha's Daeron .

When the dwarves in Eregion learned about this alphabet, they adopted it and developed it further to adapt it to their language, Khuzdul . They brought this system to Moria, which is why it was also called Angerthas Moria . The dwarves continued to spread the runes and even developed a shape suitable for writing with a pen. Examples of the use of this script can be found both on Balin's tombstone and in the records in the great book hall 'Mazarbul' in Moria.

Another variation of the Cirth was in use among the Erebor dwarves.

Tolkien used the Cirth on the cover of the "Lord of the Rings" to write the English sentence "The Lord of the Rings translated from the Red Book".

Tengwar

1. Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (English)

The Tengwar 'characters' can be used like an alphabet in the narrower sense, but they can also be used as a consonant script . In their regular structure they are similar to the Korean Hangeul script , but in their shape they are similar to the insular minuscule script .

In Tolkien's works they were invented by Feanor on the basis of Rúmils Sarati. A number of languages from Tolkien's world are written with them, including Quenya and Sindarin . However, JRR Tolkien has mostly used them to render English .

The word tengwar means "letters" or "signs" in Tolkien's Elven language Quenya. Strictly speaking, the word derives from the roots TEK = make signs and GWARA = preserve, protect. Thus it also describes a protective and defense function of the signs, similar to the symbol or magic runes of the Germanic peoples. Both Gandalf and Thorin, for example, use a single character as an abbreviation for their name in letters. (G rune, Th rune).

The Tengwar number system has been handed down. In contrast, only the numbers 1 and 3 to 6 are known from the Angerthas. These appear in the book of Mazarbul.

Modes

In order to write a specific language with the Tengwar - just like any other script - a specific orthography is required , which depends on the phonology of the respective language. In the case of the tengwar, such orthographies are usually called modes .

In some modes, the Tehtar modes , the vowels are reproduced with diacritics ( called Tehtar ); in other modes, however, the full-text modes , with normal letters. In some modes, the first four letters stand for / ⁠ t ⁠ / , / ⁠ p ⁠ / , / ⁠ k ⁠ / and / k /, in others for / ⁠ t ⁠ / , / ⁠ p ⁠ / , / ⁠ tʃ ⁠ / and / ⁠ k ⁠ / . Some modes are more oriented towards pronunciation , while others are more towards traditional orthography.

Since the first official description of the tengwar was published in The Lord of the Rings , numerous tengwar modes have been created by other people for languages such as Spanish , German , Esperanto, or Lojban .

Characters / spelling

The most characteristic peculiarity of the tengwar is the mutual correspondence of characteristics of the form on the one hand and characteristics of the reproduced sounds on the other hand.

The 24 primary letters consist of a combination of three different forms: a stem (telco) (short, excess length or descender), an arc (lúva) (left or right of the stem, single or doubled) and a horizontal line (hwarma), the could close the bow.

The primary letters are arranged in four columns, which correspond to the main articulation locations, and in six rows, which correspond to the main articulation types. Both vary depending on the mode.

The first four letters, i.e. i.e., the top of each column, consist of a normal (i.e. downwardly elongated) stem and a simple arch. They designate the voiceless plosive sound of the respective column. In classic Quenya mode, it's t, p, c, qu. Therefore the four columns are called tincotéma , parmatéma , calmatéma and quessetéma ( téma means "column / row" in Quenya).

In the columns of the "general-use" mode, the following correspondences exist between form and phonetic characteristics:

A doubling of the bow forms a voiced sound.
Raising the stem (i.e. moving it up) creates a fricative .
A shortening of the trunk forms a nasal . Tengwar with a shortened stem and a simple bow, however, do not stand for voiceless nasals in most modes, but for approximants .

Here as an example the parmatéma (those characters with a closed arc on the right) in "general use":

The letter sheet with easy and normal (i. E. After prolonged below) strain is [⁠ p ⁠] .
With double bow, it stands for [⁠ b ⁠] .
(D. E. Upwards shifted) with raised strain for [⁠ f ⁠] .
With raised stem and double bow for [⁠ v ⁠] (German w ).
With short stem and double bow for [⁠ m ⁠] .
With shortened stem and single bow for [⁠ w ⁠] (consonantal u as in Bauer ).

In the classic Quenya mode, some lines are assigned differently:

The letter with a normal stem and a doubled arc stands for [ mb ].
With raised trunk and doubled arch for [ mp ].

In addition, letters with an expanded (i.e., elongated down and up) stem may appear. In addition to the primary letters, there are also those that have no regular forms. You denote z. B. the sounds / ⁠ r ⁠ / , / ⁠ l ⁠ / and / ⁠ h ⁠ / . The use of the additional letters varies greatly from mode to mode.

If tehtar (see above) are used to reproduce vowels, they are placed above the preceding consonant letter in languages in which the words predominantly end in vowels (e.g. Quenya ), in languages in which the words predominantly in consonants end (such as Sindarin and Deutsch) above the following. Here, a is usually represented by three dots or a circumflex , e by an acute , i by a dot, o by a circle that is open to the right and u by a ring that is open to the left.

Unicode

Official proposals have been made to include the Tengwar and Cirth in the Unicode standard.

Computer representation

A computer font with which the Tengwar including tehtar can be reproduced is called Tengwar Parmaite .

For TeX and LaTeX there are free font packages on CTAN with which both Tengwar and Cirth can be set.

swell

JRR Tolkien: Letters. Published by Humphrey Carpenter . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-608-93650-5 .

literature

Humphrey Carpenter : JRR Tolkien. A biography. 2nd Edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-608-93431-6 .
Helmut W. Pesch : Elvish. Grammar, writing and dictionary of the Elven language by JRR Tolkien. Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2003, ISBN 3-404-20476-X .
Helmut W. Pesch: Elvish learning and exercise book of Elben languages by JRR Tolkien. Bastei Lübbe, 2004, ISBN 3-404-20498-0 .
Rudolf Simek: Middle Earth - Tolkien and the Germanic mythology. Verlag CHBeck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52837-6 .
Helmut W. Pesch: The large Elvish book - grammar, writing and dictionary of the Elven language JRR Tolkien with appendices to the languages of the dwarfs and orcs. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-404-28524-2 .

Individual references / comments

↑ The figure of Arda (p. 2 above; PDF; 432 kB) on helmutwpesch.de
↑ Quoted from JRR Tolkien, Letters. P. 233 (No. 144 To Naomi Mitchison ). On the origin of Quenya, compare Carpenter, JRR Tolkien. P. 74 f.
↑ ISO 639 code sets - qya on sil.org
↑ ISO 639 code sets - sjn on sil.org
↑ News from Middle-earth - A Description of the Isle of Númenor.
↑ Silmarillion, Appendix: Pronunciation of the names of the Elves.
^ JRR Tolkien: Lowdham's Report. In: Christopher Tolkien (Ed.): Sauron Defeated ( The History of Middle-earth. Volume 9).
↑ JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings. Appendices and registers. Appendix F, I: The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age. Inside: dwarves. P. 141.
↑ JRR Tolkien: Letters.
↑ The Lord of the Rings Appendices; F; From the Ents.
↑ Helmut W. Pesch: The great Elbischbuch. P. 62.
↑ The Lord of the Rings Appendices, F: Orcs and the Dark Language.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Helmut W. Pesch: The great Elvish book - grammar, writing and dictionary of the Elven language by JRR Tolkien with appendices on the languages of the dwarfs and orcs. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-404-28524-2 , pp. 869-880.
↑ The only exception is the word ishi , which cannot be meaningfully broken down into meaningful syllables in the context of the ring inscription.
↑ Orkish and the Black Speech - base language for base purposes.
HK Fauskanger: A Second Opinion on the Black Speech.
↑ Rudolf Simek: Middle Earth - Tolkien and Germanic mythology. - Chapter 9.