Supplement 10: Comparative Elvish — Sindarin vs. Quenya
The Two Great Elvish Languages Tolkien designed two primary Elvish languages — Sindarin (Grey-elvish) and Quenya (High-elvish) — with the same care a historical linguist applies to a real language family. They are related as Latin is related to Welsh: both Indo-European, but diverged for so long that they are mutually unintelligible, with different sound systems, different grammatical structures, and radically different aesthetics. Understanding both languages, and clearly distinguishing them,...