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Lesson 3: Origins & Place Names

Sindarin's Origins Tolkien's Elvish languages were not invented all at once for The Lord of the Rings . They began around 1915 — more than three decades before LotR was published — as private linguistic experiments. Sindarin's earliest ancestor was a language Tolkien called Gnomish , which he later revised into Noldorin , which eventually became Sindarin as he refined the mythology. Throughout all these revisions, one constant remained: Sindarin...

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Lesson 36: Name Making Part 1 — Place Names

Introduction Creating Sindarin place names is one of the most rewarding applications of the language — and one of the most treacherous if done without care. Middle-earth fan-fiction, RPG campaigns, and worldbuilding projects all benefit from Elvish names that feel authentic. This lesson teaches you Tolkien's own method for constructing place names: the element vocabulary, the two compound patterns, mutation at the seam, and all the common descriptive qualifiers. The...