Lesson 11: Soft Mutation (Lenition)
What Is Lenition? Soft mutation — also called lenition (from Latin lenis , "soft") — is the most common and important sound change in Sindarin. It is not random; it is a systematic, historically conditioned process in which the initial consonant of a word weakens or shifts when a preceding word creates the right phonological environment. Celtic languages show exactly the same feature. Welsh, Irish, and Breton all have systems...