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Hello. Wouldn't be a good idea to put a short sentence at the beginning explaining what Quenya is and who made it and why? Starting with a statement about Elves might not be very enlightening to people who have no background knowledge. Didn't want to do it myself though, as I know how touchy fans can be about these things. Thanks!
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.80.139 ( talk) 16:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
If noone minds, I thinks we should possibly put a complete Quenya dictionary onto Wikipedia to ease the search for people. As I am fairly decent at conversing in it and writing it, I ask if anyone wants to collaborate with me on this project and see if the admins mind. Xel Pos'tare 17:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC) User:CaptainXel
Celesti, Queen of Sovereign madness, bring thy power upon this earth, to cause the chaos of man to bring forth thy hordes of shadows...
I've removed two external links because they led to sites about Tolkien in general, and not about the Quenya language. These would be entirely appropriate at a general article on Tolkien, but here they just caused clutter. Crculver 20:01, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I submit 'the Three Houses of Elves' should be 'the Tree Kindreds of the [Elves|Eldar]'. The Term 'Houses' is generally only used for the Edain. {Mithrennaith o Unquendor}
Is there any information available about Quenya's phonology? I've been looking at one of the Quenya lessons and some of the vowels are apparently supposed to be different from those found in English; could someone see if they can find IPA equivelants? Thanks. 147.222.136.224 17:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Quenya has five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, short and long; the long vowels are marked with an accent: á, é, í, ó, ú. The vowel a is extremely frequent. The quality of the vowels resembles the system in Spanish or Italian rather than English. To clarify the pronunciation for readers used to English orthography, Tolkien sometimes adds a diaeresis over some vowels (e.g. Manwë rather than Manwe to indicate that the final e is not silent, or Eärendil to indicate that the vowels e and a are pronounced separately and not drawn together as in English ear - the dots are not necessary for the meaning and can safely be left out in e-mail). The diphthongs are ai, au, oi, ui, eu, iu. (A seventh diphthong ei seems to occur in one or two words, but its status is uncertain.) The consonants are for the most part the same as in English, with the sibilants as the main exception: Ch as in church does not occur, neither does j as in joy, and instead of sh, zh (the latter like s in pleasure), Quenya has a sound like the German ich-Laut, spelt hy by Tolkien (e.g. hyarmen "south"). The h of English huge, human is sometimes pronounced as a weak variant of the sound in question. Quenya also lacks th (unvoiced as in thing or voiced as in the); unvoiced th did occur at an earlier stage, but merged with s shortly before the rebellion of the Noldor (see PM:331-333). It should also be noted that the voiced plosives b, d, g only occur in the clusters mb, nd/ld/rd and ng (some varieties of Quenya also had lb instead of lv). There are no initial consonant clusters, except qu (= cw), ty, ny and nw if we count the semi-vowels y, w as consonants. Normally there are no final clusters either; words end either in one of the single consonants t, s, n, l, r or in a vowel, more often the latter. Medially between vowels, a limited number of consonant clusters may occur; those described by Tolkien as "frequent" or "favoured" are in italics: cc, ht, hty, lc, ld, ll, lm, lp, lqu, lt, lv, lw, ly, mb, mm, mn, mp, my, nc, nd, ng, ngw, nn, nqu, nt, nty, nw, ny, ps, pt, qu (for cw), rc, rd, rm, rn, rqu, rr, rt, rty, rs, rw, ry, sc, squ, ss, st, sty, sw, ts, tt, tw, ty, x (for ks). A few other combinations may occur in compounds. Quenya phonology is quite restrictive, giving the language a clearly defined style and flavour.
Note that in Quenya spelling, the letter c is always pronounced k (so cirya "ship" = kirya). Tolkien was inconsistent about this; in many sources the letter k is used, but in LotR he decided to spell Quenya as similar to Latin as possible. In some cases, k in the sources has been regularized to c in the following discussion.
~ Fauskanger's Ardalambion
Yet the introduction to Quenya phonology in the Quenya course http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/less-a.rtf is quite extensive
Shouldn't there be a link to (and mention of) Dedative case - JustinWick 07:41, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
The bullet below the pronoun table (plainly intended to be a footnote, with the asterisk appearing next to "-ntë" in the "3rd plu. abstract or thing" line) seems to indicate that this ending is not used for the dual number. However, I don't think it's clear that there is a dual number in third person pronouns, so I wonder if someone could comment on that. Furthermore, this ending is attested as applying to persons, in Cirion's Oath. ("Tiruvantes", "they will guard it"). (Unless the Valar are to be regarded as abstractions?) I am aware this is controversial, but I don't think it should be said to apply to an "abstract or thing" without qualification. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
The chart of pronoun forms in the article seems to have the 1st person dual and plural forms confused. -lvë/-lwë is inclusive dual, -lmë is inclusive plural, -mmë is exclusive plural, and there's probably a fourth form *-ngwë for exclusive dual, although I'm not sure if there's any direct source for this one. The first two are interpretable directly from The Lord of the Rings: -lvë/-lwë from the possessive form omentie-lvo "of our meeting," in which "our" includes the person Frodo is speaking to; and -lmë in laituva-lme-t "we will praise them," which is a cheer from amidst a crowd, so both addresses and includes the rest of the crowd. (This one is more directly stated to be the inclusive plural in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.) The third, -mmë, while attested directly without a clear definition, also has the possessive form -mma in the first word of the Lord's Prayer in Quenya, ataremma "our father," in which "our" cannot include the person being addressed (since that's God). --D.M., 12.107.67.3 15:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that the dates at the top right of the Quenya article (presumably indicating Tolkien's birth-death) are incorrect. Tolkien was born in 1892. If "1917" is there for another reason, it's a little misleading. Also, in the section on "Non-fictional Development," the sentence which labels Tolkien as a "professional linguist" should be altered to something like "professional philologist" or "language professor and philologist." Tolkien had no degree in linguistics and himself eschewed the label of "linguist" in at least one of his published letters. (Being a newcomer to this, I thought it best not make the changes myself without opening it up for comments.)
Paul Spreitzer 205.215.135.132 19:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
From the article: "Quenya is usually written in Tengwar, although inside the fiction it was earlier also written in Sarati. The language can also be written in other alphabets: modes for Cirth exist, and it is usually written in the Latin alphabet." (emphasis mine)
This seems like a contradiction but I'm not positive or sure how to go about fixing it. Suggest that someone with more knowledge on this take a look.
If no ne minds, I thinks we should possibly put a complete Quenya dictionary onto Wikipedia to ease the search for people. As I am fairly decent at conversing in it and writing it, I ask if anyone wants to collaborate with me on this project and see if the admins mind.
Xel Pos'tare 17:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC) User:CaptainXel
ni lá mára tec Quenya lambë mal ni anta ta lelya. Manen elyë pol cenda ta mára? Think outside the box 07:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
It's simpler and more complete to put a (highlighted link) to the wikibook on Quenya. The article will be only devoted to his fictional and non-fictional history. -- Elistir 15:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Some anonymous body from Helge Fauskanger's university ( 129.177.138.238) who is already setting out to re-edit the David Salo page (recently unlocked) wrote:
"Still, most of the forms would be relatively uncontroversial among researchers, with the exception of tultëa as the proposed continuative form of an A-stem (by another suggestion, A-stems cannot make a distinction between aorist and continuative form)."
Just as others have already noted of Helge's prose, our anonymous somebody here uses the predictive term "would" to represent the supposed opinions of others without having to base them in any actually verifiable evidence or writings. Either such forms are, or they are not, uncontroversial; the fact that our anonymous somebody had to alter a simple statement about the verifiable fact that these paradigms are _not_ provided by Tolkien himself, I think indicates that things _are_ rather more controversial than (s)he "would" have it, so this is in fact POV.
cfh 20:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
On the Caradhras, the spell Sauruman was chanting was in Quenya. -- 66.218.11.78 04:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the tense chart should make it more clear that the *Quenya* aorist/present correspond to the *English* simple present/present continuative. Currently it seems unclear what the Quenya tense being represented is. Perhaps just changing the english tense by adding it in parentheses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Silmenuquerna ( talk • contribs)
I will not rule out that in some version it is Orome teaching the Elves to speak, but the Silmarillion should probably be considered more "canonical", and the alternative version should be clearly referenced. It strikes me as rather central that the Quendi should have an innate faculty for language, and the variant of Orome teaching them seems to rather spoil that (not that this matters if we can pin down the reference). dab (𒁳) 00:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Tolkien may have been inspired by the Quiché (K'iche') of Central America, when he invented the word and language Quenya. Quiché/K'iche' is the name the Mayans called themselves and their language. The Quendi elves also call themselves and their language by similar names. As a linguist, Tolkien would have ben aware of the Mayan's primary language. Both Quiché and Quenya are the language of the ab/original inhabitants of these respective lands, before modern man appeared. 66.81.153.136 04:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Now this is more like it. I have noticed that the pronoun table before is based on older information and has not changed for some time. I have made a major revision on that, and thanks to Aelfwine for adding to it. Big improvement! RashBold ( talk · contribs) 01:28, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a big problem with the exclusive and the dual endings. I found a (reliable) source, used as a Quenya course on Wikiversity, and in that course they give -mmë as the excl. ending and -lmë as the dual one, while in this article the two of them have switched spots, just as in Wikibooks! Please tell me wich one is right! Mapar007 18:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Can we discuss the classification of Quenya as a posteriori? To me that term implies taking nearly all roots from existing languages. It would be more accurate imho to describe the Elvish family as a priori with some borrowed roots. On the other hand, a priori may connote philosophical languages; it's a false dichotomy. Elvish and Loglan violate the dichotomy in opposite ways: Elvish uses traditional structures and new roots (without imitating any language closely enough to be described as e.g. "relexified Finnish"), while Loglan uses borrowed roots (in a peculiar way) and new structures. — Tamfang ( talk) 20:32, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Is it distinctive of Swedish vs other (North) Germanic languages? — Tamfang ( talk) 06:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure the pronunciation of A is supposed to be [ɑ], no matter the length. -- Oscararon ( talk) 15:27, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
As an example of Latin influence, word 'aure' (morning) is given. Although this explanation seems to be the most obvious one (also for me), I would like to point that there is a close resemblance to Finnish word 'auer' (haze, sometimes, esp. in poetry: morning haze 'aamun auer'). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.146.54.156 ( talk) 20:49, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
In the intro section, the consonant qu is transcribed as [kʷw] in the IPA transcription of Quenya, but as simply [kʷ] in the consonant table, without the [w]. Which is correct? Is the consonant [kʷ] considered as a double consonant for stress determination, and the transcription meant to represent this? — Eru· tuon 17:44, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
A number of entries in this section are about languages other than Q. I would move the whole section to Elvish languages (Middle-earth). — Tamfang ( talk) 21:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Like Latin in its vowel repertoire and stress pattern, but more like Finnish in its consonant phonotactics, e.g. avoidance of clusters and (more loosely) of voiced stops. As for Italian, where are the palatal consonants? — Tamfang ( talk) 06:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
"long compound words" and "groups so created" suggest medial vowel loss, but the examples shown all seem to be final. – Consonants are not created by vowel loss; how about 'exposed'? — Tamfang ( talk) 22:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
There is a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth#"neo-language" regarding that paragraph and the use of "Neo-languages" in general. Please join us there and wait for the outcome before you edit that paragraph. De728631 ( talk) 18:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
“ | Galadriel is the only major Elf in The Lord of the Rings who had Quenya as a mother-tongue: she was born in Eldamar. Elrond, Arwen, and Legolas were all born in Middle-earth. We do not know where and when Gildor Inglorion was born. | ” |
I removed the sentence about Gildor, who is mentioned nowhere else in the article, and is not "major" in any obvious sense. At the same time, I rearranged the first sentence for better flow (and better grammar):
“ | Galadriel, born in Eldamar, is the only major Elf in The Lord of the Rings who had Quenya as a mother-tongue. | ” |
Naturally these changes were reverted without comment.
I question whether the paragraph ought to be here at all. It's a reasonable inference, but we generally don't do reasonable inferences. Is there anything explicit in canon to support it? — Tamfang ( talk) 04:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
There ought to be some mention that Tolkien's conception of the history changed over time. There aren't just two lines: there's a series (external history) of parallel lines (internal history), forming a two-dimensional structure. How best to express this? Before the latest rewrite there was the phrase "Tolkien's conception of that world and its history evolved"; one would like to know why Laurifindil ( talk · contribs) didn't like that, but L. has never yet responded to a question. — Tamfang ( talk) 21:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
I would encourage the article's keepers to expand the lead to conform to WP:LEAD before the GA review starts, as else it will quickfail. The lead needs to summarize the article, as is now it only gives an "in world" history of the languge. It needs to give a summary of the history of development and grammar as well. Also the structure is weird. The Syntax section should be with grammar and before vocabulary and it should be a lot more comprehensive. Also I think it needs to draw in more secondary sources. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 18:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
The table has a mistake: Quenya and English glosses are reversed. Also, the sources for these allegedly published words should be incorporated into the section for easy reference. Any neologisms should be discarded, like any derivatives of The Etymologies not specifically discussed by Tolkien himself. 91.152.231.113 ( talk) 15:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I've fully protected the page for a few days due to the edit war over these references. While internet sources can be reliable (i.e. the reason given for removing them doesn't quite make sense), is " The Encyclopedia of Arda" a reliable source? Looking at it myself, it looks like an unofficial, personal website that someone maintains purely for enjoyment. Swarm X11|11|11 17:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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Reviewer: Jezhotwells ( talk · contribs) 02:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC) I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.
Let's do a Wikipedia written in Quenya! -- Sistemx ( talk) 17:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Me pursuing this: User:Double sharp/Quenya periodic table. Your Quenya is far better than mine, so please help correct my atrocities against the language! Double sharp ( talk) 14:08, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Is there a Quenyan Language Datasheet available? 68.151.17.107 ( talk) 22:41, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
These are attested as initial consonants in the Etymologies. I made this table because it seems odd to have a table of only the nasals.
labial | P→p | B→v | PH→f | M→m | MB→m |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
dental | T→t | D→l | TH→s | N→n | ND→n |
palatal-dental | TY→ty | DY→y | NY→ny | ||
palatal-velar | KY→ty | GY→y | KHY→hy | ÑGY→indy | |
plain velar | K→c | G→∅ | KH→h | ÑG→n | |
labial-velar | KW→qu | GW→w | ÑGW→nw,ungw |
It ought to be checked against the corrections in Vinyar Tengwar.
— Tamfang ( talk) 08:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
“ | Other forms that appear to have been borrowed are actually coincidental, such as Finnish kirja "book", and Quenya cirya "ship". | ” |
Why would anyone think a word for 'book' was borrowed for 'ship'?
“ | The Latin aure "dawn", and Quenya aure "moment of special meaning, special day, festival day" are unrelated. Instead, Quenya aure comes from the Valarin/Quenderin root ur-. | ” |
“ | Arda, the Quenya name for "region", just happened to resemble Germanic Erde "earth", while it actually comes from the Valarin/Quenderin root gar-. | ” |
That he crafted an Elvish etymology for it doesn't establish that he didn't take it from a primary-world language in the first place; Tolkien's derivations worked both forward and backward in fictional time.
√GAR 'hold, possess' suggests garth 'enclosure' and French garde, merely putting the problem back one step!
On the other hand, there appears to me to be no such Latin word.
“ | In Quenya, heavy syllables are syllables that contain either a long vowel, a diphthong, or a cluster of two consonants .... | ” |
So in alda, for example, does the d belong to the first syllable? — Tamfang ( talk) 00:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone have access to Parma Eldalamberon 19? I would edit the article to reflect this understanding of syllabification and stress, but for all I know, my surmises about these subjects might be wrong, and anyway, it would be a good idea to base a section on the source given for it. I wish the darned thing weren't a full 35 dollars, or that it were available someplace. — Eru· tuon 19:15, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Having a duodecimal/hybrid decimal-duodecimal counting system is quite unusual. Shouldn't we give info about number words? Double sharp ( talk) 11:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
It ought to be made clear that although Tolkien says these are allowed, they do not actually appear in any words in our present corpus (AFAIK). For now all it does is make borrowing Greek woords into Quenya easier. Double sharp ( talk) 14:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Are these clusters, or independent phonemic [ɬ] and [r̊]? (Either way they still wouldn't be in the consonant chart, because they merge with l and r by the Third Age.) Double sharp ( talk) 13:42, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Could I make a suggestion for a change to the vowels in the phonology section? Tolkien makes note on page 71 of The Road Goes Ever On (3rd edition) that the short vowels "may be rendered as in [English] sick, bed, hot, foot (for ŭ), though ŏ is intended to be rounder than in modern [English]." I believe that the quality of short i is currently given as [i], which is not in agreement with Tolkien's assertion. The vowel sound in question is [ɪ]. I'm familiar with Fauskanger's Quenya course, and he makes note of the distinction but seems to believe it is obsolete. "In one early source, Tolkien himself quoted the word pit as an example of short "Qenya" i (QL:8). Later writings suggest that the quality of the vowel-sound should be like the i of machine, in English often spelt "ee" – start with this sound and shorten it." (Taken from Fauskanger's Quenya course-a). However, the Road Goes Ever On was published after The Lord of the Rings, and is the latest published source I'm aware of directly concerning pronunciation. Is there a reason that this might not supersede Mr. Fauskanger's analysis? Corsair Caruso ( talk) 21:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
As a further note, the above distinction would render the short u as [ʊ]. I seem to remember that Fauskanger also asserts that the à vs a distinction also indicates a quality change, which I believe is accurately represented as [ɑː] vs [a]. Corsair Caruso ( talk) 16:56, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
I think this figure needs revisiting. I tried to find a reference, and a I found an essay from Ardalambion wherein it's mentioned "In total, my translation of the Johannine texts amounts to slightly more than 25,000 words." In other words, his translation into Quenya (or Neo-Quenya) was 25,000 words long. Presumably there were repetitions (e.g. the word for "and"). If that's the source of the figure, then it would seem that there are far, far, far fewer than 25,000 words. It's probably worth someone doing an actual count. 24.152.136.199 ( talk) 07:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
If Tolkien says that resemblances such as Arda/Erde, Atalante/Atlantis, etc., are entirely coincidences... er... how serious do we have to take him? (Just reading that the most usual formula used by the Noldor in farewells is - wait for it -- Áva márië! and thinking that Tolkien was having a great bit of fun with such resemblances...-- 2001:A60:1513:3E01:FCC6:D437:7F83:CC65 ( talk) 12:41, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
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Too much detail!
Anybody noticed the sheer amount of detail here? On the consonant chart there are 13 phonological rules describing various voicing of consonants and commenting on the orthography of the language. To compare, English has 7, and each of them are variances between remote dialects. Tolkien did include a great deal of detail in his discription of the language, which goes hand in hand with another concern. The amount of the Silmarillion included in this article is staggering! Consider the introduction to the article. Currently, there is a mini history lesson on the language before the Content panel. Compare to English's one paragraph explaining the bare essentials. Here is my proposed introduction: "Quenya (IPA: ['kwɛɲa]) is one of the fictional languages spoken by the Elves in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien. It was the language developed by those non-Telerin Elves who reached Valinor from an earlier language called Common Eldarin, which also evolved from the original Primitive Quendian. During the Third Age Quenya was no longer a living language in Middle-earth: most Elves spoke Sindarin, and Men mostly spoke Westron. Quenya was mainly used in official names and writings and as a ceremonial language, much as the Latin language was in medieval Europe. For this reason it was sometimes called "an Elven-Latin" by Tolkien.[1] Quenya is usually written in Tengwar, although it was earlier written in Sarati. In the real world Tengwar is not uncommon, but it is usually written in the Latin alphabet." Everything which is not essential to an explanation of the language receives a link, or is moved to the correct part of the article. The information on the dialects of Quenya should be moved into the fictional history section under a subheading fictional dialects. Unnecessary terms and translations like "...spoken by the Elves (the Quendi, "those who speak with voices" because when they first awoke they were the only creatures they knew who used words to speak)" should be avoided. Dsachs2 ( talk) 06:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC) |
Last edited at 06:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 03:40, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
Actually we have plenty of material by Tolkien himself stating that his favorite Romance was actually Spanish, not Italian. From page 213 from the same book as the one used for a reference in this very sentence we read in relation to his personal influences in his taste:
Spanish was another: my guardian was half Spanish, and in my early teens I used to pinch his books and try to learn it: the only Romance language that gives me the particular pleasure of which I am speaking (...)
It even goes on to make a comparison to how he can perceive the beauty of Italian and English but in a different way:
[I]t is not quite the same as the mere perception of beauty: I feel the beaty of say Italian or for that matter of modern English (which is very remote from my personal taste): it is more like the appetite for a needed food.
This letter dates from June 7th 1955, the letter cited on Italian as favorite dates from August 15th 1955. However in a letter from October 25th 1958 he reiterates his preference for Spanish stating:
For instance I dislike French, and prefer Spanish to Italian (...)
I think his preference stands very clear in light of all the evidence.--Eremeldo 17:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
So, the header at the Grammar section stated that the word order is SOV, but at the end of the sytax subsection, it states SVO. I'm not familiar with the subject and don't have time to do the digging right now, but someone familiar with it should get that cleared up. 162.247.45.152 ( talk) 23:49, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Hello. Wouldn't be a good idea to put a short sentence at the beginning explaining what Quenya is and who made it and why? Starting with a statement about Elves might not be very enlightening to people who have no background knowledge. Didn't want to do it myself though, as I know how touchy fans can be about these things. Thanks!
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.80.139 ( talk) 16:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
If noone minds, I thinks we should possibly put a complete Quenya dictionary onto Wikipedia to ease the search for people. As I am fairly decent at conversing in it and writing it, I ask if anyone wants to collaborate with me on this project and see if the admins mind. Xel Pos'tare 17:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC) User:CaptainXel
Celesti, Queen of Sovereign madness, bring thy power upon this earth, to cause the chaos of man to bring forth thy hordes of shadows...
I've removed two external links because they led to sites about Tolkien in general, and not about the Quenya language. These would be entirely appropriate at a general article on Tolkien, but here they just caused clutter. Crculver 20:01, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I submit 'the Three Houses of Elves' should be 'the Tree Kindreds of the [Elves|Eldar]'. The Term 'Houses' is generally only used for the Edain. {Mithrennaith o Unquendor}
Is there any information available about Quenya's phonology? I've been looking at one of the Quenya lessons and some of the vowels are apparently supposed to be different from those found in English; could someone see if they can find IPA equivelants? Thanks. 147.222.136.224 17:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Quenya has five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, short and long; the long vowels are marked with an accent: á, é, í, ó, ú. The vowel a is extremely frequent. The quality of the vowels resembles the system in Spanish or Italian rather than English. To clarify the pronunciation for readers used to English orthography, Tolkien sometimes adds a diaeresis over some vowels (e.g. Manwë rather than Manwe to indicate that the final e is not silent, or Eärendil to indicate that the vowels e and a are pronounced separately and not drawn together as in English ear - the dots are not necessary for the meaning and can safely be left out in e-mail). The diphthongs are ai, au, oi, ui, eu, iu. (A seventh diphthong ei seems to occur in one or two words, but its status is uncertain.) The consonants are for the most part the same as in English, with the sibilants as the main exception: Ch as in church does not occur, neither does j as in joy, and instead of sh, zh (the latter like s in pleasure), Quenya has a sound like the German ich-Laut, spelt hy by Tolkien (e.g. hyarmen "south"). The h of English huge, human is sometimes pronounced as a weak variant of the sound in question. Quenya also lacks th (unvoiced as in thing or voiced as in the); unvoiced th did occur at an earlier stage, but merged with s shortly before the rebellion of the Noldor (see PM:331-333). It should also be noted that the voiced plosives b, d, g only occur in the clusters mb, nd/ld/rd and ng (some varieties of Quenya also had lb instead of lv). There are no initial consonant clusters, except qu (= cw), ty, ny and nw if we count the semi-vowels y, w as consonants. Normally there are no final clusters either; words end either in one of the single consonants t, s, n, l, r or in a vowel, more often the latter. Medially between vowels, a limited number of consonant clusters may occur; those described by Tolkien as "frequent" or "favoured" are in italics: cc, ht, hty, lc, ld, ll, lm, lp, lqu, lt, lv, lw, ly, mb, mm, mn, mp, my, nc, nd, ng, ngw, nn, nqu, nt, nty, nw, ny, ps, pt, qu (for cw), rc, rd, rm, rn, rqu, rr, rt, rty, rs, rw, ry, sc, squ, ss, st, sty, sw, ts, tt, tw, ty, x (for ks). A few other combinations may occur in compounds. Quenya phonology is quite restrictive, giving the language a clearly defined style and flavour.
Note that in Quenya spelling, the letter c is always pronounced k (so cirya "ship" = kirya). Tolkien was inconsistent about this; in many sources the letter k is used, but in LotR he decided to spell Quenya as similar to Latin as possible. In some cases, k in the sources has been regularized to c in the following discussion.
~ Fauskanger's Ardalambion
Yet the introduction to Quenya phonology in the Quenya course http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/less-a.rtf is quite extensive
Shouldn't there be a link to (and mention of) Dedative case - JustinWick 07:41, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
The bullet below the pronoun table (plainly intended to be a footnote, with the asterisk appearing next to "-ntë" in the "3rd plu. abstract or thing" line) seems to indicate that this ending is not used for the dual number. However, I don't think it's clear that there is a dual number in third person pronouns, so I wonder if someone could comment on that. Furthermore, this ending is attested as applying to persons, in Cirion's Oath. ("Tiruvantes", "they will guard it"). (Unless the Valar are to be regarded as abstractions?) I am aware this is controversial, but I don't think it should be said to apply to an "abstract or thing" without qualification. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
The chart of pronoun forms in the article seems to have the 1st person dual and plural forms confused. -lvë/-lwë is inclusive dual, -lmë is inclusive plural, -mmë is exclusive plural, and there's probably a fourth form *-ngwë for exclusive dual, although I'm not sure if there's any direct source for this one. The first two are interpretable directly from The Lord of the Rings: -lvë/-lwë from the possessive form omentie-lvo "of our meeting," in which "our" includes the person Frodo is speaking to; and -lmë in laituva-lme-t "we will praise them," which is a cheer from amidst a crowd, so both addresses and includes the rest of the crowd. (This one is more directly stated to be the inclusive plural in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.) The third, -mmë, while attested directly without a clear definition, also has the possessive form -mma in the first word of the Lord's Prayer in Quenya, ataremma "our father," in which "our" cannot include the person being addressed (since that's God). --D.M., 12.107.67.3 15:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that the dates at the top right of the Quenya article (presumably indicating Tolkien's birth-death) are incorrect. Tolkien was born in 1892. If "1917" is there for another reason, it's a little misleading. Also, in the section on "Non-fictional Development," the sentence which labels Tolkien as a "professional linguist" should be altered to something like "professional philologist" or "language professor and philologist." Tolkien had no degree in linguistics and himself eschewed the label of "linguist" in at least one of his published letters. (Being a newcomer to this, I thought it best not make the changes myself without opening it up for comments.)
Paul Spreitzer 205.215.135.132 19:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
From the article: "Quenya is usually written in Tengwar, although inside the fiction it was earlier also written in Sarati. The language can also be written in other alphabets: modes for Cirth exist, and it is usually written in the Latin alphabet." (emphasis mine)
This seems like a contradiction but I'm not positive or sure how to go about fixing it. Suggest that someone with more knowledge on this take a look.
If no ne minds, I thinks we should possibly put a complete Quenya dictionary onto Wikipedia to ease the search for people. As I am fairly decent at conversing in it and writing it, I ask if anyone wants to collaborate with me on this project and see if the admins mind.
Xel Pos'tare 17:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC) User:CaptainXel
ni lá mára tec Quenya lambë mal ni anta ta lelya. Manen elyë pol cenda ta mára? Think outside the box 07:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
It's simpler and more complete to put a (highlighted link) to the wikibook on Quenya. The article will be only devoted to his fictional and non-fictional history. -- Elistir 15:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Some anonymous body from Helge Fauskanger's university ( 129.177.138.238) who is already setting out to re-edit the David Salo page (recently unlocked) wrote:
"Still, most of the forms would be relatively uncontroversial among researchers, with the exception of tultëa as the proposed continuative form of an A-stem (by another suggestion, A-stems cannot make a distinction between aorist and continuative form)."
Just as others have already noted of Helge's prose, our anonymous somebody here uses the predictive term "would" to represent the supposed opinions of others without having to base them in any actually verifiable evidence or writings. Either such forms are, or they are not, uncontroversial; the fact that our anonymous somebody had to alter a simple statement about the verifiable fact that these paradigms are _not_ provided by Tolkien himself, I think indicates that things _are_ rather more controversial than (s)he "would" have it, so this is in fact POV.
cfh 20:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
On the Caradhras, the spell Sauruman was chanting was in Quenya. -- 66.218.11.78 04:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the tense chart should make it more clear that the *Quenya* aorist/present correspond to the *English* simple present/present continuative. Currently it seems unclear what the Quenya tense being represented is. Perhaps just changing the english tense by adding it in parentheses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Silmenuquerna ( talk • contribs)
I will not rule out that in some version it is Orome teaching the Elves to speak, but the Silmarillion should probably be considered more "canonical", and the alternative version should be clearly referenced. It strikes me as rather central that the Quendi should have an innate faculty for language, and the variant of Orome teaching them seems to rather spoil that (not that this matters if we can pin down the reference). dab (𒁳) 00:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Tolkien may have been inspired by the Quiché (K'iche') of Central America, when he invented the word and language Quenya. Quiché/K'iche' is the name the Mayans called themselves and their language. The Quendi elves also call themselves and their language by similar names. As a linguist, Tolkien would have ben aware of the Mayan's primary language. Both Quiché and Quenya are the language of the ab/original inhabitants of these respective lands, before modern man appeared. 66.81.153.136 04:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Now this is more like it. I have noticed that the pronoun table before is based on older information and has not changed for some time. I have made a major revision on that, and thanks to Aelfwine for adding to it. Big improvement! RashBold ( talk · contribs) 01:28, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
There is a big problem with the exclusive and the dual endings. I found a (reliable) source, used as a Quenya course on Wikiversity, and in that course they give -mmë as the excl. ending and -lmë as the dual one, while in this article the two of them have switched spots, just as in Wikibooks! Please tell me wich one is right! Mapar007 18:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Can we discuss the classification of Quenya as a posteriori? To me that term implies taking nearly all roots from existing languages. It would be more accurate imho to describe the Elvish family as a priori with some borrowed roots. On the other hand, a priori may connote philosophical languages; it's a false dichotomy. Elvish and Loglan violate the dichotomy in opposite ways: Elvish uses traditional structures and new roots (without imitating any language closely enough to be described as e.g. "relexified Finnish"), while Loglan uses borrowed roots (in a peculiar way) and new structures. — Tamfang ( talk) 20:32, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Is it distinctive of Swedish vs other (North) Germanic languages? — Tamfang ( talk) 06:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure the pronunciation of A is supposed to be [ɑ], no matter the length. -- Oscararon ( talk) 15:27, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
As an example of Latin influence, word 'aure' (morning) is given. Although this explanation seems to be the most obvious one (also for me), I would like to point that there is a close resemblance to Finnish word 'auer' (haze, sometimes, esp. in poetry: morning haze 'aamun auer'). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.146.54.156 ( talk) 20:49, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
In the intro section, the consonant qu is transcribed as [kʷw] in the IPA transcription of Quenya, but as simply [kʷ] in the consonant table, without the [w]. Which is correct? Is the consonant [kʷ] considered as a double consonant for stress determination, and the transcription meant to represent this? — Eru· tuon 17:44, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
A number of entries in this section are about languages other than Q. I would move the whole section to Elvish languages (Middle-earth). — Tamfang ( talk) 21:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Like Latin in its vowel repertoire and stress pattern, but more like Finnish in its consonant phonotactics, e.g. avoidance of clusters and (more loosely) of voiced stops. As for Italian, where are the palatal consonants? — Tamfang ( talk) 06:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
"long compound words" and "groups so created" suggest medial vowel loss, but the examples shown all seem to be final. – Consonants are not created by vowel loss; how about 'exposed'? — Tamfang ( talk) 22:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
There is a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth#"neo-language" regarding that paragraph and the use of "Neo-languages" in general. Please join us there and wait for the outcome before you edit that paragraph. De728631 ( talk) 18:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
“ | Galadriel is the only major Elf in The Lord of the Rings who had Quenya as a mother-tongue: she was born in Eldamar. Elrond, Arwen, and Legolas were all born in Middle-earth. We do not know where and when Gildor Inglorion was born. | ” |
I removed the sentence about Gildor, who is mentioned nowhere else in the article, and is not "major" in any obvious sense. At the same time, I rearranged the first sentence for better flow (and better grammar):
“ | Galadriel, born in Eldamar, is the only major Elf in The Lord of the Rings who had Quenya as a mother-tongue. | ” |
Naturally these changes were reverted without comment.
I question whether the paragraph ought to be here at all. It's a reasonable inference, but we generally don't do reasonable inferences. Is there anything explicit in canon to support it? — Tamfang ( talk) 04:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
There ought to be some mention that Tolkien's conception of the history changed over time. There aren't just two lines: there's a series (external history) of parallel lines (internal history), forming a two-dimensional structure. How best to express this? Before the latest rewrite there was the phrase "Tolkien's conception of that world and its history evolved"; one would like to know why Laurifindil ( talk · contribs) didn't like that, but L. has never yet responded to a question. — Tamfang ( talk) 21:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
I would encourage the article's keepers to expand the lead to conform to WP:LEAD before the GA review starts, as else it will quickfail. The lead needs to summarize the article, as is now it only gives an "in world" history of the languge. It needs to give a summary of the history of development and grammar as well. Also the structure is weird. The Syntax section should be with grammar and before vocabulary and it should be a lot more comprehensive. Also I think it needs to draw in more secondary sources. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 18:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
The table has a mistake: Quenya and English glosses are reversed. Also, the sources for these allegedly published words should be incorporated into the section for easy reference. Any neologisms should be discarded, like any derivatives of The Etymologies not specifically discussed by Tolkien himself. 91.152.231.113 ( talk) 15:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I've fully protected the page for a few days due to the edit war over these references. While internet sources can be reliable (i.e. the reason given for removing them doesn't quite make sense), is " The Encyclopedia of Arda" a reliable source? Looking at it myself, it looks like an unofficial, personal website that someone maintains purely for enjoyment. Swarm X11|11|11 17:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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Reviewer: Jezhotwells ( talk · contribs) 02:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC) I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.
Let's do a Wikipedia written in Quenya! -- Sistemx ( talk) 17:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Me pursuing this: User:Double sharp/Quenya periodic table. Your Quenya is far better than mine, so please help correct my atrocities against the language! Double sharp ( talk) 14:08, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Is there a Quenyan Language Datasheet available? 68.151.17.107 ( talk) 22:41, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
These are attested as initial consonants in the Etymologies. I made this table because it seems odd to have a table of only the nasals.
labial | P→p | B→v | PH→f | M→m | MB→m |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
dental | T→t | D→l | TH→s | N→n | ND→n |
palatal-dental | TY→ty | DY→y | NY→ny | ||
palatal-velar | KY→ty | GY→y | KHY→hy | ÑGY→indy | |
plain velar | K→c | G→∅ | KH→h | ÑG→n | |
labial-velar | KW→qu | GW→w | ÑGW→nw,ungw |
It ought to be checked against the corrections in Vinyar Tengwar.
— Tamfang ( talk) 08:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
“ | Other forms that appear to have been borrowed are actually coincidental, such as Finnish kirja "book", and Quenya cirya "ship". | ” |
Why would anyone think a word for 'book' was borrowed for 'ship'?
“ | The Latin aure "dawn", and Quenya aure "moment of special meaning, special day, festival day" are unrelated. Instead, Quenya aure comes from the Valarin/Quenderin root ur-. | ” |
“ | Arda, the Quenya name for "region", just happened to resemble Germanic Erde "earth", while it actually comes from the Valarin/Quenderin root gar-. | ” |
That he crafted an Elvish etymology for it doesn't establish that he didn't take it from a primary-world language in the first place; Tolkien's derivations worked both forward and backward in fictional time.
√GAR 'hold, possess' suggests garth 'enclosure' and French garde, merely putting the problem back one step!
On the other hand, there appears to me to be no such Latin word.
“ | In Quenya, heavy syllables are syllables that contain either a long vowel, a diphthong, or a cluster of two consonants .... | ” |
So in alda, for example, does the d belong to the first syllable? — Tamfang ( talk) 00:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone have access to Parma Eldalamberon 19? I would edit the article to reflect this understanding of syllabification and stress, but for all I know, my surmises about these subjects might be wrong, and anyway, it would be a good idea to base a section on the source given for it. I wish the darned thing weren't a full 35 dollars, or that it were available someplace. — Eru· tuon 19:15, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Having a duodecimal/hybrid decimal-duodecimal counting system is quite unusual. Shouldn't we give info about number words? Double sharp ( talk) 11:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
It ought to be made clear that although Tolkien says these are allowed, they do not actually appear in any words in our present corpus (AFAIK). For now all it does is make borrowing Greek woords into Quenya easier. Double sharp ( talk) 14:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Are these clusters, or independent phonemic [ɬ] and [r̊]? (Either way they still wouldn't be in the consonant chart, because they merge with l and r by the Third Age.) Double sharp ( talk) 13:42, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Could I make a suggestion for a change to the vowels in the phonology section? Tolkien makes note on page 71 of The Road Goes Ever On (3rd edition) that the short vowels "may be rendered as in [English] sick, bed, hot, foot (for ŭ), though ŏ is intended to be rounder than in modern [English]." I believe that the quality of short i is currently given as [i], which is not in agreement with Tolkien's assertion. The vowel sound in question is [ɪ]. I'm familiar with Fauskanger's Quenya course, and he makes note of the distinction but seems to believe it is obsolete. "In one early source, Tolkien himself quoted the word pit as an example of short "Qenya" i (QL:8). Later writings suggest that the quality of the vowel-sound should be like the i of machine, in English often spelt "ee" – start with this sound and shorten it." (Taken from Fauskanger's Quenya course-a). However, the Road Goes Ever On was published after The Lord of the Rings, and is the latest published source I'm aware of directly concerning pronunciation. Is there a reason that this might not supersede Mr. Fauskanger's analysis? Corsair Caruso ( talk) 21:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
As a further note, the above distinction would render the short u as [ʊ]. I seem to remember that Fauskanger also asserts that the à vs a distinction also indicates a quality change, which I believe is accurately represented as [ɑː] vs [a]. Corsair Caruso ( talk) 16:56, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
I think this figure needs revisiting. I tried to find a reference, and a I found an essay from Ardalambion wherein it's mentioned "In total, my translation of the Johannine texts amounts to slightly more than 25,000 words." In other words, his translation into Quenya (or Neo-Quenya) was 25,000 words long. Presumably there were repetitions (e.g. the word for "and"). If that's the source of the figure, then it would seem that there are far, far, far fewer than 25,000 words. It's probably worth someone doing an actual count. 24.152.136.199 ( talk) 07:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
If Tolkien says that resemblances such as Arda/Erde, Atalante/Atlantis, etc., are entirely coincidences... er... how serious do we have to take him? (Just reading that the most usual formula used by the Noldor in farewells is - wait for it -- Áva márië! and thinking that Tolkien was having a great bit of fun with such resemblances...-- 2001:A60:1513:3E01:FCC6:D437:7F83:CC65 ( talk) 12:41, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
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Too much detail!
Anybody noticed the sheer amount of detail here? On the consonant chart there are 13 phonological rules describing various voicing of consonants and commenting on the orthography of the language. To compare, English has 7, and each of them are variances between remote dialects. Tolkien did include a great deal of detail in his discription of the language, which goes hand in hand with another concern. The amount of the Silmarillion included in this article is staggering! Consider the introduction to the article. Currently, there is a mini history lesson on the language before the Content panel. Compare to English's one paragraph explaining the bare essentials. Here is my proposed introduction: "Quenya (IPA: ['kwɛɲa]) is one of the fictional languages spoken by the Elves in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien. It was the language developed by those non-Telerin Elves who reached Valinor from an earlier language called Common Eldarin, which also evolved from the original Primitive Quendian. During the Third Age Quenya was no longer a living language in Middle-earth: most Elves spoke Sindarin, and Men mostly spoke Westron. Quenya was mainly used in official names and writings and as a ceremonial language, much as the Latin language was in medieval Europe. For this reason it was sometimes called "an Elven-Latin" by Tolkien.[1] Quenya is usually written in Tengwar, although it was earlier written in Sarati. In the real world Tengwar is not uncommon, but it is usually written in the Latin alphabet." Everything which is not essential to an explanation of the language receives a link, or is moved to the correct part of the article. The information on the dialects of Quenya should be moved into the fictional history section under a subheading fictional dialects. Unnecessary terms and translations like "...spoken by the Elves (the Quendi, "those who speak with voices" because when they first awoke they were the only creatures they knew who used words to speak)" should be avoided. Dsachs2 ( talk) 06:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC) |
Last edited at 06:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 03:40, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
Actually we have plenty of material by Tolkien himself stating that his favorite Romance was actually Spanish, not Italian. From page 213 from the same book as the one used for a reference in this very sentence we read in relation to his personal influences in his taste:
Spanish was another: my guardian was half Spanish, and in my early teens I used to pinch his books and try to learn it: the only Romance language that gives me the particular pleasure of which I am speaking (...)
It even goes on to make a comparison to how he can perceive the beauty of Italian and English but in a different way:
[I]t is not quite the same as the mere perception of beauty: I feel the beaty of say Italian or for that matter of modern English (which is very remote from my personal taste): it is more like the appetite for a needed food.
This letter dates from June 7th 1955, the letter cited on Italian as favorite dates from August 15th 1955. However in a letter from October 25th 1958 he reiterates his preference for Spanish stating:
For instance I dislike French, and prefer Spanish to Italian (...)
I think his preference stands very clear in light of all the evidence.--Eremeldo 17:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
So, the header at the Grammar section stated that the word order is SOV, but at the end of the sytax subsection, it states SVO. I'm not familiar with the subject and don't have time to do the digging right now, but someone familiar with it should get that cleared up. 162.247.45.152 ( talk) 23:49, 8 May 2017 (UTC)