LESSON ONE

The sounds of Quenya. Pronunciation and accentuation.

GENERAL REMARKS Quenya as an actual entity in our own world exists primarily as a written language: Quenya enthusiasts tend to be widely scattered and must generally share their compositions via some written medium only (indeed I shall normally refer to users of Quenya as "writers" rather than "speakers"). onetheless! any student should obviously know what pronunciation "olkien imagined! as well as his intentions can be approximated now. "here exist a very few recordings of "olkien himself reading Quenya texts. In a late "# interview! "olkien writes out and pronounces the greeting elen sla l !enn" o!entiel#o. $ore notably! he made two different recordings of Namri (sung and spoken). "he spoken version is also available on the net: http:%%www.salon.com%audio%&'''%('%')%tolkien*elvish%index.html (under "+oem in ,lvish"). - few lines of this version of Namri differ from their .ot/ counterparts: "he recorded version has inyar n$ti nar #e r%!ar aldaron % inyar #e lint& yul!ar #%nier instead of y'ni n$ti!& #e r%!ar aldaron( % y'ni #e lint& yuldar (a)#%nier as in .ot/. "he recording was made before the book was published (and hence before the final revisions). - much later recording! with the same text as in the book! also exists. I have not heard it! so I cannot comment further. "he very few extant recordings are interesting! but they are not our chief source of information. $ost of what we know about Quenya pronunciation is based on "olkien0s written notes about how his languages should be pronounced! predominantly the information provided in .ot/ -ppendix ,. (Indeed "olkien0s actual pronunciation in the recordings is not always 1uite flawless according to his own technical descriptions! but then he was not a native speaker of Quenya.) -ny natural language has a phonology! a set of rules defining what sounds are used! how they vary and behave! and how they can be combined. "his goes for any well2made invented language as well. Quenya is most definitely not a hapha3ard 4umble of sounds5 "olkien carefully constructed its phonology 6 both as an evolving entity (classical Quenya gradually developing from +rimitive ,lvish) and as a "fixed" form (defining the kind of Quenya that was used as a language of lore and ceremony in $iddle2earth). "olkien had +engolodh! the sage of 7ondolin! observe that ,lvish tongues tended to use relatively few sounds 6 "for the ,ldar being skilled in craft are not wasteful nor prodigal to small purpose! admiring in a tongue rather the skilled and harmonious use of a few well2balanced sounds than profusion ill2ordered" (+$:89:). one of the sounds used in Quenya are particularly exotic from a ,uropean viewpoint! but

they are combined in an ex1uisitely tidy manner. ;ompared to "olkien0s ,lvish! many "real" languages indeed appear rather messy. )AS*+ TERMS .et us get some basic terms into place (people with linguistic training need not spend much time on this section). "he sounds of any language can be divided into two broad categories! vowels and consonants. "he vowels are sounds made by letting the air stream "freely" through the mouth: <ifferent vowels are produced by modifying the position of the tongue and the lips! but the stream of air is not directly obstructed. If one draws out various vowels! pronouncing aaaaa... or eeeee... or ooooo...! it is easy to feel how the air streams 1uite unhindered though the mouth: =ne merely configures the tongue and lips to "shape" the desired sound. #owels can be more or less "open" or "closed": >ou only have to notice the position of the tongue and lower 4aw when pronouncing aaah... as contrasted with their position when you pronounce ooooh... to understand what is meant by this. "he vowel a (as in ,nglish part) is the most open! while the vowel u (as in ,nglish rude) is the most closed. =ther vowels fall between. #owels can also be more or less "rounded"! mainly depending on the position of the lips5 the vowel u (as 4ust described) is said to be rounded because it is pronounced with the lips pouted. - vowel like o (as in ,nglish sore) is actually pronounced much like the a of part! but o is rounded and a is not 6 making the vowels audibly distinct. ?hen pronouncing vowels! the stream of air is only modified (by means of devices like the ones 4ust described). It is never actually "hindered". In the case of the consonants! the air is however more actively obstructed. "hus! "olkien can inform us that one early ,lvish term for consonant was ta,ta ten-.& or 4ust ta,ta! meaning "impeded element" or "impeded one" (#"89:@). In the most "extreme" cases the stream of air may even be completely halted for a moment: "his is easily perceived in the case of a consonant like ,! which is pronounced by bringing the lips into contact! momentarily cutting off the stream of air from the lungs and allowing a pressure to build up inside the mouth. "hen the lips are suddenly parted again! releasing the air in a small explosion 6 and this explosion constitutes a ,. Auch plosive consonants include t! ,! / and their counterparts d! 0! - (sc. hard - as in gold! not as in gin). "hey are all formed by halting and then suddenly releasing the air various places in the mouth. Instead of halting the air completely one may also let it "fi33le through" a small opening! as when f is pronounced by forcing the air out between the lower lip and the upper teeth5 such "friction" sounds are called fricatives (or spirants) and include consonants like f! th! #. -nd there are yet other options on how to manipulate the stream of air! such as rerouting it through the nose to produce nasal consonants like n or !. "he concept of voicing should also be understood. Bumans (and! it would seem! ,lves) come with a kind of bu33ing device installed in their throats!

namely the vocal chords. Cy making the vocal chords vibrate! one may add "voice" to the stream of air before it enters the speech organs proper. "he presence or lack of such voicing is what distinguishes sounds like # vs. f. If one draws out a sound like ffff...and suddenly turns it into ####... instead! one will feel the "bu33er" in the throat kicking in (put a finger on your glottis 6 what in men is called the "-dam0s apple"! less protuberant in women 6 and you will actually feel the vibration of the vocal chords). In principle! the device of voicing could be used to double the number of sounds we are able to produce! since they could all be pronounced either with vibration in the vocal chords (as voiced sounds) or without such vibration (as unvoiced sounds). In practice! most of the sounds of speech do not appear in unvoiced versions. $any sounds would barely be perceptible without the voicing (n! for instance! would be reduced to little more than a weak snort). ormally all vowels are voiced as well! certainly so in Quenya (though in Dapanese! vowels may lose their voicing in certain environments). Cut I have already referred to d! 0! - as the "counterparts" of t! ,! /5 they are counterparts in the sense that the former are voiced and the latter are not. =ne characteristic feature of Quenya (at least the oldorin dialect) is the very limited distribution of the voiced plosives d! 0! -5 they occur solely in the middle of words! and then only as part of the consonant clusters nd%ld%rd! !0! and n-. Aome speakers also pronounced l0 instead of l#. (+ossibly "olkien imagined different rules for the poorly attested Vanyarin dialect of Quenya: "he Silmarillion refers to a lament called Aldud'ni& made by a #anyarin ,lf5 this word has pu33led researchers since the middle d occurs in a position that would be 1uite impossible in oldorin Quenya.) Syllables: $ade up of vowels and consonants! speech is not an undifferentiated outburst of sound. /ather it is perceived to be organi3ed into rhythmic units called syllables. "he shortest possible words are necessarily monosyllabic! having only one syllable 6 like ,nglish from or its Quenya e1uivalent ho. ?ords of more than one syllable! polysyllabic ones! form longer strings of rhythmic "beats". - word like faster has two syllables (fas-ter)! a word like wonderful has three (won-der-ful)! a word like geography has four (ge-ogra-phy)! and so on 6 though obviously we can0t go much further before the words would be felt to be impractically long and difficult to pronounce. Aome oriental languages! like #ietnamese! show a great preference for monosyllabic words. Cut as is evident from the ,nglish examples 4ust 1uoted! ,uropean languages often employ longer words! and "olkien0s Quenya makes extensive use of big mouthfuls (as does Einnish). ;onsider words like Ainulindal& or Sil!arillion (five syllables: ai1nu1lin1da1l&! sil1!a1ril1li1on). -n uninflected Quenya word typically has two or three syllables! and this number is often increased by adding inflectional endings! or by compounding. T2E SO3N4S O5 Q3EN6A

In Quenya! the basic vowels are a! e! i! o! u (short and long). "hey may also be combined into diphthongs! groups of two basic vowels pronounced together as one syllable: "here are three diphthongs in 2i (ai! oi! ui) and three in 2u (au! eu! iu! though the diphthongs eu and iu are 1uite rare). "he consonants of "hird -ge Quenya may be listed as c (F /)! d! f! -! -.! h! hy! h.! l! ly! !! n! n.! ny! ,! 7u! r! ry! s! t! ty! #! y and . (this listing is not wholly uncontroversial5 the consonant system of Quenya can be plausibly analy3ed in more than one way). In ,lvish writing! the Tengwar orthography also upholds the distinction between some consonants that by the "hird -ge had come to be pronounced alike and thus merged altogether (8 merging with s! while initial 9 fell together with n 6 see the discussion of spelling conventions). In the transcription and spelling employed in this course! the former presence of "lost" distinct consonants is reflected in two cases only: hl and hr! that were originally unvoiced l and r! but later they merged with normal l! r (and are therefore not included on the list of "hird -ge Quenya consonants above). "hus we will spell! say! hr#& ("winter") in this way despite the fact that "olkien imagined the typical "hird -ge pronunciation to be simply "rGvH" (with a normal r). "hough the consonants hy! -.! h.! ly! n.! ny! ry! ty! and 7u (and hr! hl) must here be written as two letters (as digraphs)! they should evidently be taken as unitary sounds: "heir pronunciation will be discussed in greater detail below. "he digraphs in 2. represent labialized consonants! while the digraphs in 2y stand for palatalized consonants5 again! see below for further discussion of these terms. It should be understood that 7u is simply an aesthetic way of spelling what would otherwise be represented as c. (most people will agree that Quenya looks better than +.enya)! so 7u! like n.! is a labiali3ed consonant. ?hen counting syllables one must remember that there is no actual vowel u in 7u5 "u" here stands for .. - word like al7ua ("swan") thus has only two syllables: al1 7ua (F al1c.a). =ne must not think "al21u2a" and conclude that there are actually three syllables. In "engwar writing! 7u is denoted by a single letter! and in most early sources! "olkien also used the single letter 7 to represent it. Double consonants Aome consonants also occur in long or double versions5 double vs. single consonants may be compared to long vs. short vowels. "he "obvious" cases! sc. the double consonants directly represented in orthography! are cc! ll! !!! nn! ,,! rr! ss and tt (e.g. ecco "spear"! colla "cloak"! la!!a "sound"! anna "gift"! la,,a "hem of robe"! yarra2 "to growl"! ess& "name"! atta "two"). "he group ,, is very rare! only attested in material far predating the .ot/. In the Note on !ronunciation appended to the Silmarillion! ;hristopher "olkien noted: ";onsonants written twice are pronounced long! thus "avanna has the long n heard in ,nglish unnamed! pen#nife! not the short n in unaimed! penny." ?ords like ana "towards" vs. anna "gift"! tyel& "ceases" vs. tyell& "grade"! ata "again" vs. atta "two" should be audibly distinct. 6 It is possible that some of the consonants written as digraphs must also be counted as

double consonants when they occur between vowels5 e.g. ny F long or double palatali3ed n (more on this below). $onsonant clusters %vs& single consonants' It is difficult to pronounce many se1uential consonants! so the languages of the world generally confine themselves to relatively small groups (or "clusters") of consonants. "he most typical word! from 4ust about any language! is a series of vowels and consonants (single ones or relatively short consonant clusters) alternating 6 the "core" of each syllable usually being a vowel. "olkien0s Quenya is no exception5 this language actually has 1uite restrictive rules for how consonants and vowels can be combined into syllables and longer words. ,ven so! consonant clusters are 1uite common! but they are not distributed as "freely" as in ,nglish. ?hile ,nglish and for that matter Aindarin allow consonant clusters at the beginning of words! Quenya does not (A<:I(@2I(:). - word like scream! commencing with a cluster of no less than three consonants! would be 1uite impossible in Quenya. "olkien noted that the name that the "?oses" or ?ild $en had for themselves! Drughu! was adapted to Quenya as R (J":8:)). Quenya could not preserve the initial cluster dr2 of the original form of this loan2word (even apart from the fact that Quenya could not have d in this position). Quenya does allow a limited number of consonant clusters medially! between vowels in the middle of words5 among "fre1uent" of "favoured" clusters "olkien cited ld! !0! !,! nc! nd! n-! n-.! n7u! nt! ,s! ts and : (for cs). Bence we have such typical Quenya2style words as Elda ",lf"! la!0& "tongue"! tu!,o "hump"! ranco "arm" etc. (inally! at the end of words! only five single consonants may occur: only 2l! 2n! 2r! 2s! or 2t is permitted in this position ()etters:I&)5 however! most Quenya words end in a vowel). ;onsonant clusters or double consonants are not normally found at the end of words! though they may occur if a final vowel drops out (is elided) because the next word begins in the same or a similar vowel. Bence in .ot/ we have a "final" nn in the phrase l !enn" o!entiel#o ("on the hour of our meeting")! but only because this is reduced from l !enna o!entiel#o (this full form occurring in ?D:8K@ and .etters:I&I). "he only genuine consonant cluster occurring at the end of a word seems to be nt used a specific grammatical ending (dual dative! to be discussed in later lessons) 6 e.g. ciryant "for a couple of ships"! formed from cirya "ship". "olkien0s earliest "Qenya" experiments! as recorded in the Qenya .exicon of (9()! were more liberal in this respect. "Qenya" allowed more final consonants and even final consonant clusters! but as .ot/2style Quenya evolved in "olkien0s notes! he tightened up the phonology. "hus he gave the language a more clearly defined flavour. PRON3N+*AT*ON Vowels Quenya vowels are pure. Eor people who want to pronounce ,lvish vowels with some degree of accuracy! "olkien recommended Italian vowels as a model (as did Lamenhof for ,speranto! by the way). Apeakers of ,nglish have an ingrained habit of blurring many vowels! especially when they are not fully

stressed5 hence in a word like banana it is typically only the middle - that comes out as a "proper" -2sound. "he two other -0s! that are not stressed! are typically made to sound like a blurred! obscure "reduction vowel" that linguists call a schwa (from a Bebrew word for nothingness5 ,nglish textbooks sometimes prefer the spelling "shwa"). Cut in Quenya all vowels! in all positions! must be clearly and distinctly pronounced5 any tendencies to "blur" them must be strongly resisted. -s we remember! Quenya has both long and short vowels! the long ones being marked with an accent: %! '! $! ! vs. short a! e! o! u! i. .ong and short vowels must be kept apart and pronounced clearly distinct. Aometimes vowel length is the only thing that makes otherwise similar words distinct: for instance! cu with a short u means "dove"! whereas c with a long means "crescent". .ong % can be sounded as in ,nglish father: !% "hand"! n%r& "flame"! 7u%co "crow". Bowever! ,nglish does not have anything corresponding to Quenya short a. It is absolutely necessary to master it! for short a is by far the commonest of Quenya vowels. "olkien noted that it should be more "open" than the long %. ?hat we want is a vowel that by its sound (or *uality) is about midway between the a0s of ,nglish father and ,nglish cat 6 but as for its length (or *uantity)! it should by all means be short as in the latter word. "he vowel heard in Apanish padre will do. Apeakers of ,nglish may pin down a short a by isolating the first part of the diphthong ai as in aisle.
=",: If you have the original Star +ars movie available! listen carefully when Barrison Eord first appears about I) minutes in and introduces himself as "Ban Aolo": Eord actually produces a nice Quenya2style short a in "Ban"! making this syllable sound as it would in Quenya words (e.g. hanu "a male" or handa "intelligent"5 apparently there is even a Quenya word han "beyond"). Cut later in the S+ movies! the vowel of "Ban" is inconsistently pronounced either with a long a as in ,nglish father or with the vowel heard in ,nglish cat! which is precisely the vowel to be avoided in Quenya. .inguistic consistency was never the! ahem! force of Star +ars. Cy the way! do you remember Endor! the green moon where 7eorge .ucas placed his reinvented teddy bears in the third movieM 7uess what the Quenya word for "$iddle2earth" isN .ucas would surely say that his intention was to pay tribute to "olkien... J+<-",< =",: ow that +eter Dackson0s The (ellowship of the ,ing has appeared! I can 1uote examples from the soundtrack of this movie as well5 most people interested in "olkien0s work will surely have seen it! and many are also going to buy it on video or <#<. 7ood examples of short ,lvish a occur in the Aindarin name +aradhras "/edhorn" as pronounced by ;hristopher .ee ("Aaruman") in the scene where his spying crows return to Isengard: "Ao! 7andalf! you try to lead them over ;aradhras..." .ee also gets the short a0s more or less right in a scene following shortly afterwards! when he stands on the top of Isengard reading a Quenya invocation: Nai yar#a:&a rasselya taltu#a notto1carinnar... (but the last word sounds almost like c%rinnar! the first vowel being long 6 after all! ;hris .ee is not a native speaker of QuenyaN)

-n extra challenge for speakers of ,nglish is to pronounce 2a as a full vowel at the end of words. ?here ,nglish orthography has a final 2a! it is normally pronounced like a schwa. ;ontrast the ,nglish and the Apanish pronunciation of the final vowel in a name like Sara5 in Apanish! the ,nglish2 style reduction or "blurring" of the 2a does not take place. In one very early source! "olkien actually stated that "Qenya"! like ,nglish! turned final! unaccented 2a into a schwa ("as in ,nglish drama"! Q.:9)! but there is nothing to suggest that this idea was still valid decades later when he wrote the .ot/.

Indeed even the early source 4ust referred to has it that there was one important dialect of "Qenya" where the weakening of final 2a did not take place. Ao speakers should try to pronounce a full a in all positions: neither of the a0s in a word like anna "gift" should be pronounced as in the ,nglish name -nna. .ong ' is another Quenya sound that does not occur in contemporary ,nglish. "he long e of ,nglish became long i (like Quenya ) centuries ago 6 though because of this descent it is still often spelt ee! as in see. Quenya ' has the value of 7erman eh as in -ehr& "he pronunciation of ai in ,nglish air at least approaches '! but this is really a short e followed by a schwa. "olkien notes that long ' should be closer than short e (see .ot/ -ppendix ,)! so 4ust lengthening the vowel heard in ,nglish end will not be 1uite sufficient. "he 1uality of the vowel should be about midway between the vowels heard in ,nglish end and ,nglish see! but it should be long like the latter: n'n "water"! r' "day"! !'na "region". Short e may be pronounced as in ,nglish end& In Quenya this sound also occurs in final position. Aince word2final e is usually silent in ,nglish orthography! "olkien often used the spelling & in this position 6 and throughout this course! this spelling is employed consistently. "his is only to remind ,nglish readers that in Quenya! this letter is to be distinctly pronounced. Cut since word2 final e never occurs in spoken ,nglish! some speakers tend to substitute i or ey (following ,nglish practice in the rare cases of a final orthographic "e" being sounded! as when .esse is pronounced "4essi"! or #arate is pronounced "karatey"). Quenya e should have the value described above in all positions. It must =" be pronounced i! nor must there be a y2like sound creeping after it: l$!& "night"! !or& "black"! tin.& "sparkle". .ong is pronounced as in ,nglish machine! that same as "ee" in ,nglish see: the Quenya word s ("now") is similar in sound. =ther examples include ns "woman" and r!a "edge". "his long must be noticeably longer than short i! which may be pronounced like in ,nglish pit: Titta "tiny"! i!0& "between"! #inya "new". In one early source! "olkien himself 1uoted the word pit as an example of short "Qenya" i (Q.::). .ater writings suggest that the *uality of the vowel2sound should be like the i of machine! in ,nglish often spelt "ee" 6 start with this sound and shorten it. (Cefore unvoiced stops! as in feet! "ee" may be 1uite short also in ,nglish 6 4ust make sure there is a distinction of length between i and .) otice that i is never pronounced ai as in ,nglish fine F "fain". (Quenya fin& "larch" has two syllables! the vowels being those heard in pit Oideally a little closerP and pet! respectively.) =f course! this also goes for final 2i (usually a plural ending). If the student will forgive another Atar ?ars reference! 7eorge .ucas0 .edi may be "4edai" F "4ed2eye"! but "olkien0s Quendi are most definitely not "1uendai". In Quenya! final 2i should rather be pronounced as in /ra*i! -ississippi. .ong $ may be pronounced more or less as in ,nglish sore! but preferably a little tenser and "closer" (midway between the vowel2sounds of ,nglish sore

and ,nglish "oo" as in soon): !$l "slave"! t$ "wool"! $!a "voice". Ahort o may be pronounced as in ,nglish for (when accented)! or as in bo0. "he 1uality of the latter vowel may be 4ust a little too open and 12like according to "olkien0s descriptions. >et this is the pronunciation he himself used in most cases in the recording of him reading Namri5 it should perhaps be attributed to his ,nglish accent. Aome words with o: rondo "cave"! olos "dream"! tolto "eight". =f course! Quenya o is never pronounced "ow" as in ,nglish so! also5 a word like tolto must =" come out as "tol2tow". either must o ever be reduced to a schwa or dropped altogether5 be especially mindful of the ending 2on! often found in masculine names (and also in plural genitives like Sil!arillion5 see later lessons). ",nglish2style" pronunciation of a name like Sauron would result in what a baffled ,lf might try to represent in writing as S$r"n (or at best S$ren). "he final 2on should sound rather like the first syllable of ,nglish online! with the vowel fully intact even though it is unaccented in Sauron. In the Dackson movie! the actors usually deliver a good pronunciation of this name5 especially listen to how "7andalf" and "Aaruman" pronounce it. 7ood examples of short ,lvish o also occur in the name Mordor as pronounced by the same two actors. .ong is the vowel of ,nglish brute! in ,nglish often spelt "oo" as in fool: N !en "west"! c "crescent"! y yo "both". It must be distinctly longer than short u! which is pronounced somewhat like the vowel of ,nglish put ( =" like in ,nglish cut). Ideally! Quenya short u should be a little more "rounded" than the vowel of put5 it should be simply a shorter version of the long or "oo" described above: +undu "prince"! nuru "death"! ulundo "monster". otice that Quenya u is never pronounced "yu" as in ,nglish union5 ulundo should not become "yulundo". Apeakers of ,nglish must be especially mindful of their vowels when a combination vowel Q r occurs. In the combinations ar! or! many speakers of ,nglish have a tendency to lengthen the vowel even where it should be short (and many would also let the r drop out! especially when it is followed by another consonant). Cut in Quenya words like narda ("knot") or lorna ("asleep")! the vowel before the r must be short! as indicated by the absence of the accent mark. It is not permissible to let the pronunciation drift towards "nR(r)da"! "lS(r)na"! no matter how tempting this is to people used to ,nglish speech2habits. ?here the groups er! ir! ur occur (e.g. in words like serc& "blood"! tirno "watcher"! tur!a "shield")! speakers of ,nglish must take care =" to pronounce the vowels after the fashion of ,nglish serve! girl! turn. (I once had an ,nglish teacher who described the vowel of "girl" as one of the ugliest sounds of the ,nglish language. Ahe taught ,nglish at university level! so she should know 6 though perhaps she wasn0t wholly serious...) Ahort e! i! u should sound 4ust as described above! wholly irrespective of the following r. In .ot/

-ppendix ,! "olkien noted that er; ir! ur should sound! not as in ,nglish fern! fir! fur! but rather like air! eer! oor (that is! like it would be natural for a speaker of ,nglish to pronounce orthographic "air! eer! oor" 6 however! it should be understood that this would only be an approximation of the ideal pronunciation). In the +eter Dackson movie! the actors struggle to pronounce the final syllable of the Quenya name *sildur correctly! with variable results. In the flash2back scene where ,lrond (played by Bugo ?eaving) leads Isildur into $ount <oom and urges him to destroy the /ing! ?eaving0s pronunciation of the name *sildur is very good 6 following "olkien0s guidelines to the letter. Diphthongs In addition to the "basic"! unitary vowel2sounds discussed above (what linguists would call the monophthongs)! we have the diphthongs 6 combinations of two basic vowels that are run together into one syllable! in many ways behaving like a unitary vowel for the purpose of word2building: "he Quenya diphthongs are ai! au! eu! iu! oi! and ui. T "he diphthong ai is the same that is heard in ,nglish aisle. It is =" like the one in ,nglish mail! though ,nglish orthographic "ai" usually represents the latter sound (can anyone think of other exceptions than aisleM) "he first syllable of faila "4ust! generous" must not pronounced like the ,nglish word fail! since Quenya ai always has the sound of ,nglish /! eye: Aica "fell! terrible"! cai!a "bed"! aira "holy". =f course! the first syllable of the latter word sounds nothing like ,nglish airN T "he diphthong au is pronounced as in 7erman 2aus! or more or less as the "ow" of ,nglish cow: aul& "invention"! laur&a "golden"! taur& "forest". It is never sounded as in ,nglish caught! aura (in which words "au" is pronounced rather like Quenya $). In his " ote on +ronunciation" appended to the Silmarillion! ;hristopher "olkien notes that the first syllable of Sauron should be like ,nglish sour! not ,nglish sore. (Bowever! the diphthong in sour is in Critish ,nglish followed by a schwa 6 a faint reminiscence of the otherwise silent final r. "his schwa should not be pronounced in Sauron.) T "he diphthong eu does not occur in ,nglish! but it is not dissimilar to the "o" of ,nglish so. "he only difference is that while the first part of the diphthong is a schwa in ,nglish! it should be a normal e (as in end) in Quenya. In particular! some Critish upper2class pronunciations of ,nglish "o" as in so come close to Quenya eu (but the -merican pronunciation does not). Quenya examples: leuca "snake"! neu!a "snare"! ,eu "pair of lips". "his diphthong is not very common. T "he diphthong iu may be sounded like yu in ,nglish yule! according to the usual "hird -ge +ronunciation. "olkien imagined that originally! it had rather been a "falling" diphthong like the other Quenya diphthongs! stressed on the first rather than the last element (.ot/ -ppendix ,). Bowever! the "hird -ge pronunciation would be e1ually "valid" also within the mythos! and for speakers of ,nglish it is easier to achieve. "his diphthong is in any case very rare5 in the

3tymologies it is only attested in a handful of words (!iul& "whining! mewing"! ,iuta "spit"! siul& "incitement" and the group tiuca "thick! fat"! tiuco "thigh" and tiuya2 "swell! grow fat" 6 a few more examples of iu could be 1uoted from "olkien0s early "Qenya" material). T "he diphthong oi is easy! corresponding to ,nglish "oi" or "oy" as in oil! toy: coir&a "living"! soica "thirsty"! oira "eternal". T "he diphthong ui "olkien sometimes compared to the sound occurring in ,nglish ruin. "his is a rather surprising example! for surely the word "ruin" is not normally pronounced as containing a diphthong! but as two distinct syllables: ru-in. /ather think "ooy" as in the ,nglish phrase too young: huin& "shadow"! cuil& "life"! uil& "(long! trailing) plant". otice that the combination 7ui does not contain this diphthong5 this is 4ust a more visually pleasing way of spelling c.i (e.g. or7ui "=rcs" F orc.i). -ll other groups of vowels are not diphthongs! but simply vowels belonging to separate syllables! to be pronounced distinctly. In linguistic terms! vowels that are in direct contact without forming diphthongs are said to be in hiatus. +rimitive ,lvish apparently did not have such combinations! at least not in the middle of words: "olkien had EHanor concluding that "our fathers...in building words took the vowels and parted them with the consonants as walls" (#"89:('). Cut some consonants had been lost in Quenya! so that vowels that were originally so "parted" had come into direct contact (#"89:K). In Quenya we even have polysyllabic all2vowel words like E< (a name of the universe) or oa ("away"). "he most fre1uent combinations of vowels in hiatus are ea! eo! ie! io! oa5 each vowel should be sounded "by itself". "olkien often emphasi3es this fact by adding diaereses or "dots" to one of the vowels! and in the consistent spelling here imposed on the material! we regularly write &a (E<)! &o (E=)! o&. "hus there is no excuse for such mistakes as pronouncing &a as in ,nglish heart or please! or o& as in canoe or foetus. (=ther distortions are apparently also possible: ;ate Clanchett simply reduced E<rendil to ",rendil" the one time her version of 7aladriel pronounces this name in the Dackson movie: "I give you the light of ,OUPrendil! our most beloved star..." ;an we have an extra vowel for the <irector0s ;ut! pleaseM) In this course we do not use the diaeresis in the combinations ie (except when final) and oa! but as indicated by the spelling i& and =a in certain "olkien manuscripts! the vowels must be pronounced distinctly and not drawn together as in ,nglish piece (or tie)! or ,nglish load. In accordance with this! ;hristopher "olkien in the Note on !ronunciation that he appended to the Silmarillion indicates that the name Nienna is to be pronounced Ni1enna! not " eena" as if ie were sounded as in ,nglish piece. (Immediately after the line in which she mangles the name E<rendil! ;ate Clanchett pronounces the Quenya word na!%ri&! "farewell". I0m glad to say that she did a better 4ob with this word! getting the 2i& more or less rightN) Aome words with vowels in hiatus: f&a "soul"!

l&o "shade"! lo&nd& "year2middle" (the middle day of the year according to the ,lvish calendar)! coa "house"! ti& "path". $onsonants $ost Quenya consonants are easy to pronounce for people used to speaking a ?estern language. "hese points may be observed: T + is always pronounced /! never s5 indeed "olkien does use the letter / rather than c in many sources. +el!a "channel" or cirya "ship" must not come out as "selma"! "sirya". ("his goes for Aindarin spelling as well: ?hen +ele0orn is pronounced "Aeleborn" in the /ankin%Cass animated version of .ot/! it clearly shows that the moviemakers never made it to -ppendix ,.) T In the groups h.! hy! hl! hr! the letter h is not to be pronounced separately. "hese are 4ust digraphs denoting unitary consonants: T ?hat is spelt hl! hr was originally unvoiced l! r. "hat is! these sounds were pronounced without vibration in the vocal chords! resulting in what may be described as "whispered" versions of normal l! r. (If you can isolate the l of ,nglish please! you will have an unvoiced l 6 though in this case! it is 4ust "incidentally" unvoiced because of the influence from the unvoiced plosive , immediately preceding it. ,nglish never has unvoiced l as an independent sound of speech! as Quenya originally did.) In Quenya! these sounds are 1uite rare5 examples include hr#& "winter" and hl$c& "serpent! dragon". Bowever! "olkien stated that by the "hird -ge! hr and hl had come to be pronounced as normal voiced r! l! though the spelling hl! hr apparently persisted in writing. T ?hat is spelt h. corresponds to ,nglish wh in dialects where this is still distinct from normal w (e.g.! witch and which are audibly distinct words 6 -merican ,nglish! as well as northern Critish ,nglish! normally uphold this distinction! though it has been abandoned in the Critish /eceived +ronunciation). +ut simply! h. is a (weak) version of the sound you make when you blow out a candle. 2. is not a very fre1uent sound in Quenya5 this seems to be a 1uite complete list of the known words where it occurs: h.an "sponge! fungus"! h.arin "crooked"! h.ar!a "crossbar"! h.er!& "gesture2code"! h.esta "bree3e! breath! puff of air" (also as verb: h.esta2 "to puff")! h.ind& "eddy! whirlpool". T ?hat is spelt hy represents a sound that may occur in ,nglish! but that is not normally recogni3ed as a distinct consonant in this language. 2y denotes what by a 7erman term is often referred to as ich2)aut or "ich2sound"! since it is exemplified by "ch" in the 7erman word ich ("I"). "o speakers of ,nglish it may sound much like sh (one imagines Vennedy training long and hard to avoid "Ish bin ein Cerliner"). Atill! as I said! a (weak) version of the sound in 1uestion may often be heard in ,nglish as well: In words like hew! huge! human! the h may be pronounced like an (obscure) hy. ;f. A<:I(:2I(9! where "olkien states that in Quenya or "-vallonian"! the sound hy is "approximately e1uivalent to...h in huge". In .ot/ -ppendix ,! "olkien also pointed out that hy has the same relationship to y as h. (discussed above) has to normal .: one is unvoiced! the

other voiced. Ao another way of arriving at hy is to start with the sound of y (as in you) and produce a voiceless! "whispered" variant of it. =nce you have the sound pinned down! you only have to strengthen it5 it should be pronounced with the same force as ,nglish sh: 2yar!en "south"! hyal!a "shell! conch"! hyell& "glass". It seems that hy mostly occurs at the beginning of words5 ahya2 "change" is presently the sole known example of hy occurring between vowels in the middle of a word. Bowever! h in the combination ht following certain vowels should also be pronounced like hy5 see below. 6 In .ot/ -ppendix ,! "olkien noted that speakers of ?estron (the supposed "original language" of the /ed Cook! that "olkien "translated" into ,nglish) often substituted the sound of sh for Quenya hy. Apeakers of ,nglish who don0t care about subtle phonological details may of course do the same! turning a word like hyal!a into "shalma". "his would be a pronunciation that existed also within the $iddle2earth setting! though it was not 1uite like the proper ,lvish pronunciation (and it does seem best to aim for the latterN) I guess many speakers of ,nglish would hardly be able to tell the difference! though. Incidentally! one can achieve a pretty good hy by starting from sh5 4ust make sure that your tongue is not raised (you may press its tip against the lower teeth to be certain of that). If you try to pronounce sh with the tongue in this position! what comes out ought to sound like hy. T =utside the groups h.! hy! hl! hr! the letter h does represent an independent sound! but it is pronounced somewhat differently in different positions. It seems that originally! Quenya h (at least where it comes from +rimitive ,lvish #h) was typically stronger than ,nglish h 6 that is! a "breath2h" as in high. In EHanor0s day it was apparently pronounced like ch in 7erman ach or Acottish loch! or like ;yrillic 4. In phonetic writing! this sound is represented as OxP. Cut later! at the beginning of words! this OxP was weakened and became a sound like ,nglish h. In .ot/ -ppendix ,! "olkien informs us that the "engwa letter for OxP was originally called har!a5 naturally this "engwa was so called because the initial h of this word was an example of the sound the letter denoted! OxP. Cut when OxP in this position eventually turned into an ,nglish2style h! the "engwa was renamed aha! for in the middle of words! OxP was not weakened. Ao we can extract these rules: at the beginning of words (before a vowel)! the letter h is to be pronounced like ,nglish h. Cut in the middle of words! h is to be pronounced OxP: as between vowels in aha "wrath"! and likewise before t in words like ,ahta "closed"! ohta "war"! nuhta2 "to stunt". In one late source! "olkien noted that "in Quenya and "elerin medial OxP eventually became h also in most cases" (#"I(:9). It may therefore be permissible to pronounce even words like aha with an ,nglish2style breath2h. Cut the group ht must probably always be pronounced OxtP5 the weaker breath2h would be barely audible in this position. "his rule needs one modification. .ikely! h before t was originally pronounced OxP in all cases. Eollowing any of the vowels a! o! and u! this pronunciation persisted! as in the examples ,ahta! ohta! nuhta2 above. Cut

following the vowels i and e! the original OxP turned into a sound similar to 7erman ich2.aut (7erman may indeed be "olkien0s inspiration for this particular development in Quenya phonology). "hus in words like eht& "spear" or rihta2 "to 4erk"! h should be pronounced 4ust like the hy described above. -gain! "olkien imagined that human (mortal) speakers of ?estron had a tendency to substitute a sound like ,nglish sh and say "eshtH"! "rishta" instead. T Quenya l "represents more or less the sound of ,nglish initial l! as in let" (.ot/ -ppendix ,). ow why did "olkien specify that Quenya l is to sound like an initial ,nglish l (regardless of its position in a Quenya word)M -s "olkien was well aware! Critish ,nglish l is pronounced somewhat differently in different positions. -n initial l! as in let! is pronounced as a so2called "clear" l 6 and this is the kind of l that should be used in all positions in Quenya (as is also the case in other languages! like 7erman). Cut when l is not initial! ,nglish in most cases employs a so2called "dark" l! which differs from the the "clear" l in that the "dark" variant is pronounced by arching the back of the tongue upwards: ;ontrast the pronunciation of l in two words like let (clear l) and fill (dark l). ;ompared to the "clear" l! the "dark" l sounds lower pitched! but this sound is to be avoided in Quenya. "his may be something of a problem to -mericans! since their .0s tend to be rather "dark" in all positions! even initially (at least as perceived by ,uropean ears). 6 +erfectionists should also observe another detail: In .etters:I&)! "olkien mentioned l among the Quenya "dentals"! sc. sounds that are pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching the (upper) teeth. ,nglish normally uses an alveolar l instead! that is! a sound pronounced with the tip of the tongue further back! above the teeth rather than touching them. "his again makes for a somewhat "darker" sound. ?hen pronouncing a Quenya l! one should make sure that that the tip of the tongue touches the teeth. T Quenya n is like ,nglish n. Jsually this sound had been n all along! but in some cases it represents older n- as in ,nglish #ing! ding (notice that there is no distinct g to be heard! despite the spelling). Jnlike ,nglish! Quenya could also have this sound at the beginning of words. -s mentioned in the discussion of spelling conventions! "olkien sometimes used the letter 9 to represent this older n-! e.g. >oldor. In his letters! "olkien in one case added a footnote to the word Noldor (so spelt)! informing the recipient that the initial N was to be pronounced "ng as in ding" ()etters:(@K). "his would however be the "archaic" pronunciation5 people speaking Quenya in Erodo0s day would simply say Noldor: .ot/ -ppendix , clearly indicates that by the "hird -ge! initial 9 had come to be pronounced like a normal n! and therefore the ,lvish letter for 9 "has been transcribed n". ?e have adopted the same system here! so the letter n in nearly all cases represents normal ,nglish n! regardless of its phonological history in Quenya. I say "in nearly all cases" because n is still pronounced 9 before c (F /)! - and 7u. "his is not much of a problem! for it is natural for speakers of ,nglish and many other languages to use this pronunciation anyway. In a word like anca "4aw" the cluster nc is therefore pronounced like "nk" in

,nglish tan#! and in a word like an-a "iron" the n- should be sounded like "ng" in ,nglish finger. otice that Quenya n- occurring in the middle of words should always be pronounced with an audible g (this also goes for the group n-.! as in ten-.a "letter"). It is =" 4ust the simple 5 described above! the "ng" of ,nglish #ing! with no distinct g. (?e are of course talking about a hard g here5 Quenya n- must never be pronounced "n4" as in ,nglish angel! but always as in finger. "he sound of "soft" g as in ,nglish gin does not occur in Quenya.) T Quenya r "represents a trilled r in all positions5 the sound was not lost before consonants (as in OCritishP ,nglish part)" (.ot/ -ppendix ,). ,nglish r is generally much too weak for Quenya. Its weakness is precisely the reason why it tends to drop out before consonants and at the end of words (except where the ne0t word happens to begin in a vowel 6 and by analogy! some speakers of ,nglish even introduce an /2sound where a word that properly should end in a vowel comes before a word beginning in a vowel. "hat is when vanilla ice starts coming out as "vanillar ice" 6 or! if you like! "vanilla rice"N =f course! this must be avoided in Quenya.) Quenya r should be trilled! as in Apanish! Italian! /ussian etc.! or for that matter as in Acottish ,nglish. ;ertain subtleties of "engwar spelling suggests that in Quenya! r was somewhat weaker immediately in front of consonants (as opposed to vowels) and at the end of words. onetheless! it should be a properly trilled! wholly distinct sound even in these positions: Par!a "book"! erd& "seed"! tasar "willow"! Eldar ",lves". "he vowel in front of r should not be lengthened or otherwise affected. In the Dackson movie! the actors portraying 7andalf and Aaruman normally pronounce the name Mordor correctly! with trilled r0s and short vowels (whereas ,li4ah ?ood0s "Erodo" invariably says -6d6 with no trace of any r0sN) In the movie! Mordor is Aindarin for Clack .and! but by its form and pronunciation! the word could 4ust as well be Quenya !ordor F "shadows" or "stains" (the plural form of !ordo). "he uvular r that is common in languages like Erench and 7erman should be avoided in Quenya! for .ot/ -ppendix , states that this was "a sound which the ,ldar found distasteful" (it is even suggested that this was how the =rcs pronounced /N) T "he consonant s should always be unvoiced! "as in ,nglish so! geese" (.ot/ -ppendix ,). In ,nglish! s is often voiced to ?! even though orthography may still show "s". Eor instance! though the s of ,nglish house is unvoiced! it becomes voiced in the plural form houses (for this reason! "olkien noted that he would have liked the spelling houzes better 6 see +$:&I). ?hen pronouncing Quenya! one should be careful not to add voice to s! turning it into ?: Asar "festival"! olos "dream"! naus& "imagination". "hird -ge ,xilic Quenya did not possess the sound ? at all. ("olkien did imagine that ? had occurred at an earlier stage! but it had later turned into r! merging with original r. Eor instance! J":89K indicates that the plural of olos "dream" was at one stage olo?i! but later it became olori.) ?here it occurs between vowels! s often represents earlier 8

(more or less F th as in thin)5 the words asar and naus& mentioned above represent older a8ar and nau8& and were so spelt in "engwar orthography. T =n # and .: ?e must assume that # and . are properly pronounced as in ,nglish vine and wine! respectively (but initial n. is strictly not n Q . but simply a so2called labialized n5 see below). "here are some unclear points here! though. .ot/ -ppendix , seems to indicate that in "hird -ge Quenya! initial . had come to be pronounced #: it is said that the name of the "engwa letter #ilya had earlier been .ilya. .ikewise! "olkien indicated that the word #'ra ("personal! private! own") had been .'ra in what he called "=ld Quenya" (+$:8I'). In the 3tymologies! the evidence is somewhat divergent. Aometimes "olkien has primitive stems in +2 yield Quenya words in #2! as when the stem +1N yields Quenya #anya2 "go! depart! disappear". Aometimes he lists double forms! as when the stem +7 (or +1+1! +1/+1) yields Quenya #ai.a and .ai.a! both meaning "wind". Jnder the stem +1" "olkien listed a word for "envelope" as "w2 vaia"! evidently indicating a double form .aia and #aia (all of these examples are found in ./:89@). In ./:89:! there are further double forms! but in the case of the verb #ilin ("I fly") from the stem +/)! "olkien curiously changed it to .ilin. +erhaps he suddenly decided to go for the "=ld Quenya" spelling rather than actually re4ecting one in favour of the otherM "he weight of the evidence seems to be that at the beginning of words! .2 had come to be pronounced as normal #2 by the "hird -ge5 where "olkien listed double forms in .2 and #2! the former is apparently to be taken as the more archaic form. Bowever! I have not regulari3ed the spelling on this point! though where Tol#ien himself used or listed a form in #2 rather than .2 (either alone or as an alternative to .2)! I will use the form in #2 in this course. ("his also goes for #ilinN) It is possible! though! that according to the "hird -ge pronunciation all initial .0s should be sounded as #! the original distinction between initial # and . having been lost in the spoken language. It is unclear whether or not "olkien meant that this distinction was consistently upheld in "engwar orthography (as when this writing upheld the distinction between 8 and s even after both had come to be pronounced s). If so! the letter called (.ilya W) #ilya was still used for # representing older .! while another letter (#ala) was used for # that had been # all along. 6 =ther than at the beginning of words! the distinction between # and . was upheld even in the "hird -ge. In the case of the groups l. and l# the distinction could even be emphasi3ed by altering the pronunciation of the latter: "Eor lv! not for lw! many speakers! especially ,lves! used lb" (.ot/ -ppendix ,). Bence a word like el#&a "starlike" would often be pronounced "elbHa"! and it might also be so written in "engwar orthography. "hough fre1uent! this would seem to be a non2standard pronunciation! and the spellings employed by "olkien usually indicates the pronunciation "lv". ;f. for instance +el#ar (or "Velvar"! meaning animals) rather than +el0ar in the speeches of >avanna and $anwH in the Silmarillion! chapter &. In +$:8I' "olkien 1uotes a Quenya word for "branch" as ol0a rather than ol#a! though.

T "he letter y "is only used as a consonant! as y in ,OnglishP "es": "olkien singled this out as one of the few ma4or departures from .atin spelling in the spelling conventions he used for Quenya (.etters:(@K). "he vowel y! like 7erman 8 or Erench "u" as in lune! does not occur in Quenya (though it is found in Aindarin). The 7uestion of as,iration "here is one uncertainty regarding the precise pronunciation the unvoiced stops c (F /)! t! ,: In ,nglish as well as some other languages! these sounds! when occurring before a vowel at the beginning of a word! are normally aspirated. "hat is! a h2like puff of breath is slipped in after them. In this position they are pronounced a little like genuine se1uences / Q h! t Q h! , Q h (as in backhand; outhouse! scrap-heap). "he average speaker is not conscious of this at all! not really perceiving the extra h as a distinct sound: It is 4ust the way /! t! , is "expected" to sound at the beginning of words. Cut in some languages! like Erench! /ussian and (perhaps most importantly) Einnish! there is no such gratuitous h automatically following these consonants when they occur in certain positions. Ahould Quenya t! ,! c be aspirated as in ,nglish! or should they be pronounced as in Erench or EinnishM "his 1uestion is not directly addressed anywhere in "olkien0s published writings. It may be observed that Quenya t! ,! c descend from +rimitive ,lvish consonants that were certainly not aspirated! for in the primitive language they contrasted with distinct aspirated sounds: primitive th! ph! #h! which later became s! f! h in Quenya. (;f. two wholly distinct primitive words like thaur9 "detestable" and taur9 "masterful" 6 the th of the first word should be sounded the way a speaker of ,nglish would most likely mispronounce the t of the latterN "he t of taur9 should actually be pronounced Erench2style! with no aspiration.) Ao were Quenya t! ,! c still unaspirated! since they had been so in the primitive languageM Aince the primitive aspirated sounds had been changed! adding aspiration to t! ,! c would cause no confusion. It should be noted! though! that in the writing system devised by EHanor! there were originally distinct letters for aspirated sounds: ""he original EHanorian system also possessed a grade with extended stems! both above and below the line Oof writingP. "hese usually represented aspirated consonants (e.g. t Q h! p Q h! # Q h)" (.ot/ -ppendix ,). Bowever! these were not the letters used to spell Quenya t! ,! c. Ao all things considered! I think Quenya t! ,! c should ideally be pronounced without aspiration. Eor people who are used to automatically slip in a h2like puff of breath after these consonants it may be difficult to get rid of it! since they are not really conscious of its presence at all. - phonology teacher once advised me that one way of getting rid of the aspiration is to practice pronouncing t! ,! c%/ with a burning candle in front of your mouth5 the trick is to pronounce these

consonants without the flame of the candle flic#ering (because of the puff of breath that constitutes the aspiration). "he voiced counterparts of t! , and c%/! namely d! 0 and (hard) respectively! are not aspirated in ,nglish. Eor this reason! people who are used to hearing the unvoiced sounds pronounced as aspirated variants may (wrongly) perceive unaspirated unvoiced plosives as their voiced counterparts. +ronounced without aspiration! Quenya words like tarya ("stiff")! ,ar!a ("book") or cal!a ("lamp") may sound a little like "darya! barma! galma" to speakers of ,nglish (speakers of Erench! /ussian or Einnish would not be confused). ?hen pronouncing such words! one must not introduce vibration in the vocal chords to produce actual voiced sounds d! 0! -. 6 Cut I should add that the whole aspiration issue is not something a student needs to spend much time on5 as I said! the exact pronunciation of Quenya t! ,! c is nowhere addressed in published writings. If it is indeed wrong to add aspiration to these consonants! at least one will err little more than "olkien did himself when reading Namri. Palatali?ed and la0iali?ed consonants In Quenya! we find words like nyarna "tale"! tyali& "play" or n.alca "cruel". Erom these spellings it would seem that such words begin in consonant clusters: n Q y! t Q y! n Q .. Bowever! this would not agree with the explicit statement made in .owdham0s /eport that "-dunaic! like -vallonian OF QuenyaP! does not tolerate more than a single basic consonant initially in any word" (A<:I(@2I(:). Ao how are we to explain thisM "he solution seems to be that "combinations" like the ny of nyarna are 4ust single! basic consonants: Ny is not a cluster n Q y! but the same unitary sound that is fittingly represented as a single letter "X" in Apanish orthography 6 as in se5or. =f course! this sounds very much like "senyor"! but "X" is really a single consonant. "his "X" is a palatalized version of n! an n that has been "tinted" in the direction of y. ,nglish employs one distinctly palatali3ed consonant! usually represented by the digraph "sh" (which! of course! is not a cluster s Q h)5 this can be described as a palatali3ed s. Cy carefully comparing the pronunciation of s and sh you can perceive the palatali3ation mechanism operating in your own mouth: - consonant is palatali3ed by arching the back of the tongue up towards the roof of the mouth (the palate! hence the term "palatali3ed consonant"). "he relationship between s and sh corresponds to the relationship between n and Quenya ny (or Apanish "X"). Cesides ny! Quenya also has the palatali3ed consonants ty! ly! ry (e.g. in tyali& "play"! alya "rich"! #erya "bold")5 these are palatali3ed counterparts of "normal" t! l! r. /egarding ty! "olkien wrote that it may be pronounced as the "t" of ,nglish tune (see for instance A<:I(:2I(9 6 it should be noted that he is thinking of dialects where this comes out as "tyoon"5 this is not the case in all forms of -merican ,nglish). In 7ondor! some mortal speakers of Quenya supposedly pronounced ty like ch as in ,nglish church! but that was not 1uite

the proper ,lvish pronunciation. -s for the consonant ly! it would be similar to the "lh" of +ortuguese olho ("eye"). In .ot/ -ppendix ,! "olkien noted that l (so spelt) should also "to some degree ObeP 0palatali3ed0 between e! i and a consonant! or finally after e! i". "he wording "to some degree" seems to suggest that we would not have a regular! "full2blown" palatali3ed l in these positions (like the sound spelt ly)! but in words like Eldar ",lves" or a!il "mother"! the l should ideally have 4ust a little tint of palatali3ing to it. Cesides the palatali3ed consonants! we have the labialized consonants: n.! -. and 7u (F c.). "hese are not really clusters n Q .! - Q .! c Q .. /ather they represent n! -! c (/) pronounced with pouted lips! as when pronouncing .: Cy the pouting of the lips! the consonant is "labiali3ed" (this word comes from the .atin term for "lip"). Quenya 7u may certainly be pronounced as in ,nglish *ueen! but ideally it should be pronounced as / and . merged together in a single! unitary sound. ("rue! there does exist one early source where "olkien states that 7u! though originally being simply # "accompOaniedP by lip2 rounding"! "is now sounded practically exactly as ,nglish *u 6 a liprounded # follOowedP by a distinct w sound": Aee !arma 3ldalamberon Y(8! page K8. Bowever! I think this idea may be superseded by information from a much later source! indicating that Quenya had no initial consonant clusters: A<:I(@2I(:.) N. and -. similarly represent "merged" versions of n%.! -%.. 6 It should be noted that n. is a single! labiali3ed consonant only at the beginning of words! where it represents earlier n-. (sc. what "olkien might also spell "Xw"! using "X" for ng as in #ing). In the middle of words! e.g. in #an.a "gone! lost"! n. really is a cluster n Q . and is so spelt also in "engwar orthography. Bowever! the labiali3ed consonants 7u and -. also occur in the middle of words. In fact! -. occurs only in that position! and always in the combination n-. (not "Xw" but "Xgw"! still using "X" as "olkien did): Lin-.& "fish"! nan-.a "4aw"! sun-.a "drinking2vessel". The *uestion of length It may seem that when they occur medially between vowels! the palatali3ed and labiali3ed consonants count as long or double consonants (as if the digraphs represented actual consonant clusters after all). -gain using the letter "X" with its Apanish value of a palatali3ed n (and not! as "olkien often did! for ng as in #ing)! one may ask whether a word like atarinya ("my father"! ./:K() actually represents "atariXXa". If so! the group ny in the middle of words denotes a long palatalized N. "hen the very word Quenya would be pronounced "QueXXa" rather than "Quen2ya". -nother possibility is "QueXya"! the n being palatali3ed all right! but there is still a relatively distinct y2sound following it (which there would not be when ny occurs at the beginning of a word). "olkien reading a version of Namri at least once pronounced the word inyar as "iXXar" (but the second time it occurred he simply said "inyar" with n Q y). In any case! the groups ny! ly! ry! ty and 7u (for c.) must be counted as either long consonants or consonant clusters for the

purpose of stress (see below) 6 though it is also clear that sometimes they must be analy3ed as single! unitary consonants. Stress ?henever a language has polysyllabic words! speakers of this language may enunciate some syllables more forcefully than others. ?e say that these syllables are stressed or accented. In some languages speakers don0t normally emphasi3e certain syllables more than others. Eor instance! the Dapanese put about the same amount of stress on every syllable! resulting in what unloving foreigners have referred to as "machine gun articulation". Cut in ?estern languages! a varying amount of stress is common: Aome syllables are stressed! others unstressed. "he rules for which syllables are stressed vary wildly! though. Aome languages have a very simple system5 in Erench! words that are to receive any stress are always accented on the final syllable. "o the natives! +aris is not "!1,is" as in ,nglish! but rather "par/S" (actually the Erench don0t pronounce the s! but that has nothing to do with the accent). "he Einns also have a very simple system! stressing all words on the first syllable: ?hile some speakers of ,nglish may think that Belsinki is most "naturally" pronounced "BelS/N:i"! the residents of the city will insist on "23)sinki" instead. Aince the Einnish language was evidently "olkien0s foremost inspiration! one might think that he would have copied its simple system of accenting all words on the first syllable over into Quenya. In the "internal" or fictional history of the language! he did indeed envision an early period during which Quenya words were so accented (the so2called retraction period! ?D:8KK). Bowever! this was replaced by a new system already before the oldor went into exile! so Quenya as a language of lore in $iddle2earth employed different accentuation patterns! carefully described in .ot/ -ppendix ,. "his is the system we must use. (It seems that "olkien actually copied it from .atinN) ?ords of one syllable! like nat "thing"! obviously pose no problem5 this one syllable is the sole candidate for receiving the stress. "he simplest polysyllabic words! those of two syllables! are no problem either: In .ot/ -ppendix ,! "olkien noted that "in words of two syllables Othe accentP falls in practically all cases on the first syllable". -s this wording implies! there may be a very few exceptions5 the only exception known seems to be the word a#% "don0tN"! that is accented on the final syllable: "aV;". (,ven this one word also appears in the alternative form %#a! stressed on the first syllable according to the normal rule: ";Va".) "he name of the Clessed /ealm! A!an! I sometimes hear people pronounce with the stress on the second rather than the first syllable 6 but the correct pronunciation must be "1-an"! if we can trust the rules set out by "olkien. ("-m1N" would be -mman! capital of DordanN) .onger words! with three or more syllables! are slightly more complex when it comes to stress. $any of them are accented on the second to last syllable. Bowever! in some cases the second2to2last syllable isn0t "1ualified" to

receive the accent: "his syllable cannot be accented if it is short. Ao how do we recogni3e a short syllableM If it contains no long vowel (no vowel marked with an accent)! this is obviously one omen. "hen the vowel itself is necessarily short. If this short vowel is followed by only one consonant! or even no consonant at all! this syllable has little chance of receiving the accent. Its one remaining chance of redeeming itself as a long syllable is that instead of a simple short vowel it actually contains one of the Quenya diphthongs: ai! au! eu! oi! ui or iu. "wo vowels combined into a diphthong count as having the same "length" as a normal! unitary long vowel (marked by an accent). Cut if there is no diphthong! no long vowel! and not even a short vowel followed by more than one consonant! the syllable in 1uestion is irredeemably short. If this is the second2to2 last syllable in a word of three or more syllables! this penultimate syllable has forfeited all its chances to receive the stress. In such a case the stress moves one step ahead! to fall on the third syllable from the end (no matter what this syllable looks like). "olkien noted that words of such a shape "are favoured in the ,ldarin languages! especially Quenya". ,xamples: T - word like #estal& "wedding" is accented "V3STalH". "he second2to2 last syllable cannot receive the stress because its vowel (the a) is short and followed by only a single consonant (the l)5 hence the accent moves one step ahead! to the third syllable from the end. +lural forms like Teleri (the Aea2,lves) and *stari (the ?i3ards) I sometimes hear people mispronounce as ""e)3,i"! "IsT1,i"5 applying "olkien0s rules we have to conclude that he actually intended "T3)eri"! "/STari". "he short penultimate syllables in these words cannot be accented. T - word like Eress&a (the name of an isle near the Clessed /ealm) some speakers of ,nglish are tempted to accent on the second2to2last syllable (following the stress2pattern of such a place2name as ",ritrea"N) Cut since in Er1 ess1&1a the second2to2last syllable is 4ust a short & not followed by a group of consonants (actually not even one consonant)! this syllable cannot be accented and the stress moves to the syllable before it: ",r3SSHa". =ther words of the same pattern (with no consonant following a short vowel in the second2to2last syllable): Eldali& "the people of the ,lves" (",lD1liH" 6 though the word Elda ",lf" by itself is of course accented "3)da")! Tilion ""he Borned"! name of a $aia ("T/)ion")! laur&a "golden" (")1<,Ha")! 6a#anni& "Aeptember" (">aV1NNiH")! Sil!arillion "O"he AtoryP of the Ailmarils" ("Ailma,/))ion"). Cut though such words were "favoured"! there is certainly no lack of words where the second2to2last syllable does 1ualify for receiving the accent. ,xamples: T #arda0s title Elent%ri "Atar2Queen" is pronounced ",lenT;,i"! since the vowel % in the second2to2last syllable is long. (If this had been a short a! it couldn0t have been stressed since it is not followed by more than one consonant! and the third syllable from the end would have been accented instead: ",)3Ntari" 6 but no such word exists.) "he names N !en$r&! @alin$r& are

likewise accented on the long $ in the second2to2last syllable (whereas in the shortened forms N !enor! @alinor the accent must fall on the third syllable from the end: N=-enor! V1)inor). T ?ords like hastaina "marred" or @alarauco "+ower2demon" (Aindarin >alrog) are accented "hasT1/Na"! "#ala,1<$o" 6 since diphthongs like ai! au can be counted as long vowels for the purpose of stress. T "he names Elendil and *sildur are accented ",l3NDil" and "Is/)Dur"! since the vowel in the second2to2last2syllable! though short! is followed by more than one consonant (the groups nd! ld! respectively). - double consonant would have the same effect as a cluster of different consonants5 for instance! Elenna ("Atarwards"! a name of Zmenor) is pronounced ",l3NNa". (;ontrast the ad4ective elena "stellar! of the stars": this must be accented "3)ena" since the second2to2last syllable "en" is short and therefore unable to receive the accent 6 unlike the long syllable "enn" in Elenna.) otice that the one letter : represents two consonants! /s. "herefore! a word like 2elcara:& (a place2name) is accented "Belcar14H" (not "Bel$1,axH" as if there were only one consonant following the a in the second2to2last syllable). ;f. the alternative spelling 2el/ara/se in the 3tymologies! entry :1,1:. -s noted above! some combinations should apparently be thought of as single consonants: 7u (for c.%/.) represents labialized /! not / Q .. Aimilarly! ny! ty! ly! ry would be palatalized n! t! l! r (the first F Apanish 5). Cut in the middle of words! for the purpose of stress! it seems that 7u! ly! ny! ty etc. do count as groups of consonants (double consonants or clusters 6 we cannot be certain precisely what "olkien intended). In ?D:I'@! "olkien indicates that the compound word cirya7uen "shipman! sailor" (made from cirya "ship" Q 27uen "person") is to be accented "cir"11uen". If 7u (F c.%/.) were here thought of as a single consonant! labiali3ed /! there would not be a group of consonants following the a and it could not receive the accent: the word would then have been pronounced "$/,ya1uen" instead. Ao either 7u here does count as a cluster / Q .! or it represents a long or double labiali3ed / (or even labiali3ed /. followed by .). Cottom line is: pronounce "cir"11uen" and be relieved that the rest is mainly academic meandering. - few other words including the combinations in 1uestion: Elenya (first day of the ,ldarin six2day week! accented ",l3Nya")! +alacirya or +alacilya (a place in the Clessed /ealm! accented ";ala$/rya"! ";ala$/lya"). 1 word of warning regarding the accent mar# otice that the accent mark that may appear above vowels (%! '! ! $! ) only denotes that the vowel is long. ?hile this symbol is fre1uently used to indicate the stressed syllable! this is not the case in "olkien0s normal spelling of Quenya. (Aome may have noted that !o#?mon isn0t accented on the ? either! so "olkien isn0t wildly idiosyncratic in this departmentN) - long vowel will often receive the stress! as in the example

Elent%ri above! but not necessarily so: If the long vowel does not appear in the second2to2last syllable! its length (and the accent mark denoting itN) is 1uite irrelevant for the purpose of stress. In a word like Alairi! the Quenya name for the /ingwraiths or a3g[l! the stress falls on the diphthong ai! not on the . "he spelling ,alantr has mislead many! making them think that this word is to be accented on "tGr". Bere is something Ian $cVellen! playing 7andalf in the +eter Dackson .ot/ movie trilogy! wrote as the film was being shot: ...I have to learn a new pronunciation. -ll this time we have being saying "palan"\/" instead of the =ld ,nglish stress on the first syllable. Dust as the word was about to be committed to the soundtrack! a correction came from -ndrew Dack! the <ialect ;oach5 he taught me a orfolk accent for ,estoration! and for .="/ he supervises accents! languages and all things vocal. !alant@r! being strictly of elvish origin should follow "olkien0s rule that the syllable before a double consonant should be stressed 6 "pa.- "Gr" making a sound which is close to "lantern"... -ndrew Dack was right. Palantr cannot be stressed on the final syllable5 virtually no polysyllabic Quenya words are accented in such a way (as I said above! a#% "don0tN" is the sole known exception). Instead the a in the second2to2 last syllable receives the accent because it is followed by the consonant cluster nt (I should not call this a "double consonant" like $cVellen does! since I want to reserve that term for a group of two identical consonants! like tt or nn 6 but for the purpose of stress! double consonants and clusters of different consonants have the same effect). Ao it is indeed "pal1NTGr". (Cut in the plural form ,alantri! where the long suddenly appears in the second2to2last syllable! it does receive the accent: "palanTA,i".) In the case of long words ending in two short syllables! the last of these syllables may receive a weaker secondary stress. In a word like hsi!& "mist"! the main stress falls on hs! but the final syllable 2!& is not wholly unstressed. "his secondary stress is much weaker than the main accent! though. ( onetheless! "olkien did note that for the purpose of poetry! the secondary stress can be used metrically: /7,=:K9.) S,eed Einally a brief note on something we know little about: Bow fast should one talk when speaking QuenyaM "he few recordings of "olkien speaking Quenya are not "reliable" in this matter5 he inevitably enunciates 1uite carefully. Cut regarding EHanor0s mother -@riel he noted that "she spoke swiftly and took pride in this skill" (+$:888). Ao fast Quenya is evidently good Quenya. ?hen "olkien also wrote that "the ,lves made considerable use of...concomitant gestures" (?D:I(K)! one remembers that he had a great love for /talian 6 see .etters:&&8.

Summary of )esson Bne "he Quenya vowels are a! e! i! o! u5 long vowels are marked with an accent: %! ' etc. "he vowels should be pure! pronounced with their "Italian" values5 long % and ' should be noticably closer than short a! e. Aome vowels may receive a diaeresis (&! < etc.)! but this does not affect their pronunciation and is only intended as a clarification for people used to ,nglish orthography. "he diphthongs are ai! au! eu! oi! ui! and iu. "he consonant c is always pronounced #5 l should be pronounced as a "clear"! dental .5 r should be trilled5 s is always unvoiced5 y is only used as a consonant (as in ,nglish you). Ideally! the consonants t! ,! c should probably be unaspirated. +alatali3ed consonants are represented by digraphs in 2y (ty! ny etc.)5 labiali3ed consonants are normally written as digraphs in 2. (e.g. n.! but what would be c. is spelt 7u instead). 2 is pronounced OxP (7erman ach-)aut) before t! unless this combination ht is preceded by one of the vowels e or i! in which case h is sounded like 7erman ich-)aut. =therwise! h may be pronounced like ,nglish h5 the digraphs hy and h. however represent ich-)aut and unvoiced . (like -merican ,nglish wh)! respectively. "he combinations hl and hr originally represented unvoiced l! r! but by the "hird -ge! these sounds had come to be pronounced like normal l and r. In polysyllabic words! the stress falls on the second2to2last syllable when that is long (containing either a long vowel! a diphthong! or a vowel followed by a consonant cluster or a double consonant). If the second2to2last syllable is short! the stress falls on the third syllable from the end (unless the word has only two syllables! in which case the first syllable receives the stress whether it is short or long). EBER+*SES -s far as the most critical subtleties of pronunciation are concerned! I unfortunately cannot make any exercises5 we are not in a classroom so that I can comment on your pronunciation. Cut regarding stress (accent) and the pronunciation of h! it is possible to make exercises. (. <etermine which vowel (single vowel or diphthong) receives the accent in the words below. (It is not necessary to indicate where the entire syllable it belongs to begins and ends.) 1& Alcar ("glory") >& Alcar& (longer variant of the above) $& Alcarin7ua ("glorious") D& +ali!a ("bright") 3& Oronti ("mountains") (& An$ti!& ("uncountable! numberless") C. En#inyatar ("renewer") 2& 3lund& ("flood") /& E<ruil& ("seaweed")

.& Ercass& ("holly") ,xtra exercise on stress: ?hile we hear many Aindarin lines in the movie! one of the few really prominent samples of Quenya in +eter Dackson0s The (ellowship of the ,ing is the scene where "Aaruman" (;hristopher .ee) standing on the top of Isengard reads an invocation to bring down an avalanche in order to stop the Eellowship. Be says to the mountain they are attempting to cross: Nai yar#a:&a rasselya taltu#a notto1carinnar( F "may your bloodstained horn collapse upon enemy headsN" (not translated in the movie). "he actor accents the words like this: nai yar@AB&a RASSelya TALTu#a notto1+ARinnar. -re all the words accented as they should be! according to "olkien0s guidelinesM If not! what is right and what is wrongM &. ?here the letter h appears in Quenya words as they are spelt in our letters! it may be pronounced in various ways. Ignoring the digraphs h. and hy! the letter h may be pronounced -) a "breath2h" like ,nglish h as in high! C) more or less as in ,nglish huge! human or ideally like ch in 7erman ich! ;) like ch in 7erman ach or Acottish loch (in phonetic writing OxP). In addition we have alternative <): the letter h is not really pronounced at all! but merely indicates that the following consonant was unvoiced in archaic Quenya. Aort the words below into these four categories (-! C! ;! <): :& Ohtar ("warrior") )& 2r%#& ("flesh") -& Nahta ("a bite") N& 2eru ("lord") B& Neht& ("spearhead") !& Mahal!a ("throne") D& 2ell& ("sky") ,& Tihtala ("blinking") S& 2l$c& ("snake! serpent") T& 2si& ("mist") The #eys to the e0ercises found in this course can be downloaded from this <,) http:%%www.uib.no%+eople%hnohf%keys.rtf

LESSON TCO
Nouns. Plural for!. The article.

?ords that denote things! as opposed to for instance actions! are called nouns. "he "things" in 1uestion may be inanimate (like "stone")! animate (like "person"! "woman"! "boy")! natural (like "tree")! artificial (like "bridge! house")! concrete (like "stone" again) or wholly abstract (like "hatred"). ames of persons! like "+eter" or "$ary"! are also considered nouns. Aometimes a noun may denote! not one clearly distinct ob4ect or person! but an entire substance (like "gold" or "water"). Ao there is much to be included. In most languages! a noun can be inflected! that is! it appears in various forms to modify its meaning! or to make it fit into a specific grammatical context. Eor instance! if you want to connect two ,nglish nouns like "$ary" and "house" in such a way as to make it clear that $ary owns the house! you modify the form of the noun -ary by adding the ending 2Es! producing -aryEs! which readily connects with house to make the phrase -aryEs house. =r starting with a noun like tree! you may want to make it clear that you are talking about more than one singular tree! and so you modify the word to its plural form by adding the plural ending 2s to get trees. In ,nglish! a noun doesn0t have very many forms at all5 there is the singular (e.g. girl)! its plural (girls)! the form you use when the one denoted by the noun owns something (girlEs) and the combination of the plural and this "ownership"2form (written girlsE and unfortunately not really distinct from girls or girlEs in sound! but speakers of ,nglish somehow get along without too many misunderstandings 6 rest assured that the Quenya e1uivalents are clearly distinct in formN) Ao an ,nglish noun comes in no more than four different forms. - Quenya noun! on the other hand! comes in hundreds of different forms. It can receive endings not only for two different kinds of plural! plus endings denoting a pair of things! but also endings expressing meanings that in ,nglish would be denoted by placing small words like "for! in%on! from! to! of! with" etc. in front of the noun instead. Einally a Quenya noun can also receive endings denoting who owns it! e.g. 2rya2 "her" in !%ryat "her hands" in Namri (the final 2t! by the way! is one of the endings denoting a pair of something 6 in this case a natural pair of hands). Baving read the above! the student should not succumb to the idea that Quenya is a horribly difficult language ("imagine! hundreds of different forms to learn where ,nglish has only fourN")! or for that matter start thinking that Quenya must be some kind of super2language ("wow! hundreds of different forms to play with while the poor ,nglish2speaking sods have to get along with a pitiful fourN") ,nglish and Quenya organi3e the information differently! that is all 6 the former often preferring a string of short words! the latter rather 4umbling the ideas to be expressed into one big mouthful. "he hundreds of different forms arise because a much lower number of endings can be combined! so there is no reason to despair. It is a little like counting5 you needn0t learn two hundred and fifty different numeric symbols to be able to count to &)'! but only the ten from ' to 9.

$ost of the endings a noun can take we won0t discuss until (much) later lessons. ?e will start with something that should be familiar enough! found even on the puny list of ,nglish noun2forms: $aking a noun plural 6 going from one to several. In Quenya! there are two different plurals. =ne is formed by adding the ending 2li to the noun. "olkien called this the "partitive plural" (?D:8::) or a "general plOuralP" (see the 3tymologies! entry T3)3S). Jnfortunately! the function of this plural 6 sc. how it differs in meaning from the more "normal" plural discussed below 6 is not fully understood. ?e have a few examples of this plural in our scarce source material! but they are not very helpful. Eor a long time it was assumed that this plural implied that there were "many" of the things in 1uestion5 hence Eldali (formed from Elda ",lf") would mean something like "many ,lves". "here may be something to this! but in several of the examples we have! there seems to be no implication of "many". It has been suggested that Eldali may rather mean something like "several ,lves" or "some ,lves"! sc. some out of a larger group! some considered as part of this group: "he term "partitive plural" may point in the same direction. Bowever! I will for the most part leave the partitive plural alone throughout this course. Its function 4ust isn0t well enough understood for me to construct exercises that would only mean feeding some highly tentative interpretation to unsuspecting students. (I present some thoughts about the 2li plural in the appendices to this course.) Eor now we will deal with the "normal" plural form instead. -ny reader of "olkien0s narratives will have encountered plenty of examples of this form5 they are especially common in the Silmarillion. ouns ending in any of the four vowels 2a! 2o! 2i or 2u ! plus nouns ending in the group 2i&! form their plural with the ending 2r. ;f. the names of various groups of people mentioned in the Silmarillion: Elda ",lf"! plural Eldar @ala "god (or technically angel)"! pl. @alar Ainu "spirit of 7od0s first creation"! pl. Ainur Noldo " oldo! member of the Aecond ;lan of the ,ldar"! pl. Noldor @ali& "female #ala"! pl. @alier Eor another example of 2i&! cf. tier for "paths" in Namri5 compare singular ti& "path". (-ccording to the spelling conventions here employed! the diaeresis in ti& is dropped in the plural form tier because the dots are there merely to mark that final 2& is not silent! but in tier! e is not final anymore because an ending has been added 6 and hence the dots go.) ,xamples of the plurals of nouns in 2i are rare! since nouns with this ending are rare themselves! but in $/:&&9 we have 7uendir as the pl. of 7uendi ",lf2woman" (and also 7uendur as the pl. of 7uendu ",lf2man"5 nouns in 2u are not very numerous either).

"his singular word 7uendi ",lf2woman" must not be confused with the plural word Quendi that many readers of "olkien0s fiction will remember from the Silmarillion! for instance in the description of the awakening of the ,lves in chapter 8: ""hemselves they named the Quendi! signifying those that speak with voices5 for as yet they had met no other living things that spoke or sang." Quendi is the plural form of Quend& ",lf"5 nouns ending in 2& typically form their plurals in 2i! and as we see! this 2i replaces the final 2& instead of being added to it. In ?D:8K(! "olkien explicitly refers to "nouns in 2e! the ma4ority of which formed their plurals in 2i". -s this wording implies! there are exceptions5 a few nouns in 2& are seen to use the other plural ending! 2r! instead. =ne exception we have already touched on: where the 2& is part of 2i&! we have plurals in 2ier! as in tier "paths". Bence we avoid the awkward plural form ]]tii. =ther exceptions cannot be explained as easily. In .ot/ -ppendix ,! we have tyeller for "grades"! evidently the plural of tyell&. ?hy tyeller instead of ]]tyelliM ./:I@ likewise indicates that the plural of !all& "road" is !aller5 why not ]]!alliM It may be that nouns in 2l& have plurals in 2ler because "regular" ]]2li might cause confusion with the partitive plural ending 2li mentioned above. Jnfortunately! we lack more examples that could confirm or disprove this theory (and so I don0t dare to construct any exercises based on this assumption! though I would follow this rule in my own Quenya compositions). "he form tyeller confused early researchers5 with extremely few examples to go on! some wrongly concluded that nouns in 2& regularly have plurals in 2er. "he name of the early 4ournal Par!a Eldala!0eron or "Cook of ,lven2tongues" (sporadically published still) reflects this mistake5 the title incorporates ]]la!0er as the presumed plural of la!0& "tongue! language"! while we now know that the correct plural must be la!0i. "hough the error was early suspected and is now recogni3ed by everyone! the publisher never bothered to change the name of the 4ournal to the correct form Par!a Eldala!0ion (and so! ever and anon! I get an e2mail from some fresh student wondering why my site is called Ardala!0ion and not Ardala!0eron...) In some cases! "olkien himself seems uncertain which plural ending should be used. In +$:88&! the plural form of *n-.& ",lf of the Eirst ;lan Oalso name of the king of that clanP" is given as *n-.i! 4ust as we would expect5 yet a few pages later! in +$:8I'! we find *n-.er instead (it is there said that the Eirst ;lan! the #anyar! called themselves Ingwer! so perhaps this reflects a special #anyarin usageM) It may be noted that in "olkien0s earliest "Qenya"! more nouns in 2& apparently had plural forms in 2er. Eor instance! the early poem Nar*elion has lasser as the plural of lass& "leaf"! but in Namri in .ot/ "olkien used the plural form lassi. -s far as I know! the words in the exercises below all follow the normal rule: ouns ending in 2&! except as a part of 2i&! have plurals in 2i.

"his leaves only one group of nouns to be considered! namely those that end in a consonant. "hese nouns! 4ust like those that end in 2&! are seen to have plurals in 2i. - few examples: Eleni "stars"! the plural form of elen "star"! occurs in Namri (and also in ?D:8K&! where both the singular and the plural form are 1uoted). "he Silmarillion has Atani for "$en" (not "males"! but humans as opposed to ,lves)5 this is formed from the singular word Atan. -ccording to ?D:8::! the word +asar "<warf" has the plural +asari "<warves". =f these two plural endings 6 r as in Eldar ",lves"! but i as in Atani "($ortal) $en" 6 "olkien imagined the latter to be the most ancient. "he plural ending 2i comes directly from +rimitive ,lvish 2F! a word like Quendi representing primitive :wendF. "he plural ending 2r arose later: "Eor the showing of many the new device of r was brought in and used in all words of a certain shape 6 and this! it is said! was begun among the oldor" (+$:I'&). In primary2world terms! both plural endings were however present in "olkien0s conception from the beginning5 already in his earliest work on "Qenya"! written during ?orld ?ar I! we find forms like Qendi (as it was then spelt) and Eldar coexisting. "he twin plural endings are a feature that evidently survived throughout all the stages of "olkien0s development of Quenya! from (9() to (9@8.
=", = "B, <IEE,/, " ?=/<A E=/ ",.E": -s the attentive reader will have inferred from the above! there is more than one Quenya word for ",lf". "he word with the widest application! within the scope of "olkien0s fiction! was Quend& pl. Quendi. "his form is at least associated with the word "to speak" (7uet2)! and "olkien speculated that ultimately these words were indeed related via a very primitive base :+32 having to do with vocal speech (see ?D:89(289&). ?hen the ,lves awoke by the mere of ;uivi^nen! they called themselves Quendi (or in primitive ,lvish actually :wendF) since for a long time they knew of no other speaking creatures. ,ventually the #ala Brom found them under a starlit sky! and he gave them a new name in the language they themselves had developed: 3ld9i! often translated "Atarfolk". In Quenya! this primitive word later appeared as Eldar (singular Elda). ?hile the term Eldar (3ld9i) was originally meant to apply to the entire ,lvish race! it was later only used of the ,lves that accepted the invitation of the #alar to come and dwell in the Clessed /ealm of -man and embarked on the 7reat $arch to get there (the term Eldar is also applicable to those who never actually made it all the way to -man! such as the Sindar or 7rey2elves who stayed in Celeriand). "hose who refused the invitation were called A#ari! "/efusers"! and hence all ,lves (Quendi) can be subdivided into Eldar and A#ari. =nly the former play any important part in "olkien0s narratives. Ao in later Quenya the situation was this: Quend& pl. Quendi remained as the only truly universal term for all ,lves of any kind! but this was a technical word primarily used by the .oremasters! not a word that would be used in daily speech. "he gender2 specific variants of Quend& ",lf"! namely masculine 7uendu and feminine 7uendi! would presumably be used only if you wanted to speak of a specifically 3lvish (wo)man as opposed to a (wo)man of any other sentient race: "hese are not the normal Quenya words for "man" and "woman" (the normal words are n'r and ns! presumably applicable to a man or woman of any sentient race! not 4ust ,lves). "he normal! everyday Quenya term for ",lf" was Elda! and the fact that this word technically didn0t apply to ,lves of the obscure -varin tribes living somewhere far east in $iddle2earth was no big problem since none of them was ever seen anyway. /egarding the compound Eldali& (which combines Elda with li& "people! folk") "olkien wrote that when one of the ,lves of -man used this word! "he meant vaguely all the race of ,lves! though he was probably not thinking of the -vari" (?D:8@I). 6 "hroughout the exercises found in this course! I have used Elda (rather than Quend&) as the standard translation of ,nglish ",lf"! regardless of any speciali3ed meaning it may have within "olkien0s mythos. -s I said in the Introduction! in these exercises I largely eschew specific references to "olkien0s mythos and narratives.

T2E ART*+LE

?e have time for one more thing in this lesson: the article. -n article! linguistically speaking! is such a word as ,nglish "the" or "a! an". "hese little words are used in con4unction with nouns to express such different shades of meaning as "a horse" vs. "the horse". -nyone capable of reading this text in the first place will know what the difference is! so no lengthy explanation is necessary. In short! "a horse" refers to a horse that hasn0t been mentioned before! so you slip in the article "a" as a kind of introduction: ".ook! there0s a horse over thereN" >ou may also use the phrase "a horse" if you want to say something that is true of any horse! as in "a horse is an animal". If! on the other hand! you say "the horse"! it usually refers to one definite horse. Bence "the" is termed the definite article! while "a! an"! lacking this "definite" aspect! is conversely called the indefinite article. In this respect at least! Quenya is somewhat simpler than ,nglish. Quenya has only one article! corresponding to the ,nglish definite article "the" (and since there is no indefinite article it must be distinguished from! we may simply speak of "the article" when discussing Quenya). "he Quenya word corresponding to ,nglish "the" is i. Eor instance! Namri has i eleni for "the stars". -s can be inferred from the above! Quenya has no word corresponding to ,nglish "a! an". ?hen translating Quenya into ,nglish! one simply has to slip in "a" wherever ,nglish grammar demands an indefinite article! as in the famous greeting Elen sla l !enn" o!entiel#o! "a star shines upon the hour of our meeting". -s we see! the first word of the Quenya sentence is simply elen "star"! with nothing corresponding to the ,nglish indefinite article "a" before it (or anywhere else in the sentence! for that matter). In Quenya! there is no way you can maintain the distinction between "a star" and 4ust "star"5 both are simply elen. .uckily there isn0t much of a distinction to be maintained anyway. .anguages like -rabic! Bebrew and classical 7reek employ a similar system: there is a definite article corresponding to ,nglish "the"! but nothing corresponding to the ,nglish indefinite article "a! an" (and this is the system used in ,speranto as well). -fter all! the absence of the definite article is itself enough to signal that a (common) noun is indefinite! so the indefinite article is in a way superfluous. "olkien decided to do without it in Quenya! so students only have to worry about i F "the". Aometimes! "olkien connects the article to the next word by means of a hyphen or a dot: i1!ar "the earth" ((@rielEs Song)! iDcoi!as "the lifebread" (+$:89K). Bowever! he did not do so in .ot/ (we have already 1uoted the example i eleni "the stars" in Namri)! and neither will we here. "he Quenya article is generally used as in ,nglish. Bowever! some nouns that would re1uire the article in ,nglish are apparently counted as proper names in Quenya! and so take no article. Eor instance! the sentence Anar calu#a tielyanna is translated "the Aun shall shine upon your path" (J":&&! )()5 yet there is no article in the Quenya sentence. ""he Aun" is not ]]i Anar! but simply Anar. ;learly Anar is perceived as a proper name! designating one celestial

body only! and you don0t have to say "the -nar" any more than an ,nglish2 speaking person would say "the $ars". "he name of "the" $oon! *sil! undoubtedly behaves like Anar in this respect. It may be noted that both words are treated as proper names in the Silmarillion! chapter ((: "Isil was first wrought and made ready! and first rose into the realm of the stars... -nar arose in glory! and the first dawn of the Aun was like a great fire..." -lso notice that before a plural denoting an entire people (or even race)! the article is not normally used. ?D:I'I mentions a saying @alar #alu#ar! "the will of the #alar will be done" (or more literally ]"the #alar will rule"). otice that "the #alar" is simply @alar in Quenya! not i @alar. Aimilarly! +$:89) has la!0& Quendion for "language of the ,lves" and coi!as Eldaron for "coimas OlembasP of the ,ldar" 6 not ]]la!0& i Quendion! ]]coi!as i Eldaron. ("he ending 2on here appended to the plurals Quendi! Eldar signifies "of"5 this ending should not affect whether or not the article has to be present before the word.) ?ith this usage compare "olkien0s use of "$en" in his narratives to refer to the human race as such: "$en awoke in BildSrien at the rising of the Aun... darkness lay upon the hearts of $en... $en (it is said) were at first very few in number..." (Silmarillion! chapter (@.) Cy contrast! "the $en" would refer! not to the entire race! but only to a casual group of "$en" or humans. Quenya plurals denoting entire peoples or races seem to behave in the same way. In a Quenya text there would probably be no article before plurals like @alar! Eldar! @anyar! Noldor! Lindar! Teleri! Atani etc. as long as the entire race or people is considered! even though "olkien0s ,nglish narratives speak of "the #alar"! "the ,ldar" etc. Bowever! if we replace Eldar with its e1uivalent ",lves"! we see that the article often would often not be re1uired in ,nglish! either (e.g. ",lves are beautiful" F Eldar nar #any&5 if you say "the ,lves are beautiful" F i Eldar nar #any&! you are probably describing once particular group of ,lves! not the entire race). =ccasionally! especially in poetry! the article seemingly drops out for no special reason. +erhaps it is simply omitted because of metric considerations. "he first line of Namri! ai( lauri& lantar lassi s rinen! "olkien translated "ahN like gold fall the leaves..." 6 though there is no i before lassi "leaves" in the Quenya text. "he $arkirya poem also leaves out the article in a number of places! if we are to 4udge by "olkien0s ,nglish translation of it. Summary of )esson Two "here is a plural ending 2li the function of which we don0t fully understand! so we will leave it alone for now. "he normal plural is formed by adding 2r to nouns ending in any of the vowels 2a! 2i! 2o! 2u! plus nouns ending in 2i&. If! on the other hand! the noun ends in 2& (except! of course! as part of 2i&) the plural ending is usually 2i (displacing the final 2&)5 nouns ending in a consonant also form their plurals in 2i. "he Quenya definite article!

corresponding to ,nglish "the"! is i5 there is no indefinite article like ,nglish "a! an". @O+A)3LAR6 /egarding Erodo hearing 7aladriel singing Namri! the .ot/ states that "as is the way of ,lvish words! they remained graven in his memory". "his may be a comforting thought to students attempting to memori3e Quenya vocabulary. In the lessons proper! while I discuss various aspects of Quenya! I will normally mention 1uite a few words 6 but in the exercises! I will only use words from the "vocabulary" list that is hereafter presented at the end of each lesson. "hus! this is all the student is excepted to carefully memori3e (doing the exercises for the next lessons! you will also need vocabulary introduced earlier). ?e will introduce twelve new words in each lesson: a fitting number! since "olkien0s ,lves preferred counting in twelves rather than tens as we do. - unified list of all the vocabulary henceforth employed in the exercises of this course can be downloaded from this J/.: http:%%www.uib.no%+eople%hnohf%12vocab.rtf !in& "one" (from now on! we will introduce one new number in each lesson) Anar "(the) Aun" *sil "(the) $oon" ar "and" (a most useful word that will allow us to have two exercises in one...translate "the Aun and the
$oon"! for instance...)

Elda ",lf" li& "people" (sc. an entire "ethnic group" or even race! as in Eldali& F the +eople of the ,lves). #end& "maiden" (in archaic Quenya .end&) rocco "horse" (specifically "swift horse for riding"! according to )etters:8:&) aran "king" t%ri "1ueen" tasar "willow" (by its form this could be the plural of ]]tasa! but no such word exists! and 2r is here part
of the basic word and not an ending. "his word occurs! compounded! in .ot/ 6 "reebeard chanting "In the willow2meads of "asarinan O?illow2valeP I walked in the spring...")

nu "under" EBER+*SES (. "ranslate into ,nglish (or whatever language you prefer): 1& Roccor >& Aran %two possible 3nglish translationsG' $& * rocco. D& * roccor. 3& Arani. (& Min& li& nu !in& aran. C& * aran ar i t%ri.

2& @endi. &. "ranslate into Quenya: /& ?illows. .& ,lves. :& "he kings. )& +eoples. -& "he horse under %orH below' the willow. N. - maiden and a 1ueen. B& "he 1ueen and the maidens. !& "he Aun and the $oon %/ promised you that one&&&'

LESSON T2REE
4ual nu!0er. Ste! #ariation.
43AL N3M)ER "he previous lesson covered two Quenya plural forms: the somewhat mysterious "partitive plural" in 2li! and the "normal" plural in either 2r or 2i (mostly depending on the shape of the word). .ike 1uite a few "real" languages! Quenya also possesses a dual form! that has no direct counterpart in ,nglish. <ual number refers to two things! a couple of things. "he dual is formed with one out of two endings: 2u or 2t. ?ithin the fictional timeline imagined by "olkien! these two endings originally had somewhat different meanings! and so were not completely interchangeable. - footnote in .etters:I&@ provides some information on this. "he ending 2u (from +rimitive ,lvish 2I) was originally used in the case of natural pairs! of two things or persons somehow belonging together as a logical couple. Eor instance! according to #"89:9! ((! the word ,' "lip" has the dual form ,eu "lips"! referring to one person0s pair of lips (and not! for instance! to the upper lip of one person and the lower lip of another! which would be 4ust "two lips" and not a natural pair). "he noun #eru! meaning "married pair" or "husband and wife"! has dual form5 in this case there does not seem to be a corresponding singular "spouse" (but we have #erno "husband" and #ess& "wife" from the same root5 see ./:8)&). "he noun alda "tree" occurs in dual form with reference! not to any casual pair of trees! but the "wo "rees of #alinor: Aldu. otice that if the ending 2u is added to a noun ending in a vowel! this vowel is displaced: hence the dual of alda is aldu rather than ]]aldau 6 though a word 1uoted in +$:(8:! reproducing a draft for the .ot/ -ppendices! seems to suggest that "olkien for a moment considered precisely the latter form. "here is also an old source that has Aldaru! apparently formed by adding the dual

ending 2u to the normal plural aldar "trees"! but this seems to be an early experiment of "olkien0s that was probably long obsolete by the time he wrote .ot/. In the dual form ,eu! the final vowel of ,' "lip" is apparently not displaced by the dual ending 2u. Bowever! Quenya ,' is meant to descend from primitive ,lvish pe5e! whereas the dual form ,eu is meant to come from pe5I (#"89:9) 6 so the e of ,eu was not originally final. -s for the other dual ending! 2t! it according to .etters:I&@ represents an old element ata. "his! "olkien noted! was originally "purely numerative"5 it is indeed related to the Quenya word for the numeral "two"! atta. Cy "purely numerative"! "olkien evidently meant that the dual in 2t could denote two things only casually related. Eor instance! ciryat as the dual form of cirya "ship" could refer to any two ships5 ciryat would only be a kind of spoken shorthand for the full phrase atta ciryar! "two ships". Bowever! "olkien further noted that "in later QOuenyaP"! the dual forms were "only usual with reference to natural pairs". +recisely what he means by "later" Quenya cannot be determined5 it could refer to Quenya as a ritual language in $iddle2earth rather than the vernacular of the ,ldar in #alinor. In any case! the "hird -ge Quenya we aim for in this course must certainly be included when "olkien speaks of "later" Quenya! so here we will follow the rule that any dual form must refer to some kind of natural or logical pair! not to two things only casually related. In other words! the dual in 2t came to have 4ust the same "meaning" as a dual in 2u. - dual like ciryat "& ships" (curiously spelt "ciriat" in .etters:I&@! perhaps a typo) would not in later Quenya be used with reference to any two ships! but only of two ships that somehow form a pair 6 like two sister ships. If you 4ust want to refer to two ships that do not in any way form a natural or logical pair! like any two ships that happen to be seen together! you would not use the dual form but simply the numeral atta "two" 6 hence atta ciryar. Aince the two endings 2t and 2u had come to carry the same meaning! some rule is needed to determine when to use which. ?hich ending should be used can apparently be inferred from the shape of the word itself (4ust like the shape of the word normally determines whether the plural ending should be 2i or 2r). In .etters:I&@! "olkien noted that "the choice of t or u OwasP decided by euphony"! sc. by what sounded well 6 adding as an example that 2u was preferred to 2t if the word that is to receive a dual ending already contains a t or the similar sound d. Bence the dual of alda is aldu rather than ]]aldat. It seems that as far as later Quenya is concerned! 2t would be your first option as the dual ending! but if the noun it is to be added to already contains t or d! you opt for 2u instead (remembering that this ending displaces any final vowels). "he duals "olkien listed in the +lot3 .etter! ciryat "a couple of ships" and lasset "a couple of leaves" (formed from cirya "ship" and lass& "leaf") confirm that a words with no t or d in them take the dual ending 2t. +erhaps the ending 2u would also be preferred in the case of nouns ending in a consonant! since 2t could not be added directly to such a word without producing a final consonant cluster that Quenya

phonology wouldn0t allow5 unfortunately we have no examples. (If the ending 2t is to be used anyhow! a vowel would probably have to be inserted before it! producing a longer ending 6 likely 2et. ?e will eschew this little problem in the exercises below! since nobody really knows the answer.) It is clear! however! that Quenya has a number of old duals that do not follow the rule that the ending is normally 2t! replaced by 2u only if there is a d or t in the word it is to be added to. "he examples #eru "married pair" and ,eu "lips! pair of lips" are proof of that5 here there is no t or d present! but the ending is still 2u rather than 2t. +resumably these are "fossili3ed" dual forms reflecting the older system in which only 2u denoted a natural or logical pair. "he example ,eu "(pair of) lips" suggests that the ending 2u is used in the case of body2parts occurring in pairs! such as eyes! arms! legs. ("he other ending 2t may however be used if certain other endings intrude before the dual ending itself5 we will return to this in a later lesson.) "he word for "arm" is ranco5 the dual form denoting one person0s pair of arms is not attested! but my best guess is that it would be rancu. "he compound hendu!aica "sharp2eyeOdP" mentioned in ?D:88@ may incorporate a dual hendu "(pair of) eyes". "he Quenya word for "eye" is known to be hen! or hend2 before an ending (the 3tymologies only mentions the normal plural hendi "eyes"! ./:8KI). In the case of this word the dual ending would be 2u rather than 2t anyway! since there is a d in hend2. "he word for "foot"! t%l! probably has the dual talu (for the shortening of the vowel! see below). STEM @AR*AT*ON "his is a sub4ect we shall have to spend some paragraphs on! since even on this early stage of the course we haven0t been able to wholly eschew it. I will go into some detail here! but students can rest assured that they are not expected to remember all the words and examples below5 4ust try to get a feel for what stem variation is all about. Aometimes the form of a Quenya word subtly changes when you add endings to it. "wo such words were mentioned above. If you add an ending to t%l "foot"! for instance 2i for plural or 2u for dual! the long vowel % is shortened to a. Ao the plural "feet" is tali rather than ]]t%li! the dual "a couple of feet" is talu rather than ]]t%lu. In such a case! t%l "foot" may be said to have the stem tal2. .ikewise! the word hen "eye" has the stem hend2! since its plural is hendi and not 4ust ]]heni. "he "stem" form does not occur by itself! but is the form you add endings to. ?hen presenting a gloss! I will represent such stem variation by listing the independent form first! followed by a parenthetical "stem form" with a hyphen where the ending goes! e.g.: t%l (tal2) "foot"! hen (hend2) "eye". In the case of t%l vs. tal2! the variation is apparently due to the fact that vowels were often lengthened in words of only one syllable! but when the word had endings the word obviously got to have more than one syllable and so the

lengthening did not occur (another example of the same seems to be n'r "man" vs. plural neri "men"! $/:&(8%./:8)I). =riginally! the vowel was short in all forms. It is usually true that the stem form gives away how the word looked at an earlier stage in the long linguistic evolution "olkien dreamed up in great detail. 2en "eye" in its stem hend2 reflects the primitive "base" :23N-D-3 from which it is ultimately derived (./:8KI). Quenya could not have 2nd at the end of a word and simplified it to 2n when the word stands alone (thus! hen in a way represents the impossible "full" form hend)! but before an ending the group 2nd2 was not final and could therefore actually appear. #ery often stem variation has to do with clusters or sounds that are not allowed at the end of words! but that may appear elsewhere. ;f. a word like talan "floor". "he plural "floors" is not ]]talani as we might expect! but tala!i. "he stem is tala!2 because this is the form of the +rimitive ,lvish root2word: T1)1- (./:89'). -s Quenya evolved from +rimitive ,lvish! a rule came into place that only a few consonants were allowed at the end of words! and ! was not one of them. "he closest "permissible" consonant was n! and so the old word talam was altered to talan 6 but in the plural form tala!i (and other forms that added an ending to the word)! the ! was not final and therefore persisted unchanged. -nother! similar case is filit "small bird"! that has the stem filic2 (e.g. plural filici "small birds"): "he primitive root2word was !2/)/: (./:8:()! but Quenya did not permit 2/ at the end of a word! so in that position it became 2t. ?hen not final it remained / (here spelt c). In some cases! the "independent" form is a simplified or shortened form of a word! while the stem form reflects the fuller form. Eor instance! "olkien apparently imagined that the word !erend& "feast! festival" was often shortened to !eren! but the stem is still !erend2 (./:8@&). Bence the plural of !eren is !erendi! not ]]!ereni. ?hen it stands alone! the word niss& "woman" is normally reduced to nis (or ns with a lengthened vowel)! but the double S persists before endings: thus the plural "women" is nissi (./:8@@! $/:&(8). similar case is Sil!arill&! the name of one of the legendary 4ewels created by EHanor5 this is normally shortened to Sil!aril! but before endings the double ) of the full form is preserved (Sil!arill2)5 hence the plural is always Sil!arilli. In the case of compound words! sc. words made up from several other words! the second element in the compound is often reduced! but a fuller form may turn up before an ending. Eor instance! the noun Sindel "7rey2elf" (?D:8:I) incorporates 2el as a reduced form of Elda ",lf". "he plural of Sindel is not ]]Sindeli! but Sindeldi preserving the cluster 2ld2 seen in Elda. (Aince the final 2a is lost in the compound! we cannot have the plural ]]Sindeldar.) In some cases a word may be contracted when you add endings to it. In such cases the stem2form does not reflect the older! more complete form of the word. Auch contraction often occurs in two2syllable words containing two identical vowels. Eor instance! feren "beech2tree" is reduced to fern2 before an ending! e.g. plural ferni instead of ]]fereni. ?D:I(K likewise indicates that

la!an "animal" may be reduced to la!n2 before an ending! hence for instance la!ni "animals"! though the unreduced form la!ani was also in use. =ccasionally! the contracted forms suffer further change when compared to the unreduced form5 as the plural of seler "sister" we might expect ]]selri! but since lr is not a permissible consonant cluster in Quenya! it is changed to ll 6 the actual plural "sisters" being selli (cf. the 3tymologies! entry T23)2! T23)3S2). -nother form of stem2variation is very poorly attested as far as nouns are concerned! but there are hints to the effect that the final vowel of some words would change when an ending is added. In Quenya! the final vowels 2o and 2& sometimes come from 2u and 2i in +rimitive ,lvish. -t one stage of the linguistic evolution! original short 2i became 2e when the vowel was final5 in the same environment original short 2u became 2o. Eor instance! the primitive word tundu "hill! mound" came out as tundo in Quenya (./:89)). Cut since this change only occurred when the vowel was final! it is possible that its original 1uality would be preserved before an ending. "he plural "hills" may well be tundur rather than tundor! though neither form is attested. -ccording to A<:I()! the Quenya noun l$!& "night" has the "stem" l$!i2! evidently meaning that the final vowel 2& changes to 2i2 if you add an ending after it. Eor instance! adding the dual ending 2t to l$!& (to express "a couple of nights") would presumably produce l$!it rather than l$!et. "his would be because l$!& comes from +rimitive ,lvish dJmi (./:8)I)! and 2i never turned into 2e except when final. Aome think certain words in Namri! lrinen and s rinen! are attested examples of this phenomenon: "hese are forms of lr& "song" and s r& "wind" (the latter is attested by itself in $;:&&&5 the meaning of the ending 2nen seen in lrinen and s rinen will be discussed in a later lesson). If this word originally ended in an 2i that became 2& only later (and only when final)! it may explain why in this word 2& seemingly turns into 2i2 before an ending. ?e would then say that s r& has the stem s ri2. "here seems to be a similar variation involving the final vowel 2o! that in some cases descend from final 2u in +rimitive ,lvish5 again the primitive 1uality of the vowel may be resurrected if an ending is added to it. Eor instance! rusco "fox" is said to have the stem ruscu2! so if we add the dual ending to speak of a "a couple of foxes"! the resulting form should presumably be ruscut rather than ruscot. Bowever! there is no extensive treatment of this phenomenon in "olkien0s published writings5 indeed the statements made in A<:I() and #"I(:(' that l$!& and rusco have stems l$!i2! ruscu2 are as close as we get to explicit references to it. "he student should not despair! thinking that all sorts of strange things typically happen whenever you add an ending to a Quenya word! so that there is a great potential for making embarrassing mistakes (or at least very much extra stuff to memori3e). $ost Quenya words seem to be 1uite well2behaved! with no distinct

"stem" form to remember5 you 4ust add the ending and that0s it. ?here a distinct stem2form is known to exist (or where we have good reason to suspect one)! this will of course be indicated when I first present the word! if it is relevant for the exercises. Summary of )esson Three In addition to the plural form(s)! Quenya also has a dual number used for a pair of things forming some kind of natural or logical couple. (?e must assume that two things only casually associated would be denoted by a normal plural in con4unction with the numeral atta "two".) "he dual is formed with one out of two endings: 2t or 2u (the latter displaces final vowels5 the dual of alda "tree" is therefore aldu rather than aldau). =ne0s first choice seems to be 2t! but if the word this ending is to be added to already contains a t or a d! the alternative ending 2u is preferred instead (for reasons of euphony 6 if you like! to avoid "crowding" the word with t0s or similar soundsN) Bowever! there seems to be a number of old! "fossili3ed" dual forms that end in 2u even though there is no d or t in the word! such as #eru "married pair" and ,eu "pair of lips". "he latter example may suggest that all body2parts occurring in pairs are denoted by dual forms in 2u rather than 2t! regardless of the shape of the word (though the ending 2t is evidently preferred if other endings intrude before the dual ending itself5 more on this later). Quite a few Quenya words subtly change when endings are appended to them! e.g. talan "floor" turning into tala!2 in the plural form tala!i. ?e would then call tala!2 the stem form of talan. Aimilarly! the final vowels 2o and 2& sometimes appear as 2u2 and 2i2! respectively! if some ending is added5 thus l$!& "night" has the stem l$!i2. In many cases! the stem2form echoes the older shape of words (sounds or combinations that could not survive at the end of a word being preserved where not final)! though the stem2form may also represent a contraction. @O+A)3LAR6 atta "two" hen (hend2) "eye" ranco "arm" ando "gate" cirya "ship" ai.& "bird" talan (tala!2) "floor" n'r (ner2) "man" (adult male of any sentient race 6 ,lvish! mortal or otherwise) ns (niss2) "woman" (similarly: adult female of any sentient race) sar (sard2) "stone" (a small stone 6 not "stone" as a substance or material) alda "tree" oron (oront2) "mountain"

EBER+*SES (. "ranslate into ,nglish: 1& 2endu >& Atta hendi %and answer what is the difference between this and hendu aboveK' $& Aldu D& Atta aldar %and answer again what is the difference between this and Aldu aboveK' 3& Min& n'r ar !in& ns. (& * sardi. C& Tala!i. 2& Oronti. &. "ranslate into Quenya: /& "wo ships %Lust any two ships that happen to be seen together' .& "wo ships %that happen to be sister ships' :& -rms %the two arms of one person' )& "wo mountains %within the same rangeM Twin !ea#sH if you li#e N use a dual form' -& <ouble gate %use a dual form' N. "wo birds %that have formed a pair' B& "wo birds %Lust any two birds' !& $en and women.

LESSON 5O3R
The AdEecti#e. The +o,ula. AdEecti#al a-ree!ent in nu!0er.
"he vocabulary of any language can be separated into various classes of words 6 various parts of speech. "olkien0s languages were designed to be "definitely of a ,uropean kind in style and structure" ()etters:(@))! so the parts of speech they contain are not very exotic! but ought to be 1uite familiar to any schoolchild in ,urope or -merica. ?e have already mentioned the nouns! which by a somewhat simplified definition are words denoting things. ow we will move on to the adLectives. -d4ectives are words that have assumed the special function of description. If you want to say that someone or something possesses a certain 1uality! you can often find an ad4ective that will do the 4ob. In a sentence like the house is red! the word "red" is an ad4ective. It describes the house. "here are ad4ectives for all sorts of 1ualities! 1uite useful if you want to say that someone or something is big! small! holy! blue! silly! rotten! beautiful! thin! nauseous! tall! wonderful! obno0ious or whatever the occasion demands.

=ne often distinguishes two different ways of using an ad4ective: (. >ou can team it up with a noun which it then describes! resulting in phrases like tall men or %aOthe' red boo#. Auch phrases can then be inserted into a full sentence! like tall men scare me or the red boo# is mine! where the words tall! red simply provide extra information about their companion nouns. "his is called using the ad4ective attributively. "he 1uality in 1uestion is presented as an "attribute" of the noun! or is "attributed" to it (tall men 6 =V! then we know precisely what kind of men we are talking about here! the tall ones! their tallness being their "attribute"). &. Cut you may also construct sentences where the whole point is that someone or something possesses a specific 1uality. >ou don0t 4ust "presuppose" the tallness as when you speak of tall men 6 you want to say that the men are tall! that0s the very piece of information you want to convey. "his is called using an ad4ective predicatively: >ou choose a party you want to say something about! like the men in this case! and then add an ad4ective to tell what 1uality this party possesses. "he ad4ective is then called the predicate of this sentence. -s the attentive reader already suspects from the example above! there is one more complication: >ou don0t 4ust say the men tall! but the men are tall. -ctually sentences like the men tall would be 1uite =V in a great number of languages (and Quenya may even be one of them)! but in ,nglish you have to slip in a word like are or is before the ad4ective when you use it as a predicate: The boo# is red. The men are tall. "his "is%are" doesn0t really add a whole lot of meaning here (there is a reason why so many languages manage without any corresponding wordN)! but it is used to "couple" the ad4ective with the words that tell us what we are really talking about here 6 like the boo# and the men in our example. Bence "is%are" is called a copula. In sentences like gold is beautiful! / am smart or stones are hard! it can be perceived the prime function of the copula (here variously manifesting as is! am and are) is simply to connect the following ad4ectives beautiful! smart! hard with the thing(s) or person we are talking about: gold! /! stones. "he copula is an integral part of the predicate of the sentence. "his is one of the most important constructions speakers or ,nglish have at their disposal when they want to say that _ possesses the 1uality >. ?ell! let0s get down to Quenya here. ?hen compared to the plethora of shapes that a noun can have! Quenya adLectives are 1uite restricted in form. "he vast ma4ority of Quenya ad4ectives end in one of two vowels 2a or 2&. "he latter ending is the less common and typically occurs in colour2ad4ectives: Nin7u& "white"! !or& "black"! carn& "red"! #arn& "brown" etc. ?hen an ad4ective does not end in 2a or 2&! it virtually always ends in 2in! e.g. firin "dead"! h.arin "crooked"! !elin "dear" or latin "open! free! cleared (of land)". "he latter ad4ective is actually listed as latin(a) in "olkien0s writings (./:8K:)! evidently suggesting that latin is shortened from a longer form latina! both variants occurring in the language. (+erhaps all the ad4ectives in 2in are to be considered shortened forms of full forms in 2ina.) -d4ectives that do not end in either 2a! 2&

or 2in are extremely rare5 there is at least teren "slender" 6 but even this ad4ective also has a longer form in 2& (teren&). -d4ectives in 2a are by far the most common type. "he final vowel 2a may appear by itself! as in l%ra "flat"! but it is often part of a longer ad4ectival ending like 2.a! 2na (variant 2da)! 2i!a or 2ya. ,xamples: hel.a "(pale) blue"! harna "wounded"! !elda "beloved! dear"! !eli!a "loveable"! #anya "beautiful". "he word Quenya itself is in its origin a ya2ad4ective meaning ",lvish! Quendian"! though "olkien decided that it came to be used only as a name of the Bigh2elven language (.etters:(@K! ?D:8K'28K(! 8@I). In Quenya as in ,nglish! an ad4ective can be directly combined with a noun! describing it. ?e have many attested examples of ad4ectives being used attributively like this5 they include the phrases lint& yuldar "swift draughts" (Namri)! luini tellu!ar "blue vaults" (prose2style Namri)! f%na cirya "a white ship" (-ar#irya)! 7uant& ten-.i "full signs" (a term used by early ,lvish linguists5 we needn0t discuss its precise meaning here5 see #"89:)). In these examples! the word order is the same as in ,nglish: ad4ective Q noun. "his is apparently the normal! preferred order. In Quenya! it is however also permissible to let the ad4ective follow the noun. Eor instance! -ar#irya has anar , r&a for "a bleared sun"! literally "(a) sun bleared"! and in ./:I@ we have !all& t'ra! literally "road straight"! for "a straight road" (cf. ./:I8). +erhaps this word order is used if you want to emphasi3e the ad4ective: the context in ./:I@ indicates that this is a straight road as opposed to a bent one. Bowever! letting the ad4ective follow the noun may be the normal word order in the case of an ad4ectival "title" that is used in con4unction with a proper name: In J":8') cf. 8(@ we have Elendil @oronda for ",lendil the Eaithful" (well! the form found in J":8') is actually Elendil @orondo! because the phrase is inflected5 we will return to the ending 2o here seen in a later lesson). +resumably you could also use the more normal word2order and speak of #oronda Elendil! but that 6 I guess 6 would simply be a more casual reference to "faithful ,lendil"! not meaning ",lendil the Eaithful" with the ad4ective used as a regular title. It may be noted that Quenya! unlike ,nglish! does not insert the article before an ad4ective used as a title (not ]]Elendil i @oronda! at least not necessarily). ?hat! then! about using ad4ectives as predicates! like "red" is the predicate of the sentence "the book is red"M (;ontrast the attributive use of the ad4ective in a phrase like "the red book".) "he ad4ective #an.a "lost" is used predicatively in Namri: @an.a n%...@ali!ar "lost is...#alimar" (a place in the Clessed /ealm that 7aladriel thought she would never see again). "his sentence tells us that the Quenya copula "is" has the form n%. +lural "are" seems to be nar! attested in an early version of Namri recorded by "olkien on tape (see Dim -llan0s 1n /ntroduction to 3lvish! p. )). It is generally assumed that these copulas would be used as in ,nglish! for instance like this: * ,ar!a n% carn&. ""he book is red."

3lundo n% !&a. "- monster is evil." * neri nar hall&. ""he men are tall." In this lesson as originally published in <ecember &'''! I slipped in a warning at this point:
I should add! though! that due to the extreme scarcity of examples we can0t be certain what the preferred word order really is. Erom the example #an.a n%...@ali!ar "lost is...#alimar" in Namri one could argue that n% should follow the ad4ective! so that "the book is red" should rather be i ,ar!a carn& n%! "the book red is". It would be interesting to know if n% "is" would still follow #an.a "lost" if we relocated @ali!ar to the beginning of the sentence5 should "#alimar is lost" be @ali!ar n% #an.a! ,nglish2style! or perhaps @ali!ar #an.a n%M In the examples above and the exercises below I have organi3ed the sentences using the ",nglish" word order! but "olkien may have had something more exotic up his sleeve. "here is no way of telling before more material is published.

I revise this lesson in ovember &''(! and this summer a few more examples involving the word n% "is" finally became available. "here does seem to be a tendency to place n% at the end of the sentence! as in the example l% caritas...alasaila n% (literally! "not to do it unwise is" 6 #"I&:8I). >et the same article that provides this example also cites the formula "- n% cali!a l% C" (literally! "- is bright beyond C") as the Quenya way of expressing "- is brighter than C" (#"I&:8&). otice that this formula employs an ,nglish2style word2order! with n% "is" preceding rather than following cali!a "bright". Ao it seems that sentences like i ,ar!a n% carn&! word by word corresponding to ,nglish "the book is red"! may be possible after all. "herefore I have not revised any of the examples or exercises of this course! all of which employ the ",nglish" word order as far as the copula n% is concerned. It seems! however! that the order i ,ar!a carn& n% "the book red is" must be considered a perfectly valid alternative! and "olkien may even have intended this to be the more common word order. ?e must await still more examples. O ew update! Danuary &''&: "his month some new examples were indeed published. It seems that the exact word order is simply a matter of taste. "he example ely& na !anna "thou art blessed" from #"I8:&K has an ,nglish2style word order! and here the copula "is%art" appears in the short form na rather than n%. I have however maintained n% in the exercises of this course! mainly for the sake of clarity: the word na has several other! 1uite distinct meanings. Cut perhaps the short form na2 is consistently preferred when some ending is to be added5 cf. the plural form nar "are". =f course! the unattested form n%r could be e1ually valid for all I know.P In EGriel0s Aong (a pre2.ot/ text)! the word for "is" appears as ye rather than n% or na! as in ri!a ye N !enor "lovely is Zmenor" (./:@&). Bowever! both the Denya )e0icon (Q.:KI) and the 3tymologies (./:8@I) point to n% instead! and in Namri we have this word attested in an actual text. ,tym and the Q. are earlier than EGriel0s Aong! but Namri is later! so would seem that ye was 4ust a passing experiment in "olkien0s evolution of Quenya. In EGriel0s Aong we also see an ending for "is"! 2i&! appended to ad4ectives and displacing their

final vowel: hence in this song we have !%ri& for "(it) is good"! derived from the ad4ective !%ra "good". "his ending 2i& is transparently related to the independent word ye. I don0t think the system of using the ending 2i& for "is" was still valid in .ot/2style Quenya! and I wouldn0t recommend it to writers. "he ending 2i& has other meanings in later Quenya. -nother system may well be valid! though: using no copula at all. >ou simply 4uxtapose the noun and the ad4ective! the word "is%are" being understood: *lu #anya "the ?orld OisP fair" ((@rielEs Song)! !aller raicar "roads OareP bent" (./:I@). "he formula "- is bright beyond C" F "- is brighter than C" referred to above is actually cited as "- (n%) cali!a l% C" in #"I&:8&. -s suggested by the parentheses! n% could be omitted. "he example !alle t'ra "a straight road" mentioned above could also be interpreted "a road OisP straight"! if the context allowed it. "he final version of "olkien0s Quenya translation of the Bail $ary! published in Danuary &''&! leaves out several copulas: Aistana ely&; ar aistana i y%#& !$nalyo F "blessed OartP thou! and blessed OisP the fruit of thy womb". ?e must assume that the copula n%! nar is not limited to combining nouns and ad4ectives! but can also be used to e1uate nouns: Par!ar nar en-.i "books are things"! 5&an%ro n% Noldo "EHanor is a oldo". ( otice! by the way! that the proper Quenya form of EHanor0s name is 5&an%ro5 "EHanor" is a Quenya2 Aindarin hybrid form used in $iddle2earth after his death.) -gain it may be permissible to leave out the copula and retain the same meaning: Par!ar en-.i! 5&an%ro Noldo. 1dLectival agreement in number Quenya ad4ectives must agree in number with the noun they describe. "hat is! if the noun is plural! the ad4ective must be! too5 if the ad4ective describes several nouns it must also be plural! even if each of the nouns is singular. ,nglish makes no such distinction 6 its ad4ectives do not change 6 but it is not surprising that "olkien built ad4ectival agreement in number into Quenya! since this was to be a highly inflected language. ?e have no examples of what happens if an ad4ective is to agree with a noun in the dual form. It is generally assumed! though! that there are no special dual forms of ad4ectives! but only one plural (or should we say "non2singular") form. "he -ar#irya poem indicates that there is no special form of ad4ectives to go with the somewhat obscure "partitive plural" form in 2li5 an ad4ective describing a noun in 2li simply appears in the normal plural form. "his may support the theory that ad4ectives don0t have a special dual form! either. Bow! then! is the plural form of ad4ectives constructedM Erom the examples now available! it can be seen that "olkien experimented with various systems over the years. In early sources! ad4ectives in 2a form their plural form by adding the ending 2r! 4ust like nouns in 2a do. Eor instance! one very early "map" of "olkien0s imaginary world (actually depicted as a symbolic ship) includes a reference to * Nori Landar. "his evidently means ""he ?ide .ands" (."(::I2:)5 the ad4ective landa "wide" occurs in the 3tymologies! entry )1D.

;hristopher "olkien in ."(::) suggests the translation ""he 7reat .ands".) Bere the plural noun nori "lands" is described by the ad4ective landa "wide" 6 another example of an attributive ad4ective following the noun! by the way 6 and since the noun is plural! the ad4ective takes the plural ending 2r to agree with it. "his way of forming plural ad4ectives was still valid as late as (98@ or slightly earlier5 we have already 1uoted the example !aller raicar "roads OareP bent" from ./:I@! where the ad4ective raica "crooked! bent! wrong" (listed by itself in ./:8:8) is plural to agree with !aller. Bowever! this system cannot be recommended to writers5 the evidence is that in .ot/2style Quenya! it had been abandoned. "olkien in a way reached back into the past and revived a system he had used in what may be the very first "Qenya" poem he ever wrote! Nar*elion of (9()2(K. In this poem! ad4ectives in 2a form their plurals by means of the ending 2i. Eor instance! the phrase san-ar !&ai occurring in this poem apparently means "throngs large" F large throngs5 the ad4ective !&a "large" is listed in the early Qenya .exicon (Q.:9@ 6 but in later Quenya! the word !&a means "evil" instead). .ater! "olkien however introduced one more complication: -d4ectives in 2a had plurals in 2ai in archaic Quenya only. In ,xilic Quenya! Quenya as spoken by the oldor after they had returned to $iddle2earth! 2ai at the end of words of more than one syllable had been reduced to 2&. (;f. ?D:I'@ regarding the ending 2#& representing "archaic Q 2vai".) Ao while the plural form of! say! 7uanta "full" was apparently 7uantai at the older stages of the language! it later became 7uant&. "his form we have already met in one of the examples 1uoted above: 7uant& ten-.i! "full signs"! where 7uanta appears in the plural form to agree with ten-.i "signs" (#"89:)). "here is one special case to be considered: ad4ectives in 2&a! such as laur&a "golden". In archaic Quenya! we must assume that the plural form was simply laur&ai. Cut when 2ai later became 2e! what would be Mlaur&e did not prove to be a durable form. "o avoid the cumbersome combination of two concomitant e0s! the first of them was changed to i. Bence the plural form of laur&a in ,xilic Quenya appears as lauri&! as in the first line of Namri: Ai( lauri& lantar lassi s rinen... "-hN golden fall the leaves in the wind..." 6 the ad4ective being plural to agree with the noun it describes! lassi "leaves". -s for ad4ectives in 2&! they seem to behave like most nouns of the same shape: 2& becomes 2i in the plural. ?e don0t have very many examples! but the phrase luini tellu!ar "blue vaults" in the prose version of Namri seems to incorporate the plural form of an ad4ective luin& "blue" (actually not attested in this form! but as observed above! there are many colour2ad4ectives in 2&). $oreover! in the 3tymologies "olkien noted that the an ad4ective !ait& "handy! skilled" has the plural form !aisi (./:8@(). ,vidently the plural form was especially mentioned primarily to illustrate another point: that ad4ectives in 2it& have plural forms in 2isi! the consonant t turning into s before i. "his particular idea seems to have been dropped later! though: In a much later! post2.ot/

source! "olkien wrote hlonti ten-.i! not Mhlonsi ten-.i! for "phonetic signs" (?D:89)). Ao perhaps the plural form of !ait& could simply be M!aiti as well. -s for the plural form of ad4ectives ending in a consonant! such as firin "dead"! we don0t seem to have any examples to guide us. It has traditionally been assumed that they form their plurals in 2i! 4ust like nouns of this shape do! and this still seems reasonably plausible. Ao! say! "dead men" could be firini neri. If any argument can be raised against this assumption! it is that ad4ectives in 2in actually seem to be shortened forms of longer ad4ectives in 2ina. -s pointed out above! "olkien 1uoted the ad4ective meaning "open! free! cleared (of land)" as latin(a)! indicating double forms latin and latina. "he plural form of latina should obviously be latin&! for older latinai. Cut what about latinM If this is merely a shortened form of latina! perhaps the plural form would still be latin& rather than latiniM ?e cannot know for certain5 in the exercises below I have followed the traditional assumption! using plurals in 2i. -d4ectives ending in a consonant are 1uite rare anyway! so this uncertainty does not greatly 4eopardi3e the 1uality of our own Quenya texts. In what positions do ad4ectives agree in numberM -ttested examples like those already 1uoted! like luini tellu!ar "blue domes"! would seem to indicate that an attributive ad4ective in front of the noun does show agreement. Ao does an attributive ad4ective following the noun5 the -ar#irya poem has i fairi n'c& for "the pale phantoms"! or literally "the phantoms pale" (n'ca pl. n'c& "vague! faint! dim to see"! $;:&&8). -n ad4ective separated from the noun it describes also agrees in number! hence laur&a "golden" appears in plural form lauri& in the first line of Namri! lauri& lantar lassi "golden fall leaves" (the prose Namri has lassi lantar lauri& "leaves fall golden"). -s for predicative ad4ectives! we lack late examples. In 7erman! ad4ectives do agree in number when they are used attributively! but ad4ectives used predicatively do not. >et the old example !aller raicar "roads OareP bent" in ./:I@ would seem to indicate that in Quenya! ad4ectives agree in number also when they are used predicatively. In later Quenya we should presumably read !aller FnarG raic&! since "olkien changed the rules for how the plural form of ad4ectives is constructed. Ao in short! we can conclude that ad4ectives agree in number with the nouns they describe "everywhere" 6 whether they appear before! after or separated from the noun! whether they are used attributively or predicatively. "here are a few examples that don0t 1uite fit in! though. -ppendix , of the essay Duendi and 3ldar of ca. (9K' contains several "well2behaved" examples of plural ad4ectives that are used attributively with the plural noun ten-.i "signs"! making up various phrases used by early ,lvish linguists when they tried to analy3e the structure of their tongue (as I said above! we needn0t concern ourselves with the precise meaning of these terms here). Cesides hlonti ten-.i "phonetic signs" and 7uant& ten-.i "full signs" already 1uoted (?D:89)! #"89:))! we have racin& ten-.i "stripped signs" and ,eny& ten-.i "lacking

signs" (#"89:K5 the singular of the latter! ,enya ten-.& "a lacking sign"! is attested: #"89:(9). In these phrases the ad4ectives hlont& "phonetic"! 7uanta "full"! racina "stripped! deprived" and ,enya "lacking! inade1uate" all assume their plural forms! beautifully agreeing with ten-.i "signs! elements! sounds". Ao far! so good. Cut then we turn to the draft material for -ppendix , of Duendi and 3ldar. Bere "olkien did not let the ad4ectives agree in number! and we have phrases like lehta ten-.i "free%released elements"! sarda ten-.i "hard sounds" and ta,ta ten-.i "impeded elements" (#"89:(@). ?e would of course expect leht& ten-.i! sard& ten-.i! ta,t& ten-.i! but these are not found. Jnless we are to assume that there are several classes of ad4ectives! some that agree in number and others that don0t 6 and I think this is rather far2fetched 6 it seems that "olkien in the draft material used a system whereby an attributive ad4ective immediately in front of its noun does not agree in number. Cut when he actually wrote the -ppendix! he would seem to have introduced agreement in this position as well! and so we have for instance 7uant& ten-.i rather than M7uanta ten-.i for "full signs". ,lvish grammar could change at lightening speed whenever "olkien was in his "revision" mood! so this would not be surprising. "he last version of the -ar#irya poem! which ;hristopher "olkien thinks was written at some point in the last decade of his father0s life ((9K82@8)! is also relevant here. In the phrase "fallen towers"! "olkien first wrote the ad4ective atalant&a "ruinous! downfallen" in its plural form atalanti&! 4ust like we would expect. "hen! according to ;hristopher "olkien! he mysteriously changed atalanti& to the singular (or rather uninflected) form atalant&a! though the ad4acent noun "towers" was left in the plural ($;:&&&). -gain "olkien seems to be experimenting with a system whereby attributive ad4ectives immediately in front of the noun they describe do not agree in number! but appear in their uninflected form. - similar system appears in "olkien0s writings on +estron! the ";ommon Apeech" of $iddle2earth (a language he only sketched). +erhaps he considered introducing such a system in Quenya as well! and we see this idea flickering on and off! so to speak! in his writingsM Bowever! the system I would recommend to writers is to let ad4ectives agree in number also in this position. In Namri in .ot/ we have the phrase lint& yuldar "swift draughts"! and in the interlinear translation in /7,=:KK "olkien explicitly noted that lint& is a "pl." ad4ective. ?e must assume! then! that lint& represents older lintai! the plural form of an ad4ective linta. If an attributive ad4ective immediately in front of the noun it describes did not agree in number! "swift draughts" should have been Mlinta yuldar instead. "he source where "olkien explicitly identified lint& as a plural form was published during his own lifetime! and moreover as late as in (9K:! possibly postdating even the last version of -ar#irya. Ao his final decision seems to have been that ad4ectives do agree in number with their nouns also when the ad4ective appears immediately in front of the noun. =ne suspects that he spent many sleepless nights carefully considering the various pros and cons in this important 1uestion.

=", = -<D,;"I#,A JA,< -A =J A: -s described above! "olkien at one stage had ad4ectives in 2a form their plurals in 2ar! but later he replaced this with 2& (for older 2ai). Bowever! ad4ectives in 2a may still have plural forms in 2ar if they are used as nouns! because in such a case they are naturally inflected as nouns. "olkien noted that instead of saying ,eny& ten-.i "lacking signs" the ,lves might simply refer to the ,enyar or "lacking ones" 6 "using Othe ad4ectiveP penya as a technical noun" (#"89:(9). - more well2known example is provided by the ad4ective #anya "fair! beautiful"5 this would normally have the plural form #any& (e.g. #any& nissi "beautiful women"). Bowever! the ad4ective #anya can also be used as a noun! "a #anya" or "Eair =ne"! which was the word used of a member of the Eirst ;lan of the ,ldar. "hen the whole clan is of course called the @anyar! as in the Silmarillion chapter 8: ""he #anyar were OIngwH0sP people5 they are the Eair ,lves." Jsing another (but related) ad4ective "beautiful"! namely #ani!a! "reebeard employed another noun2style plural when he greeted ;eleborn and 7aladriel as a #ani!ar "o beautiful ones" (the translation given in .etters:8':). -d4ectives in 2& would however have their usual plural form in 2i even if they are used as nouns! since most nouns in 2& also form their plurals in 2i.

Summary of )esson (our -d4ectives are words used to describe various 1ualities! such as "tall" or "beautiful". "hey can be combined with nouns! making up phrases like "(a%the) red book" or "tall men"! where the ad4ectives "red" and "tall" describe the nouns "book" and "men" directly5 this is called using an ad4ective attributively. Cut ad4ectives can also be used in sentences like "the book is red" or "the men are tall"! where the whole point of the sentence is to ascribe a certain 1uality to a noun5 here the ad4ective is used as a predicate. In such cases ,nglish slips in a copula! like "is" or "are" in these examples! to clarify the relationship between the noun and the ad4ective. $any languages do without this extra device (one would 4ust say what corresponds to "the book red")! and this seems to be permissible in Quenya as well! but the explicit copula n% "is"%nar "are" also occurs in the material. 6 $ost Quenya ad4ectives end in the vowel 2a! some also in 2&5 the only ones that end in a consonant are a few that nearly always have the ending 2in (apparently shortened from 2ina). Quenya ad4ectives agree in number5 if an ad4ective describes a plural noun or more than one noun! the ad4ective must be plural as well. -d4ectives in 2a have plural forms in 2& (for older 2ai)5 notice that if the ad4ective ends in 2&a it forms its plural in 2i& (to avoid 2&e). -d4ectives in 2& have plural forms in 2i5 for the few ad4ectives in 2in we lack examples! but it is normally assumed that they would add 2i in the plural. @O+A)3LAR6 ,xcept for the two first items! all of these are ad4ectives. <on0t worry about the other words occurring in the exercises below5 those you have already memori3ed carefully! following my instructions in .esson "wo. /ightM neld& "three" n% "is" (nar "are") #anya "beautiful! fair" alta "great" (F big5 the word is used of physical si3e only) cali!a "bright" taura "mighty"

saila "wise" (we will use this form found in late material5 a pre2.ot/ source has saira instead) !&a "evil" carn& "red" (we suspect that "olkien the <evout ;atholic was thinking about cardinals with their red
attires5 the Italian word carne F "OredP meat" may also be relevant here...)

nin7u& "white" !or& "black" (cf. the first element of Aindarin -ordor F Clack .and) firin "dead" EBER+*SES (. "ranslate into ,nglish: 1& Mor& rocco. >& +ali!& hendu. $& Neld& firini neri. D& @any& ai.i. 3& T%ri n% taura ns. (& * oronti nar alt&. C& Aran taura %two possible translationsG' 2& * n'r ar i ns nar sail&. &. "ranslate into Quenya: /& "he white gate. .& - great ship. :. "he floor is red. ). =ne black stone and three white stones. -. ?ise kings are mighty men. N. "he mighty man and the beautiful woman are evil. B. ,lves are beautiful. !. "he ,lves are a beautiful people.

LESSON 5*@E
The @er0H Present tense and a-ree!ent in nu!0er. Su0EectIo0Eect. The su,erlati#e for! of adEecti#es.
-s I mentioned at the beginning of the previous lesson! the vocabulary of any language can be separated into various classes of words! or "parts of speech". Ao far we have explicitly discussed the nouns! which denote things! and adLectives! which are words used to describe nouns (linguists would find these definitions rather simplistic! but they will do for our purpose). -ctually we have already touched on a three other parts of speech as well! without discussing them in

depth. -s part of .esson "wo you hopefully memori3ed the word nu "under"! which is a preposition5 prepositions are small words or "particles" like under! on! of! to! in! about etc.! often used to provide information about spatial relationships (e.g. "under the tree" F nu i alda)! though fre1uently they are used in more abstract contexts. ?ith the word ar "and" we have also included the most typical representative of the conLunctions! words used to connect (or indeed "con4oin") other words! phrases or sentences! e.g. Anar ar *sil F "the sun and the moon". Atill! no thorough discussion of prepositions or con4unctions as such seems necessary: in Quenya they seem to behave pretty much like their ,nglish e1uivalents! so for the most part you simply have to learn the corresponding Quenya words. -nother part of speech that we have already touched on is far more sophisticated and intriguing: the verb. ?e encountered one verb in the previous lesson: n% "is"! with its plural form nar "are". -s verbs go! this one is not very exciting5 it is used simply to coordinate a noun with some sort of predicate that tells us what the noun "is": Aran n% taura! "a king is mighty"! tasar n% alda "a willow is a tree". -s I said in the previous lesson! the copula n% doesn0t really provide much extra information here! except clarifying the relationship between the various elements of the sentence. $ost other verbs (very nearly all other verbs! actually) are however full of meaning. "hey don0t 4ust tell us what someone or something "is"! but what someone or something does. "he #erb brings action into the language. In a sentence like "the ,lf dances" it is easy to identify "dances" as the action2word! telling us what is going on here. -nd sure enough! "dances" is a form of the ,nglish verb to dance. "his verb may appear in other forms as well5 instead of "dances" we might say "danced"! which moves the action into the past: ""he ,lf danced." "his illustrates an important feature of verbs in ,uropean languages: the form of the verb gives information about when the action denoted takes place! in the present or in the past. Aome languages also have special future forms. "olkien built all of these features into Quenya. "he different "time2forms" of the verb are called various tenses5 we speak of present tense! past tense and future tense. ?e will only deal with the present tense in this lesson! and return to the others later. ("he trinity of present! past and future does not represent a full list of all the tenses there are. ?e will discuss a total of five different tenses in this course! and I would be very surprised if unpublished material does not describe even more tenses than the ones we know at present.) Bere I should slip in a warning: ?e don0t have much e0plicit information about the Quenya verb. In the so2called +lot3 .etter! that "olkien wrote to <ick +lot3 at some point in the mid2sixties! he set out the declension of the noun. -pparently similar information about the verb was to follow5 it never did. "his is of course most unfortunate. ot that "olkien took this information to his grave5 we know that he did write about these matters! but the relevant writings

have not been published. Eor the time being! we must for the most part try to figure out the grammatical rules by ourselves if we would like our Quenya poems to include verbs. /egarding the present tense! some scraps of information luckily appeared in Vinyar Tengwar YI(! Duly &'''. ;ombining this info with some linguistic deduction! we can probably make out the main features of the system "olkien had in mind. -s they appear in various sources! Quenya verbs seem to fall into two main categories (though there are some verbs in our corpus that don0t readily fit into either! even if we exclude the early "Qenya" material where some really weird things are going on in the verbal system). "he first and largest category is what can be termed 1-stems! for they all end in 2a. -nother term for the same is derived verbs! for these verbs never represent a naked primitive "root2word"! but are derived by adding endings to this root. "he most fre1uent of these endings are 2ya and 2ta5 much less fre1uently we see 2na or 4ust 2a. ,xamples: calya2 "to illuminate" (root :1)) tulta2 "to send for! to fetch! to summon" (root T<)) harna2 "to wound" (root S:1,5 primitive initial s#2 became h2 in Quenya) !a,a2 "to grasp! to sei3e" (root -1!) (;onvention has it that when you list verbal stems as such! you add a hyphen at the end5 "olkien usually does so in his writings. "he "stem" of a verb is a basic form that we start from when deriving other forms! such as different tenses.) If these -2stems can be termed "derived verbs"! the other category consists of the "non2derived" or primary verbs. "hese are verbs that display no such ending as 2ya! 2ta! 2na or 2a. "he verbal stems in 1uestion can be termed "primary" or "basic" since they essentially represent a primitive root with no additions. Eor instance! the verb !at2 "eat" comes directly from the root -1T2 of similar meaning. Tac2 "fasten" represents the root T1:2 "fix! make fast". Tul2 "come" can be identified with the root T<)2 "come! approach! move towards" (contrast the derived verb tulta2 "send for! summon! fetch" from the same root! derived by means of the ending 2ta). In the case of the roots -3)2 "love" and S/,2 "flow"! "olkien didn0t even bother to repeat the glosses for the Quenya verbs !el2 and sir2 (see ./:8@&! 8:)). ?hen discussing Quenya verbs! we sometimes need to refer to the stemvowel. "his is the vowel of the root2word underlying the verb as it appears in Quenya. In the case of primary verbs like !el2 "love"! it is of course easy to identify the stem2vowel! since e is the only vowel there is (and sure enough! this is also the vowel of the underlying root -3)2). In the case of derived verbs like ,usta2 "stop" or ora2 "impel"! the vowels of the added ending (here 2ta and 2a) do not count as stem2vowels. Pusta2! for instance! is derived from a root !<S! and its stem2vowel is therefore u! not a. In the vast ma4ority of cases! the stem2

vowel is simply the first vowel of the verb (but not necessarily so! there may be some prefixed element). ?ith this we have the necessary terms in place and can finally start discussing the formation of the present tense. "o start with the primary verbs! what seems to be the present tense of the verb !el2 "love" is attested in ./:K(! ,lendil telling his son Berendil: 6onya iny& tye1mla! "I too! my son! I love thee". Bere we have the verb describing a present or on2going (in this case 1uite permanent) action. -nother example of a present2tense primary verb can apparently be found in the .ot/ itself! in the famous greeting elen sla l !enn" o!entiel#o! "a star shines Oor! is shiningP upon the hour of our meeting". Sla would seem to be the present tense of a verb sil2 "shine (with white or silver light)"! listed in the Silmarillion -ppendix. M'la and sla show the same relationship to the simple verbal stems !el2 and sil2: the present2tense forms are derived by lengthening the stem2vowel (this is denoted by supplying an accent! of course) and adding the ending 2a. "his conclusion is supported by an example from #"I(:(8: "he verb 7uet2 "speak! say" there appears in the present tense 7u'ta "is saying". "hough forms like !'la and sla may occasionally be translated using the simple present tense in ,nglish! hence "love(s)" and "shines"! is seems that the Quenya present tense properly denotes a continuous or ongoing action that is best translated using the ,nglish "is ...2ing" construction! as in the example 7u'ta 4ust 1uoted: this is "is saying" rather than 4ust "says". "he conclusion that the Quenya present tense properly denotes continuous actions is also supported by other evidence: "he Quenya present tense of the primary verb !at2 "eat" is nowhere attested in published material. Bowever! "olkien stated that m9t9 was "the stem of the continuous form"! which could be translated "is eating" (#"89:95 9 here denotes long a! in Quenya spelt %). "olkien actually put an asterisk in front of m9t9 to mark it as an "unattested" form! so this should evidently be taken as primitive ,lvish rather than Quenya. Bow Quenya evolved from the primitive language can be inferred from many other examples! so we know that m9t9 would come out as !%ta. "his form would seem to fall into the same pattern as !'la! sla and 7u'ta: lengthened stem2vowel and ending 2a (and working backwards! we can deduce that "olkien meant !'la! sla! 7u'ta to be descended from primitive ,lvish mPl9! sFl9! #wPt9). +resumably these are all "continuous" forms5 4ust like primitive m9t9 "is eating" they apparently emphasi3e the ongoing nature of the action: Sla may literally be "is shining" rather than 4ust "shines". +erhaps the lengthening of the stem2vowel somehow symboli3es this ongoing or "drawn2out" action. In the case of !'la in the sentence iny& tye1!'la! it is more natural to translate "I love you" rather than "I am loving you"! but the latter would seem to be the most literal meaning. "hen we must consider the second and larger category of verbs! the -2stems. In their case! the information from #"I( is of particular value.

It seems that the -2stems form their present tense by somewhat the same rule as the primary verbs! but the rule needs a little "adaptation" to fit the shape of an -2 stem verb. =ur sole attested example is the verb ora2 "urge" or "impel". #"I(:(8! (: indicates that its present tense is $r&a ("is urging"). -s in the case of primary verbs! the stem2vowel has been lengthened and the ending 2a has been added. "here is one complication! though: since the verbal stem ora2 already ended in 2a! this vowel is changed to e so as to avoid two a0s in se1uence: ?hat would be $ra1a manifests as $r&a. Bence we must conclude that verbs like !a,a2 "grasp! sei3e" and lala2 "laugh" appear as !%,&a! l%l&a in the present tense. Ahort -2stems like ora2 or !a,a2 are however of a rather unusual shape! since they add only the simple vowel 2a to the original root. -s discussed above! -2stems where the final 2a is only part of a longer derivational ending (most often 2ya or 2ta) are much more common. ?e have already 1uoted examples like calya2 "to illuminate" and tulta2 "to summon" (roots :1)! T<)). Auch "complex" -2stems have a consonant cluster following the vowel of the original root! like ly and lt in these examples. ?e have no actual example of the present tense of such a verb. If we were to apply the pattern we deduce to exist from the example $r&a "is urging"! it would land us on forms like Mc%ly&a "is illuminating" and Mt lt&a "is summoning". Bowever! there seems to be a phonological rule in Quenya prohibiting a long vowel immediately in front of a consonant cluster. It would seem that a word like Mt lt&a cannot exist (but frankly I0m not 1uite sure about Mc%ly&a! since ly%ny%ry sometimes seem to count as unitary palatali3ed consonants rather than consonant clusters). .acking actual examples! we can only assume that in such a case the lengthening of the vowel would simply be dropped! so that the present tense of verbs like calya2 and tulta2 would be caly&a! tult&a (though as I 4ust indicated! Mc%ly&a may be possible for all I know). "his would apply wherever there is a consonant cluster following the vowel of the verbal stem. Eurther examples are lanta2 "fall"! harna2 "wound" and ,usta2 "stop"! that would all 6 presumably 6 form their present2tense forms in 2&a: Lant&a "is falling"! harn&a "is wounding"! ,ust&a "is stopping". ?e must assume that this system also applies where there is a diphthong in the verbal stem! since like a vowel in front of a consonant cluster! a diphthong cannot be lengthened in any way. "he present2tense forms of verbs like faina2 "emit light" or auta2 "pass" would presumably be fain&a! aut&a. ?e now know enough to start building simple sentences: T *sil sla "the $oon is shining" (present tense sla formed from the primary verb sil2 "shine") T * Elda l%l&a "the ,lf is laughing" (present tense formed from the short -2stem lala2 "laugh")

T Lass& lant&a "a leaf is falling" (present tense formed from the complex -2stem lanta2 "fall"5 we cannot have ]l%nt&a paralleling l%l&a because a long vowel cannot occur in front of a consonant cluster)
=", (added Aeptember &''&): Aome of my deductions above have been critici3ed by #" editor ;arl E. Bostetter. o one disputes the fact that primary verbs form their present or "continuous" tense by lengthening the stem2vowel and adding 2a! but the notion that -2stems have present2tense forms in 2&a has proved controversial. =f course! this is based on the one example $r&a (from ora2 "impel")! and it was Bostetter himself who published this form and suggested that this is an example of the present%continuous tense. Bowever! it may be that the idea of present2tense forms in 2&a represents merely a short2lived fluctuation in "olkien0s evolving conceptions. I have not changed any of the exercises below! but until we know more about "olkien0s precise intentions! writers may opt to avoid the present2tense forms in 2&a in their own compositions. -s we will discuss later! there is a way to work around this particular uncertainty.

Aome useful terms can be included here. =nce you include a verb in the sentence! denoting some kind of action! you must normally devote another part of the sentence to telling who is doing this action. "he party that does whatever the verb tells us is being done! constitutes the subLect of the sentence. In a sentence like *sil sla "the $oon is shining"! it is thus *sil "the $oon" that is the sub4ect! since it is the $oon that does the shining the verb sla tells us about. In a sentence like i Elda !%ta "the ,lf is eating"! i Elda "the ,lf" is the sub4ect! since the ,lf does the eating. "his very sentence! i Elda !%ta! has possibilities. ?e can add one more element! like the noun !assa "bread"! and get i Elda !%ta !assa "the ,lf is eating bread". ow what is the function of this added wordM It is the "target" of the verbal action! in this case what is eaten. "he target of the verbal action is called the obLect! the passive counterpart of the active sub4ect: "he sub4ect does something! but the ob4ect is what the sub4ect does something to. "he sub4ect "sub4ects" the ob4ect to some kind of action. "his "action" may of course be much less dramatic than "sub4ect eats ob4ect" as in the example above. Eor instance! it can be as subtle as in the sentence "the sub4ect sees the ob4ect" (fill in with other sense2verbs if you like)! where the "action" of the sub4ect does not physically affect the ob4ect in any way. "hat is not the point here. "he basic idea of the sub4ect2ob4ect dichotomy is simply that the subLect does something to the obLect! though "does something to" must sometimes be understood in a wider sense.
=",: otice! though! that in sentences with the copula n%%nar "is%are"! for instance i alda n% tasar "the tree is a willow"! tasar "a willow" does not count as the ob4ect of i alda "the tree". * alda is the subLect all right! since this is the element that "does" what little action there is in this sentence: "the tree is..." Cut tasar "a willow" is not the ob4ect! for in this sentence "the tree" does not do anything to "a willow" 6 and the hallmark of the ob4ect is that something is done to it. /ather than doing anything do a willow! the tree is a willow! and that is another thing altogether: Tasar is here the predicate of i alda! as we discussed in the previous lesson. Cut if we substitute !%ta "is eating" for n% "is"! we are right back to a sub4ect2verb2ob4ect construction: * alda !%ta tasar! "the tree is eating a willow". If you are unduly troubled by the fact that this sounds somewhat nonsensical! rest assured that the grammar is fine.

In the case of some verbs! there can be no ob4ect. In the case of (say) lanta2 "to fall"! you can have a sub4ect and say i Elda lant&a "the ,lf is falling". Bere the sub4ect doesn0t do anything to an ob4ect5 it is 4ust the sub4ect itself that is doing

something. ?ith a verb like !at2 "eat"! it is kind of optional if you want to fill out the sentence with an ob4ect or not: * Elda !%ta (!assa)! "the ,lf is eating (bread)"5 this works as a complete sentence even without the ob4ect. Cut some verbs by their meaning demand an ob4ect! and the sentence would be felt to be incomplete without it. If we say i Elda !%,&a "the ,lf is sei3ing"! this only raises the 1uestion "the ,lf is sei3ing whatK" and we must come up with an ob4ect to make the sentence complete. In the +lot3 letter! "olkien indicated that in one variant of Quenya! so2called >oo# Duenya! nouns would have a special form if they function as ob4ects. Aingular nouns ending in a vowel would have this vowel lengthened (for instance! cirya "ship" would become ciry% if it appears as the ob4ect of a sentence)! and nouns that normally employ the plural ending 2r would switch to 2i (so "ships"! as ob4ect! would be ciryai instead of ciryar). "his special "ob4ect" form! in linguistic terms the accusative case! was supposedly used in (archaicM) written Quenya. Bowever! this accusative does not appear in any actual texts! such as Namri or even the last version of the -ar#irya poem! which must be almost contemporaneous with the +lot3 letter. Namri! sung by 7aladriel! is perhaps supposed to reflect the usage of spoken "hird -ge Quenya. ?hatever the case! I do not use the distinct accusative in the exercises I have made for this course (or in my own Quenya compositions). It seems clear that the use of the accusative was far from universal! within or without the fictional context. Ao I would say cirya(r) for "ship(s)" even if the word appears as the ob4ect of a sentence. ?ith the terms sub4ect and ob4ect in place! we can discuss another feature of the Quenya verb. Dust like ad4ectives agree in number with the nouns they describe! verbs agree in number with their subLects. .et us have a closer look at the first line of Namri! lauri& lantar lassi "like gold fall the leaves"! or literally "golden fall OtheP leaves". Bere the ad4ective laur&a "golden" appears in plural form lauri& to agree in number with the plural noun lassi "leaves"! as we discussed in the previous lesson. Cut the verb lanta2 "to fall" must also agree with its plural sub4ect lassi. "he verb lanta therefore takes the ending 2r. ("he verb itself appears in the so2called aorist tense! to be discussed later5 you can think of aorist lantar vs. present tense lant&ar as corresponding to ,nglish "fall" vs. "are falling"! respectively. Aome would consider a form like lant&ar speculative! but lantar is directly attested in "olkien0s writings.) "he plural ending 2r we have already met in the case of nouns! as in Eldar ",lves"! but nouns may also have plurals in 2i! depending on their shape. In the case of verbs! the plural ending 2r seems to be universal! no matter what the verb looks like. "he ending 2r is not restricted to the present tense of verbs! but is seemingly used in all tenses! wherever a plural sub4ect turns up.

,ssentially we have already met the verbal plural ending in the verb nar "are"! the plural of n% "is". (=ne may ask why n% does not turn into Mn%r with the long vowel intact. "he latter form may very well turn out to be valid! but nar "are" with a short a is at least less prone to confusion with the noun n%r "flame".) $ore than one sub4ect has the same effect on the verb as a (single) plural sub4ect! the verb taking the ending 2r in both instances: * arani !%tar "the kings are eating" (sg. i aran !%ta "the king is eating") * aran ar i t%ri !%tar "the king and the 1ueen are eating" (if you want the verb !at2 "eat" to appear in singular present2tense form !%ta here! you must get rid of either the king or the 1ueen so that there is 4ust a single sub4ect) =n the other hand! it has no effect on the verb if we have a plural obLect or multiple ob4ects! e.g. i aran !%ta !assa ar a,sa "the king is eating bread and meat" (a,sa "cooked food! meat"). "he verb agrees in number with the sub4ect only. It has generally been assumed that the verb has only one plural form! the ending 2r being universal. In other words! the verb would take the ending 2r not only where the sub4ect noun appears in the "normal" plural (ending 2r or 2i)! but also where it is dual (ending 2u or 2t) or appears in the "partitive plural" form (ending 2li). Bowever! we have no actual examples from .ot/2style Quenya! and in particular I will not rule out the possibility that there may be a special dual form of the verb to go with dual sub4ects (ending 2t as for most nouns! like Aldu slat rather than Aldu slar for "the "wo "rees are shining"MMM) "he published material allows no certain conclusion in this 1uestion! so I will simply avoid dual sub4ects in the exercises I make for this course. "he last thing we must consider when discussing the verb is the 1uestion of word order. ?here in the sentence does the verb fit in! reallyM ,nglish sentences generally list the sub4ect! the verb and the ob4ect (if there is any ob4ect) in that order. "he attentive reader will have noticed that most of the Quenya sentences above are organi3ed in the same manner. "his seems to be the most typical word order in Quenya prose. ,xamples of the sub4ect and the verb in that order include lassi lantar "leaves fall" and !orni& caita "darkness lies Oupon the foaming wavesP" 6 both from the prose version of Namri. Cut there are also examples of the verb being placed first! e.g. Eingon0s cry before the irnaeth -rnoediad: Auta i l$!&(! literally "+asses the night"! but translated "the night is passingN" in the Silmarillion ch. &'. Indeed both of the above21uoted examples of the order sub4ect2verb from the prose Namri instead show the order verb2 sub4ect in the poetic version in .ot/: lantar lassi! caita !orni&. In ,nglish!

fronting the verb is one way of turning a declarative statement into a 1uestion! e.g. ",lves are beautiful" vs. "are ,lves beautifulM"! but this way of forming 1uestions evidently doesn0t work in Quenya. (Auta i l$!&( "passes the nightN" for "the night is passingN" is perhaps an example of dramatic style or affectionate speech5 the verbal action is evidently considered more important than the sub4ect that performs it. I suspect that in a less dramatic context! one would rather say i l$!& auta.) Namri also provides an example of a sentence with both sub4ect! verb and ob4ect: hsi& unt ,a +alaciryo !ri! "mist QsubLectR covers QverbR the 4ewels of ;alacirya Qthis whole phrase being the obLectR ". >et word order is again 1uite flexible! especially in poetry! as further examples from Namri shows. ?e have ob4ect2sub4ect2verb in the sentence !%ryat Elent%ri ortan&! literally "her hands (the) Atar1ueen raised" (in .ot/ translated "the Queen of the stars...has uplifted her hands"). "he sentence ily& tier undul%#& lu!0ul&! literally "all paths downlicked %i&e& covered' shadow"! has the order ob4ect2verb2 sub4ect (in .ot/! "olkien used the translation "all paths are drowned deep in shadow"). In the prose version of Namri! "olkien interestingly reorgani3ed both of these to sub4ect2verb2ob4ect constructions: Elent%ri ortan& !%ryat! lu!0ul& undul%#& ily& tier. "his is our main basis for assuming that this is the normal order! preferred where there are no poetic or dramatic considerations to be made. In general! one must be careful about putting the ob4ect before the sub4ect! for this could in some cases cause confusion as to which word is the ob4ect and which is the sub4ect (since the commonest form of Quenya does not maintain a distinct accusative case to mark the ob4ect). Auch inversions are however 1uite permissible when the sub4ect is singular and the ob4ect is plural or vice versa. "hen the verb! agreeing in number with the sub4ect only! will indirectly identify it. In the sentence ily& tier undul%#& lu!0ul& we can readily tell that it must be lu!0ul& "shadow" and not ily& tier "all paths" that is the sub4ect! because the verb undul%#& does not receive the ending 2r to agree with the plural word tier. Bence this can0t be the sub4ect 6 but the singular noun lu!0ul& "shadow" can. MORE A)O3T A4JE+T*@ES In ,nglish and other ,uropean languages! ad4ectives have special forms that are used in comparison. In ,nglish! ad4ectives have a comparative form that is constructed by adding the ending 2er! and a superlative form that is formed with the ending 2est. Eor instance! the ad4ective tall has the comparative form taller and the superlative form tallest. (In the case of some ad4ectives! ,nglish however resorts to the independent words more and most instead of using the endings! e.g. more intelligent and most intelligent instead of intelligenter and intelligentest! which forms are perceived as cumbersome.) "he function of these forms is to facilitate comparison between various parties. If we want to say that one party possesses the 1uality described by the ad4ective to a greater extent

than some other party! we may use the comparative form: "+eter is taller than +aul." "he superlative form is used if we want to say that one party possesses the 1uality in 1uestion more than all others that are considered: "+eter is the tallest boy in the class." In the first version of this Quenya lesson! as published in <ecember &'''! I wrote: "Cut when it comes to Quenya! there is not much we can say. "he published material includes absolutely no information about comparative forms5 we don0t even have an independent word for 0more0." Aince then! the situation has happily changed5 during &''( a little more information appeared in the 4ournals Tyali Tyelelli?va (Y(K) and Vinyar Tengwar. ow we do know a special formula that is used in comparison: "- is brighter than C" may be expressed as "- n% cali!a l% C"! literally "- is bright beyond C" (#"I&:8&). Bowever! the word l% has other meanings beside "beyond"! and it will be more practical to discuss and practice its use in comparison in a later lesson (""he various uses of l"! .esson ,ighteen). ?e will here focus on the superlative form of ad4ectives instead. It is somewhat dis1uieting to notice that when "olkien was making a Quenya translation of the .itany of .oreto! he broke off before translating the .atin superlative form purissima "most pure" 6 as if he himself was not 1uite certain how to render it (#"II:(9). >et one tiny scrap of evidence regarding the superlative has long been available: In .etters:&@:2&@9! "olkien explained the ad4ectival form ancali!a occurring in .ot/. "ranslating it as "exceedingly bright"! he stated that this is cali!a "shining brilliant" with the element an2 added! the latter being a "superlative or intensive prefix". Eor this reason! many writers have used the prefix an2 as the e1uivalent of the ,nglish ending 2est! to construct the superlative form of ad4ectives 6 e.g. an#anya "fairest" from #anya "fair! beautiful" (but is should be understood that ancali!a remains our sole attested example of an2 used in this sense). =ne may wonder whether the form that is made by prefixing an2 really is the e1uivalent of an ,nglish superlative! sc. a form of the ad4ective that implies having the most of the property involved in comparison with certain others. It may be noted that "olkien translated ancali!a! not as "brightest"! but as "exceedingly bright". ?hen he describes an2 as a "superlative or intensive prefix"! he may almost seem to mean 0superlative or rather intensive prefix0. Ao perhaps an2 implies "very! exceedingly" rather than "most" in comparison with others. It may be noted! though! that the context the in which the word is found does seem to imply a certain amount of "comparison": In .ot/! ancali!a occurs as part of Erodo0s "speaking in tongues" in Ahelob0s lair (volume &! Cook Eour! chapter I_): Aiya E<rendil Elenion Ancali!a. o translation is given in the .ot/ itself! but "olkien later stated that this means "hail ,Urendil brightest of stars" (.etters:8:)). In "olkien0s mythology! ,Urendil carrying the shining Ailmaril was set in the heavens as the brightest of the stars. Ao here! the meaning does seem to be that of a genuine superlative! "brightest" in the full sense of

"brighter than all the others". In any case! no other information on how to form the superlative appears in published writings! so we have little choice but to use this formation. ?e must however be prepared that future publications may provide more information about this! involving alternative superlative formations. "he prefix an2 in this form cannot be mechanically prefixed to any Quenya ad4ective! or consonant clusters that Quenya does not allow would sometimes result. An2 can be prefixed "as is" to ad4ectives beginning in a vowel or in c2! n2! 7u2! t2! #2! .2! and y2: an Q alta "great (in si3e)" F analta "greatest" an Q cali!a "bright" F ancali!a "brightest" (our sole attested exampleN) an Q norna "tough" F annorna "toughest" an Q 7uanta "full" F an7uanta "fullest" an Q #anya "beautiful" F an#anya "most beautiful" an Q .enya "green" F an.enya "greenest" an Q y%ra "old" F any%ra "oldest" +erhaps we can also include ad4ectives in f2 and h2 (no examples): an Q f%na "white" F Manf%na "whitest" an Q halla "tall" F Manhalla "tallest" ?hat would happen in other cases we cannot say for certain. ,ither an extra vowel (likely e or a) would be inserted between the prefix and the ad4ective to break up what would otherwise be an impossible cluster! or the final 2n of the prefix would change! becoming more similar (or wholly similar) to the first consonant of the ad4ective. Auch assimilation is observed elsewhere in our corpus! so this has to be our favourite theory regarding the behavior of an2 as well. Cefore the consonant ,2! the n of an would likely be pronounced with the lips closed because the pronunciation of , involves such a closure5 hence n would turn into !. (;ompare ,nglish input often being pronounced imput.) Erom ,itya "small" we would thus have a!,itya for "smallest"! this being the impossible word an,itya reworked into a permissible form (Quenya does not have n,! but the cluster !, is fre1uent even in unitary words). Cefore the consonants l2! r2! s2! and !2! the final n of an2 would probably be fully assimilated! that is! it becomes identical to the following consonant: an Q lauca "warm" F allauca "warmest" an Q rin-a "cold" F arrin-a "coldest" an Q sarda "hard" F assarda "hardest" an Q !oina "dear" F a!!oina "dearest"

;f. such attested assimilations as nl becoming ll in the compound N !ell$t& "Elower of the ?est" (J":&&@! transparently a compound of the well2known words n !en "west" and l$t& "flower"). -s for the group n! becoming !!! this development is seen in the name of the #anyarin ,lf Ele!!r& mentioned in the Silmarillion: his (herM) name apparently means "Atar24ewel" (elen "star" Q !r& "4ewel"). Summary of )esson (ive "wo ma4or categories of Quenya verbs are the primary verbs! that represent a primitive root with no additions! and the 1-stems! that have added an ending including the vowel a to the original root (sometimes 2a alone! but more commonly some longer ending like 2ya or 2ta). "he primary verbs form their present tense by lengthening the stem2vowel and adding 2a! e.g. sla "is shining" from sil2 "to shine". "he -2stems form their present tense by somewhat the same rule! but when the ending 2a is added to such a stem (already ending in 2a)! what would be 2aa is changed to 2&a. In our one attested example of what may be the present tense of an -2stem! $r&a from ora2 "to impel"! the stem2vowel has been lengthened. Bowever! as far as we understand Quenya phonology! a long vowel cannot normally occur in front of a consonant cluster! and most -2stems do have a consonant cluster following the stem2vowel (e.g. lanta2 "to fall"! hilya2 "to follow"). +resumably such verbs would form their present tense in 2&a! but the stem2vowel would remain short. =nly the (relatively few) -2stems that do not have a consonant cluster following the stem2vowel can lengthen it in the present tense. %NBT3 Some consider all present-tense forms in -a speculativeH and students should understand that given the scarcity of source materialH new publications may significantly alter the picture& The use of such forms in the e0ercises below should be considered tentative reconstruction or e0trapolationH not necessarily STol#ien factS&' 6 - verb agrees with its sub4ect in number! receiving the ending 2r if the sub4ect is plural: elen sla "a star is shining"! eleni slar "stars are shining". - superlative form of ad4ectives can be derived by adding the prefix an2! as in ancali!a "brightest" from cali!a "bright". ?e must! however! assume that the n of this prefix is in many cases assimilated to the first consonant of the ad4ective! or consonant clusters that Quenya phonology does not allow would arise. Eor instance! an2 Q lauca "warm" may produce allauca for "warmest" (]anlauca being an impossible word). @O+A)3LAR6 canta "four" Nauco "<warf" ,ar!a "book" tiuca "thick! fat" !a,a2 verb "grasp! sei3e"

tir2 verb "watch! guard" lala2 verb "laugh" (so according to a late source! +$:8)95 in earlier material the verb lala2! of a 1uite
different derivation! has the meaning "deny": Aee the entry )1 in the 3tymologies. ?e needn0t discuss whether one obsoletes the other5 here we will use lala2 for "laugh" only.)

caita2 verb "lie" (lie hori3ontally! not "tell a lie") tulta2 verb "summon" linda2 verb "sing" (cf. the word Ainulindal& or "$usic Olit. AingingP of the -inur") !at2 verb "eat" cenda2 verb "read" EBER+*SES (. "ranslate into ,nglish: 1& * ns l%l&a. >& * antiuca Nauco !%ta. $& * t%ri tra i aran. D& * analta oron n% taura. 3& * n'r tult&a i an#anya #end&. (& * ai.& lind&a. C& * Naucor !%,&ar i canta Eldar. 2. * antaura aran n% saila. &. "ranslate into Quenya: /& "he woman is watching the greatest (%biggest) ship. .& "he most evil (%evilest) men are dead. :. "he ,lf is sei3ing the book. ). Eour men are lying under a tree. -. "he wisest ,lf is reading a book (careful: what probably happens to the superlative prefix
when it is added to a word like saila "wise"M)

N. "he king and the 1ueen are reading the book. B. "he birds are singing. !. "he four <warves are watching a bird. )essons T-UV may be downloaded from this <,) http:%%www.uib.no%+eople%hnohf%less2b.rtf