Ardalambion

[Frodo Baggins]

I'm new to Tolkien's languages, and I wondered what everyone thought of Helge Fauskanger's Quenya course.
Quenya Course (http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/qcourse.htm)

Also: some people say that we can never really know quenya. That we can only now what people think it could be... is this true? How sure can anyone be that the quenya they are learning is really the "right" quenya? Thanks!

[jallan]

Tolkien kept changing his mind.

Also, one guesses, he would sometimes forget what he had decided and reinvent.

There are a few articles published in which Tolkien is obviously inventing as he goes along, sometimes bothered by forms that he had used and published and no longer fit in.

So there is no absolutely right Quenya, unless you mean only the words and sentences written by Tolkien and published during his liftetime.

Helge Fauskanger’s Quenya is certainly as good as any and makes reasonable deductions from the forms that have been published. Some make different deductions for particular points or suggest there really isn’t sufficient evidence for deductions on those points.

It is much like trying to establish the rules for a real-world dead language where only a small corpus survives.

Scholars have natural disagreements about forms not actually found, the exact meanings of particular words, the proper grammatical terminology, and whether an apparent oddity is in fact a norm in the language or dialectical or even a mistake in the texts.

But if you want to learn that dead language you usually start with particular grammars and dictionaries, knowing that not everything in them will be altogether correct and that future research will hopefully correct and broaden the picture, occasionally drastically.

One reads such grammars, including what Fauskanger writes, with this in mind.

[Anubis]

Ardalambion is probably the best site for Elvish lan. information. I took the Quenya course, and it works really good! To speak it fluently, you must make up many words.

[Frodo Baggins]

You can speak quenya fluently? Impressive! What I always been told is: "Don't bother to learn quenya, you won't be able to speak it, and it won't be Tolkien's quenya anyways..." This must not be true if it is possible to speak it fluently...

[BelDain]

Well, like Anubis said, you have to make up a whole lot of words.

[Elendil3119]

Even the most *complete* Quenya dictionaries are lacking in the vocabulary necessary for everyday conversation. :)

[Frodo Baggins]

But if my knowledge of languages is correct, and if quenya is a real language, then shouldn't it be possible to make up quenya words which go along with all of quenya's grammatical rules? After all, whoever invented English didn't construct the entire vocabulary himself. Am I right about this?

[Lantarion]

Yes. I have understood that it is permissable to create new words in Quenya yourself, if you follow the rules. But many words might be simple reconstructions of old ones, or two ro more words together (like 'telephone' might be "far-speak").
I think many modern words actually have been invented in Quenya..

[jallan]

Frodo Baggins posted:But if my knowledge of languages is correct, and if quenya is a real language, then shouldn't it be possible to make up quenya words which go along with all of quenya's grammatical rules?Of course, anyone can invent new words in any language, but such an invention only becomes part of the language if taken up by many others.

Who would design the new Quenya and on exactly what principles?

The Grey Company Elvish language at Common to Elven (http://www.grey-company.org/Circle/language/intro.htm) is a weak attempt at this, and a very bad attempt from a linguistic point of view.

Possibly at some point some person or group will create a more linguistically justifiable neo-Quenya. Almost certainly another person or group will disagree with many choices and create their own competing variant.

If you taught a large group of people all known Quenya vocabulary and known rules, divided them into ten groups which did not intermix, and each group was to speak only Quenya to each other for ten years, at the end of that time you would probably have ten different full languages, though in parts mutually intelligible.

Our Quenya vocabulary from Tolkien is very small, the grammar very spotty, and there are so many different logical ways to expand on Quenya, not all of which Tolkien would have entertained simultaneouslyAfter all, whoever invented English didn't construct the entire vocabulary himself. Am I right about this?Real languages like English are mostly not invented.

English grew and changed little by little from Proto-Indo-European (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~marisal/ie/pie.html) though Proto-Germanic (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~marisal/ie/germanic.html) through Proto-West-Germanic (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~marisal/ie/wgmc.html) through Ingvaeonic (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~marisal/ie/ingv.html) through primitive Old English through Old English through Middle English to modern English (see English (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~marisal/ie/english.html)).

Old forms changed, grammar shifted, new words and different ways of saying things were coined and were borrowed while old words and old constructions died.

But there was never one right way in which the language had to develop, never any way to tell which coined or borrowed word would survive and which would not, to know which innovation would later be considered right.

That is one reason Armerican English has hood where British English has bonnet for the lid over an automobile motor, why Amercan English says mostly line where British English says mostly queue.

[Frodo Baggins]

Thanks, that clarifies a lot. Also, Walter: you said that a guy named "Allan" wrote a book on learning Elvish. What is his last name and where can you get the book? Is it available as a download like Fauskanger’s course? Please forgive my ignorance, but I'm new both to these forums and to elvish. :)

Thanks!

[Lantarion]

A few months a go or so I found out that 'jallan' is actually Jim Allan.. Idiotic of me to not have spotted that before.. :rolleyes:

[Frodo Baggins]

Jallan said:
The Grey Company Elvish language at Common to Elven is a weak attempt at this, and a very bad attempt from a linguistic point of view.

Could you please clarify what you mean? :confused: Is it bad grammar, or did it just fail to be widely adopted? I was wondering since Common to Elven has a decent sized treasury of phrases, which I would be tempted to use. :) Unless, of course, they aren't real and true elvish. Thanks!

[Lantarion]

As I understand it, GCE has taken Quenya and used some words as they are, but many of them have been modified and changed to sound different, and they don't even follow any proper grammatical rules, as far as I can see.

[Frodo Baggins]

So they really aren't real quenya then? Is there anybody who is doing something like GCE only maintaining the integrity of the language?

[Lantarion]

I doubt it.
And no, GCE is most definately not Quenya!