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130-696: Valinor ( Quenya : Land of the Valar ) or the Blessed Realm is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien 's legendarium , the home of the immortal Valar on the continent of Aman , far to the west of Middle-earth ; he used the name Aman mainly to mean Valinor. It includes Eldamar , the land of the Elves , who as immortals are permitted to live in Valinor. Aman is known as "the Undying Lands", but

260-571: A heroic romance suitable for the modern age. Scholars have identified real-world analogues for each of the varied races of Men, whether from medieval times or classical antiquity . The weakness of Men, The Lord of the Rings asserts, is the desire for power; the One Ring promises enormous power, but is both evil and addictive . Tolkien uses the two Men in the Fellowship created to destroy

390-402: A vernacular language for every-day use, Tarquesta , and a more educated language for use in ceremonies and lore, Parmaquesta . The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger observed that the "degree of proximity" to the light of the Valar affected the development of both languages in terms of phonology, morphology and semantics. The division between Light Elves and Dark Elves that took place during

520-587: A conflict in his writing. The pride of the Elves in Valinor resulted in a fall, analogous to the biblical fall of man . Tolkien described this by saying "The first fruit of their fall was in Paradise [Valinor], the slaying of Elves by Elves"; Gallant interprets this as an allusion to the fruit of the biblical tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the resulting exit from the Garden of Eden. The leading prideful elf

650-432: A connection to and inner experience of nature, so that the modern situation represents a loss of that state of grace. Fitzsimmons states that the lost home motif recurs throughout Tolkien's writings. He does not suggest that Barfield influenced Tolkien, but that the ideas of the two men grew from "the same time, place, and even social circle". Kelly and Livingston state that while Aman could be home to Elves as well as Valar,

780-544: A journey through Purgatory (the Catholic precursor stage to paradise), Tolkien avoids describing paradise at all. They suggest that to the Catholic Tolkien, it is impossible to describe Heaven, and it might be sacrilege to make the attempt. The Tolkien scholar Michael D. C. Drout comments that Tolkien's accounts of Eldamar "give us a good idea of his conceptions of absolute beauty ". He notes that these resemble

910-469: A number of unpublished writings on Quenya, and later Tolkien scholars have prepared his notes and unpublished manuscripts for publication in the journals Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar , also publishing scholarly and linguistic analyses of the language. Tolkien never created enough vocabulary to make it possible to converse in Quenya, although fans have been writing poetry and prose in Quenya since

1040-644: A particular kind of artificial language that helps to create a fictional world. Other such languages would include Robert Jordan 's Old Tongue in his novel The Wheel of Time , and the Klingon language of the Star Trek series invented by Marc Okrand . It was observed that they form "a sociolinguistic context within which group and individual identities can be created." Two journals, Vinyar Tengwar from issue No. 39 (July 1998), and Parma Eldalamberon from issue No. 11 (1995), have been exclusively devoted to

1170-457: A prisoner, and after three Ages is brought before the Valar; he sues for pardon, vowing to assist the Valar and make amends for the hurts he has done. Manwë grants him pardon, but confines him within Valmar to remain under watch. After his release, Melkor starts planting seeds of dissent in the minds of the Elves, including between Fëanor and his brothers Fingolfin and Finarfin. Fëanor uses some of

1300-651: A ritual or poetic language, whereas the Vanyar who stayed behind in Eldamar retained the use of Quenya. In this way, the Quenya language was symbolic of the high status of the Elves, the firstborn of the races of Middle-earth, because of their close connection to Valinor, and its decreasing use also became symbolic of the slowly declining Elvish culture in Middle-earth. In the Second Age of Middle-earth's chronology

1430-420: A self-consistent character not precisely like any language that I know. Finnish, which I came across when I had first begun to construct a 'mythology' was a dominant influence, but that has been much reduced [now in late Quenya]. It survives in some features: such as the absence of any consonant combinations initially, the absence of the voiced stops b, d, g (except in mb, nd, ng, ld, rd , which are favoured) and

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1560-534: A variety of themes in The Lord of the Rings , especially death and immortality. This appears throughout, but is the central theme of an appendix, " The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen ". Where the Hobbits stand for simple, earthbound, comfort-loving people, Men are far more varied, from petty villains and slow-witted publicans to the gentle warrior Faramir and the genuinely heroic Aragorn ; Tolkien had wanted to create

1690-493: A world of Wizards and Elves, Dwarves, Rings of Power , Hobbits, Orcs, Trolls and Ringwraiths , and heroic Men with Elvish blood in their veins, and follow their history through long ages, provided that at the end he tore it all down again, leaving nothing, once again, but dim memories. By the end of The Lord of the Rings , the reader has learnt that the Elves have left for the Uttermost West, never to return, and that

1820-540: Is Fëanor, whose actions, Gallant writes, set off the whole dark narrative of strife among the Elves described in The Silmarillion ; the Elves fight and leave Valinor for Middle-earth. The passage at the start of the Old English poem Beowulf about Scyld Scefing contains a cryptic mention of þā ("those") who have sent Scyld as a baby in a boat, presumably from across the sea, and to whom Scyld's body

1950-498: Is a mythology where even the gods can die, and it leaves the reader with a vivid sense of life's cycles, with an awareness that everything comes to an end, that, though [the evil] Sauron may go, the elves will fade as well." This fits with Tolkien's equation of Middle-earth with the real Earth at some distant epoch in the past, and with his apparent intention to create a mythology for England . He could combine medieval myths and legends, hints from poems and nearly-forgotten names to build

2080-500: Is at variance with the hopeful tone of the rest of the work, remaining cheerful even in the face of apparently insuperable odds. Kocher writes that the Rings of Power reflected the characteristics of the race that was to wear them. Those for Men "stimulated and implemented their ambition for power". Whereas the tough Dwarves resisted Sauron's domination, and the Elves hid their Rings from him, with Men his plan "works perfectly", turning

2210-645: Is evil exactly because he seeks to dominate the wills of others; the Ringwraiths, the nine fallen kings of Men, are the clearest exemplars of the process. Kocher states that the leading Man in The Lord of the Rings is Aragorn, though critics often overlooked him in favour of Frodo as protagonist . Aragorn is one of two Men in the Fellowship of the Ring , the nine walkers from the Free Peoples opposed to

2340-953: Is hellish, while Harad in the extreme South "regresses into hot savagery". Peter Jackson , in his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , clothes the Haradrim in long red robes and turbans , and has them riding their elephants, giving them the look in Ibata's opinion of "North African or Middle Eastern tribesmen". Ibata notes that the film companion book, The Lord of the Rings: Creatures , describes them as "exotic outlanders" inspired by "12th century Saracen warriors". Jackson's Easterling soldiers are covered in armour, revealing only their "coal-black eyes" through their helmet's eye-slits. Ibata comments that they look Asian, their headgear recalling both Samurai helmets and conical "Coolie" hats. The Tolkien scholar Deborah C. Rogers compares

2470-670: Is named "Faerie". The land is well-wooded, as Finrod "walk[ed] with his father under the trees in Eldamar" and the Teleri Elves have timber to build their ships. The city of the Teleri, on the north shore of the Bay is Alqualondë, the Haven of the Swans, whose halls and mansions are made of pearl. The harbour is entered through a natural arch of rock, and the beaches are strewn with gems given by

2600-416: Is not always on the first syllable of a word. Typical Finnish elements like the front vowels ö , ä and y are lacking in Quenya, but phonological similarities include the absence of aspirated unvoiced stops or the development of the syllables ti > si in both languages. The combination of a Latin basis with Finnish phonological rules resulted in a product that resembles Italian in many respects, which

2730-579: Is not easily recognised. Tolkien almost never borrowed words directly from real languages into Quenya. The major exception is the name Earendel/Eärendil , which he found in an Old English poem by Cynewulf . Yet the Finnish influence extended sometimes also to the vocabulary. A few Quenya words, such as tul- "come" and anta- "give", clearly have a Finnish origin. Other forms that appear to have been borrowed are actually coincidental, such as Finnish kirja "book", and Quenya cirya "ship". Tolkien invented

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2860-524: Is probably not to be taken at face value. In a world with other intelligent and cultured races, Men in Middle-earth interact with each other and with the other races in a complex history, narrated mainly in The Silmarillion . Men are in general friendly with the other free peoples, especially Elves; they are implacable enemies of the enslaved peoples, especially Orcs . In the First Age, Men,

2990-484: Is realised as [ʍ] , a " spirantal voiceless w . It has more tense with closer lip-aperture and more friction than the voiceless wh of English". According to Tolkien, the graph ⟨q⟩ or ⟨qu⟩ is pronounced as "a lip-rounded 'k' followed by a partly unvoiced w-offglide", that is /kʷ/ . Man (Middle-earth) Tolkien uses the Men of Middle-earth, interacting with immortal Elves, to explore

3120-454: Is returned in a ship funeral , the vessel sailing by itself. Shippey suggests that Tolkien may have seen in this both an implication of a Valar-like group who behave much like gods, and a glimmer of his Old Straight Road , the way across the sea to Valinor forever closed to mortal Men by the remaking of the world after Númenor's attack on Valinor. Phillip Joe Fitzsimmons compares The Silmarillion's faraway Valinor, forbidden to Men and lost to

3250-544: Is shared by Elrond . The Tolkien scholar Paul H. Kocher writes that, in the style of the medieval Great Chain of Being , this list places Men and the other speaking peoples higher than the beasts, birds, and reptiles which he lists next. "Man the mortal, master of horses" is listed last among the free peoples, who were created separately. Although all Men in Tolkien's legendarium are related to one another, there are many different groups with different cultures. Those on

3380-409: Is strong enough. Aragorn replies gracefully to the tactless suggestion. Kocher comments that by being both bold and tactful, Aragorn has won all that he wanted from Boromir: the sword is genuine, as is Aragorn's claim to own it, and he has been invited back to Gondor. The Fellowship set off, temporarily united; when they reach Parth Galen , Boromir tries to seize the Ring from Frodo, causing Frodo to use

3510-597: Is the opposite of hobbitish: tall, not provincial, untroubled by the discomforts of the wild. At the start, in Bree, he appears as a Ranger of the North, a weatherbeaten man named Strider. Gradually the reader discovers he is heir to the throne of Gondor , engaged to be married to Arwen , an Elf-woman. Equipped with a named magical sword , he emerges as an unqualified hero , in Frye's "High Mimetic" or "Romantic" literary mode, making

3640-455: Is used in addition to singular and plural. It has been suggested that Tolkien used the dual to give Quenya an "archaic feel" in its role as an ancient language of the Elves. About ten years later, Tolkien changed his mind about the origin of the Elvish proto-language. Instead of learning from the Valar, the Elves had created an original language Quenderin which had become the proto-language of

3770-458: The imrama Celtic tales from the early Middle Ages. The imrama tales describe how Irish adventurers such as Saint Brendan sailed the seas looking for the "Land of Promise". He notes that it is certain that Tolkien knew these stories, since in 1955 he wrote a poem, entitled Imram , about Brendan's voyage. Quenya Quenya ( pronounced [ˈkʷwɛɲja] ) is a constructed language , one of those devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for

3900-619: The Dark Tower of Sauron in Mordor : she notes Timothy O'Neill 's view that the white benevolent feminine symbol opposes the evil masculine symbol. Further, Burns suggests, Galadriel is an Elf from Valinor "in the Blessed Realm", bringing Varda's influence with her to Middle-earth. This is seen in the phial of light that she gives to Frodo , and that Sam uses to defeat the evil giant spider Shelob : Sam invokes Elbereth when he uses

4030-617: The Edain , lived in Beleriand on the extreme West of Middle-earth. They form an alliance with the Elves and join a disastrous war against the first Dark Lord, Morgoth , which destroys Beleriand. As a reward for fighting in the war, the creator, Eru Iluvatar , gives the Edain the new island of Númenor as their home. The key difference between Men and Elves now becomes central to the story: Elves are immortal , and return to Valinor , home of

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4160-406: The Elves in his Middle-earth fiction. Tolkien began devising the language around 1910, and restructured its grammar several times until it reached its final state. The vocabulary remained relatively stable throughout the creation process. He successively changed the language's name from Elfin and Qenya to the eventual Quenya . Finnish had been a major source of inspiration , but Tolkien

4290-728: The Elves divided , Quenya originated as the speech of two clans of "High Elves" or Eldar, the Noldor and the Vanyar, who left Middle-earth to live in Eldamar ("Elvenhome"), in Valinor , the land of the immortal and God-like Valar . Of these two groups of Elves, most of the Noldor returned to Middle-earth where they met the Sindarin-speaking Grey-elves. The Noldor eventually adopted Sindarin and used Quenya primarily as

4420-859: The Fall of Man . The Celestial Paradise of Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle" lies "beyond (or above)", as it does, they note, in Dante 's Paradiso . Matthew Dickerson notes that Valinor resembles the Garden of Eden in having two trees. The scholar of English literature Marjorie Burns writes that one of the female Vala, Varda (Elbereth to the Elves) is sung to by the Elf-queen of Middle-earth Galadriel . Burns notes that Varda "sits far off in Valinor on Oiolossë", looking from her mountain-peak tower in Aman towards Middle-earth and

4550-719: The First Age at the start of the Years of the Sun , long after the Elves , the Elves called them the "afterborn", or in Quenya the Atani , the "Second People". Like Elves, Men first awoke in the East of Middle-earth , spreading all over the continent and developing a variety of cultures and ethnicities. Unlike Tolkien's Elves, Men are mortal; when they die, they depart to a world unknown even to

4680-635: The Men of Númenor learnt the Quenya tongue. In the Third Age , the time of the setting of The Lord of the Rings , Quenya was learnt as a second language by all Elves of Noldorin origin, and it continued to be used in spoken and written form, but their mother-tongue was the Sindarin of the Grey-elves. As the Noldor remained in Middle-earth, their Noldorin dialect of Quenya also gradually diverged from

4810-565: The Men of Middle-earth. Other residents of Valinor include the related but less powerful spirits, the Maiar , and most of the Elves. Each Vala has his or her own region of the land. The Mansions of Manwë and Varda, two of the most powerful spirits, stands upon the top of Taniquetil. Yavanna, the Vala of Earth, Growth, and Harvest, resides in the Pastures of Yavanna in the south of the land, west of

4940-756: The Noldor Elves. In the bay is the island of Tol Eressëa. Calacirya ( Quenya : "Light Cleft", for the light of the Two Trees that streams through the pass into the world beyond) is the pass in the Pelóri mountains where the Elven city Tirion is set. It is close to the Girdle of Arda (the Equator ). After the hiding of Valinor, this is the only gap through the mountains of Aman. In the extreme north-east, beyond

5070-718: The Sundering of the Elves is reflected in their respective languages. The Elves at first shared a common language, Primitive Quendian, called Quenderin in Quenya. Among the Eldar , i.e. those Elves who undertook the Great March to Valinor and Eldamar , Primitive Quendian developed into Common Eldarin. Some of the Eldar remained in Beleriand and became the Grey Elves ; their language developed into Sindarin . Most of

5200-461: The Two Trees of Valinor composed by Elemmírë of the Vanyar.) Prenasalised consonants are prominent in Quenya, and include their own tengwar . The following table presents the inventory of classic Noldorin consonants. Grouping of consonants occurs only in the central parts of a word, except for combinations with the semivowels /w/ and /j/ . Quenya orthography (using the Latin script) follows

5330-639: The ancient Greek Atlantis , and the resulting destruction in both cases. They note, too, that a mortal's stay in Valinor is only temporary, not conferring immortality, just as, in medieval Christian theology, the Earthly Paradise is only a preparation for the Celestial Paradise that is above. Others have compared the account of the beautiful Elvish part of the Undying Lands to the Middle English poem Pearl , and stated that

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5460-472: The "Qenyaqetsa". Examples include a different accusative or the abolition of final consonant clusters in later Quenya. Fimi suggests that Qenya as it appears in the "Qenyaqetsa" was supposed to be a mystic language, as the Lexicon contains a number of words with clear Christian religious connotations, such as anatarwesta "crucifixion" and evandilyon "gospel" – these words were not part of late Quenya. In

5590-579: The "dimininution and spiritual impoverishment" of the Noldorin culture. The Noldor at this time had fully mastered Sindarin, while the Sindar were slow to learn Quenya. Quenya in Middle-earth became known as Exilic Quenya when the Noldor eventually adopted the Sindarin language as their native speech after Thingol's ruling. It differed from Amanian Quenya mostly in vocabulary, having some loanwords from Sindarin. It differed also in pronunciation, representing

5720-491: The "petty villain", Bill Ferny ; the "loathsome" Grima Wormtongue ; the "slow-thinking" publican Barliman Butterbur of Bree ; "that portrait of damnation", Denethor , Steward of Gondor ; and at the upper end of the scale, the kingly Théoden , brought back to life from Wormtongue's corruption; the "gentle warrior" Faramir and his brother the hero-villain Boromir; and finally the ranger Aragorn, who becomes king. Aragorn

5850-406: The 1970s, when the total corpus of published Elvish comprised only a few hundred words. Since then, the use of Elvish has flourished in poems and texts, phrases and names, and even tattoos. But Tolkien himself never made his languages complete enough for conversation. As a result, newly invented Elvish texts require conjecture and sometimes the coinage of new words. The use of Quenya has expanded over

5980-669: The 1970s. This has required conjecture and the need to devise new words, in effect developing a kind of neo-Quenya language. J. R. R. Tolkien began to construct his first Elvish tongue c. 1910–1911 while he was at the King Edward's School, Birmingham . He later called it Qenya (c. 1915), and later changed the spelling to Quenya . He was then already familiar with Latin , Greek , Spanish , and several ancient Germanic languages, such as Gothic , Old Norse , and Old English . He had invented several cryptographic codes , and two or three constructed languages. Tolkien took an interest in

6110-647: The Black Númenóreans, good men gone wrong; and the Corsairs of Umbar , rebels of Gondor. Sandra Ballif Straubhaar notes in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that Faramir , son of the Steward of Gondor , makes an "arrogant" speech, of which he later "has cause to repent", classifying the types of Men as seen by the Men of Númenórean origin at the end of the Third Age ; she notes, too, that his taxonomy

6240-498: The Elves, though it constantly calls to them to return, to Tolkien's fellow- Inkling , Owen Barfield 's "lost home". Barfield writes of the loss of "an Edenic relationship with nature", part of his theory that man's purpose is to serve as "the Earth's self-consciousness". Barfield argued that rationalism creates individualism, "unhappy isolation ... [and] the loss of a mutual relationship with nature." Further, Barfield believed that ancient civilisations, as recorded in their languages, had

6370-531: The Elvish language family. For this new language, Tolkien kept the many roots he had invented for Valarin in the 1930s, which then became "Quenderin roots". The Eldarin family of languages comprises Quenya, Telerin , Sindarin and Nandorin . The evolution in Quenya and Telerin of the nasalised initial groups of Quenderin is described thus in Tolkien's Outline of Phonology : These groups in Quenya normally became simplified to nasals initially. (In Telerin they became b, d, g .) Thus: In contrast to early Qenya,

6500-443: The Elvish languages by Elves, Men and Hobbits in a variety of sources. The documentation about late Quenya phonology is contained in the Appendix E of the Lord of the Rings and the "Outline of Phonology", one of Tolkien's texts, published in Parma Eldalamberon No. 19. Tolkien based Quenya pronunciation more on Latin than on Finnish . Thus, Quenya lacks the vowel harmony and consonant gradation present in Finnish, and accent

6630-477: The Finnish mythology of the Kalevala , then became acquainted with Finnish , which he found to provide an aesthetically pleasing inspiration for his High-elvish language. Many years later, he wrote: "It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me." Regarding the inspiration for Quenya, Tolkien wrote that: The ingredients in Quenya are various, but worked out into

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6760-406: The Gardens of Lórien. In east-central Valinor at the Girdle of Arda is Valmar, the capital of Valinor (also called Valimar, the City of Bells), the residence of the Valar and the Maiar in Valinor. The first house of the Elves, the Vanyar , settles there as well. The mound of Ezellohar, on which stand the Two Trees , and Máhanaxar, the Ring of Doom, are outside Valmar. Farther east is the Calacirya,

6890-402: The Great Sea to the Outer Sea), and about 3,000 miles (4,800 km) long north to south. The continent of Aman extends from the Arctic latitudes of the Helcaraxë to the subpolar southern region of Arda – about 7,000 miles (11,000 km). Eldamar is "Elvenhome", the "coastal region of Aman, settled by the Elves", wrote Tolkien. Eldamar was the true Eldarin name of Aman. In The Hobbit it

7020-532: The IPA, but uses ⟨c⟩ as an alternative to ⟨k⟩ , writes [ŋ] not followed by another velar as ⟨ñ⟩ (in early Quenya when this still can occur, as in Ñoldor ; otherwise it is written ⟨n⟩ ), and represents the consonants [ç ʍ] using the digraphs ⟨hy hw⟩ . Similarly, the digraphs ⟨ty ndy⟩ may represent palatal stop allophones of [t ⁿd] , namely [c ⁿɟ] , although they are not independent phonemes. In addition, ⟨h⟩ in

7150-407: The Men of The Lord of the Rings with the Hobbits . She notes that the Hobbits are to an extent the low, simple, earthbound "clods" of the story who like beer and comfort and do not wish to go on adventures; they fit the antihero of modern literature and Northrop Frye 's lower literary modes including various forms of humour. In contrast, Tolkien's Men are not all of a piece: Rogers mentions

7280-416: The Men of Arda. Arda itself becomes spherical, and is left for Men to govern. The Elves can go to Valinor only by the Straight Road and in ships capable of passing out of the spheres of the earth. Keith Kelly and Michael Livingston, writing in Mythlore , note that Frodo 's final destination, mentioned at the end of The Lord of the Rings , is Aman, the Undying Lands. In Tolkien's mythology, they write,

7410-413: The Noldor Elves followed their leader Fëanor into exile from Eldamar and back to Middle-earth, where the immortal Elves first awoke. Quenya was used by the godlike Valar. The Elves derived some loanwords from the Valar's language, which was called Valarin in Quenya, although these were more numerous in the Vanyarin dialect than in Noldorin. This was probably because of the enduringly close relationship

7540-444: The Pelóri, is the Helcaraxë, a vast ice sheet that joins the two continents of Aman and Middle-earth before the War of Wrath. To prevent anyone from reaching the main part of Valinor's east coast by sea, the Valar create the Shadowy Seas, and within these seas they set a long chain of islands called the Enchanted Isles. Valinor is the home of the Valar (singular Vala), spirits that often take humanoid form, sometimes called "gods" by

7670-426: The Pelóri. Nearby are the mansions of Yavanna's spouse, Aulë the Smith. Oromë, the Vala of the Hunt, lives in the Woods of Oromë to the north-east of the pastures. Nienna lives in the far west of the island. Just south of Nienna's home, and to the north of the pastures, are the Halls of Mandos; he lives with his spouse Vairë the weaver. To the east of the Halls of Mandos is the Isle of Estë, in the lake of Lórellin within

7800-411: The Quenya name for "region", just happened to resemble Germanic Erde "earth", while it actually comes from the Valarin and Quenderin root gar- . According to Tom DuBois and Scott Mellor, the name of Quenya itself may have been influenced by the name Kven , a language closely related to Finnish, but Tolkien never mentioned this. Some linguists have argued that Quenya can be understood as an example of

7930-495: The Ring , Aragorn and the warrior Boromir , to show the effects of opposite reactions to that temptation. It becomes clear that, except for Men, all the peoples of Middle-earth are dwindling and fading : the Elves are leaving, and the Ents are childless. By the Fourth Age, Middle-earth is peopled with Men, and indeed Tolkien intended it to represent the real world in the distant past. Commentators have questioned Tolkien's attitude to race, given that good peoples are white and live in

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8060-446: The Ring to escape; the Fellowship is scattered. Orcs attack, seeking the Ring; Boromir repents, and dies trying to save the Hobbits, an act which redeems him. Aragorn gives Boromir an honourable boat-funeral . The quest eventually succeeds, and Aragorn, growing in strength through many perils and wise decisions is crowned King. Boromir gave in to the temptation of power, and fell; Aragorn responded rightfully, and rose. The status of

8190-461: The Rings was death and the human desire to escape it. The theme, which recurs throughout the work, is sharply visible in an appendix, " The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen ", in which the immortal Elf Arwen chooses mortality so that she can marry the mortal Man Aragorn . The result, as with the earlier intermarriage of their ancestors Lúthien and Beren in the First Age in Beleriand, was to make Aragorn's line exceptionally long-lived among Men, and as

8320-407: The Rings , according to Tolkien, "was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues". This process of first inventing a language and then creating a background setting for its fictional speakers has been described as unique. Dimitra Fimi , a Tolkien scholar, argues that Tolkien's invention of Qenya started as a quest for

8450-458: The Rings , of which it was/is in fact independent." In his lifetime, Tolkien experimented ceaselessly with his constructed languages, and they were subjected to many revisions. Quenya had many grammars with substantial differences between the different stages of its development. During the first conceptual stage of early Quenya c. 1910 to c. 1920, the language was called Elfin in English and Eldarissa in Qenya proper. While its development

8580-500: The Two Trees, Telperion, and one last luminous fruit from the other, Laurelin. These become the Moon and the Sun. The Valar carry out further titanic labours to improve the defences of Valinor. They raise the Pelóri mountains to even greater and sheerer heights. Off the coast, eastwards of Tol Eressëa, they create the Shadowy Seas and their Enchanted Isles; both the Seas and the Isles present numerous perils to anyone attempting to get to Valinor by sea. For centuries, Valinor take no part in

8710-408: The Valar create the island of Númenor as a reward to the Edain , Men who had fought alongside the Noldor. Centuries later the kingdom of Númenor grows so powerful and so arrogant that Ar-Pharazôn, the twenty-fifth and last king, dares to attempt an invasion of Valinor. When the creator Eru Ilúvatar responds to the call of the Valar, Númenor sinks into the sea, and Aman is removed beyond the reach of

8840-425: The Valarin and Quenderin root kir- from which sprang his Quenya word cirya . The Latin aurōra "dawn" and Quenya aure "moment of special meaning, special day, festival day" are unrelated. Quenya aurë comes from the Valarin and Quenderin root ur- . Germanic influence can more be seen in grammar (the -r nominative plural ending is reminiscent of the Scandinavian languages ) or phonology, than in words: Arda ,

8970-473: The Vanyar left the city of Túna, Telerin and Noldorin Quenya grew closer. The rebellious Noldor , who followed their leader Fëanor to Middle-earth, spoke only Quenya. But Elu Thingol , King of the Sindar of Beleriand, forbade the use of Quenya in his realm when he learned of the slaying of Telerin Elves by the Noldor. By doing so, he both restricted the possibility of the Sindar to enhance and brighten their language with influences from Quenya and accelerated

9100-416: The Vanyarin Elves had with the Valar. The Quenya as used by the Vanyar also incorporated several words from Valarin that were not found in the Noldorin dialect, such as tulka ("yellow", from Valarin tulukha(n) ), ulban ("blue", presumably from the same root as Valarin ul(l)u meaning "water"), and nasar ("red", original Valarin not given). According to "Quendi and Eldar: Essekenta Eldarinwa", Quendya

9230-447: The Vanyarin dialect spoken in Valinor, undergoing both sound changes and grammatical changes. The Quenya language featured prominently in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings , as well as in his posthumously published history of Middle-earth The Silmarillion . The longest text in Quenya published by Tolkien during his lifetime is the poem " Namárië "; other published texts are no longer than a few sentences. At his death, Tolkien left behind

9360-484: The Vanyarin dialect, ⟨ty⟩ , ⟨dy⟩ , and ⟨hy⟩ were realised as [tʃ] , [dʒ] , and [ʃ] respectively. Tolkien wrote about ⟨py⟩ : "In Vanyarin Quenya and among some Ñoldor the cluster ⟨py⟩ was sounded with voiceless y , sc. as [pç] , which later in Vanyarin became [pʃ] "; cf. Hungarian lopj [lopç] 'steal'. The cluster ⟨hw⟩

9490-537: The Vanyarin varieties, but were gradually replaced with /s/ and /r/ respectively in Noldorin Quenya. Notably, voiced plosives only occur after nasals and liquids , i.e. there is no simple /b, d, ɡ/ but only the clusters /mb, (lb,) nd, ld, rd, ŋɡ/ , and these occur only between vowels. (This may not be true in Vanyarin Quenya, given the word Aldudénië , the name of a lament for the death of

9620-528: The West". Arnor becomes fragmented, and declines until its kings become Rangers in the wilds, but they retain their memory of Númenor or "Westernesse", through many generations down to Aragorn , a protagonist in The Lord of the Rings . The line of kings in Gondor eventually dies out, and the country is ruled by Stewards , the throne empty, until Aragorn returns. Tolkien stated that the core theme of The Lord of

9750-454: The West, while enemies may be dark and live in the East and South. However, others note that Tolkien was strongly anti-racist in real life. The race of Men in J. R. R. Tolkien 's fictional world, in his books The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion , is the second race of beings, the "younger children", created by the One God , Ilúvatar . Because they awoke in

9880-596: The ambitious kings into Ringwraiths , the nine Black Riders. With the One Ring to rule them, Sauron gains complete control over them, and they become his most powerful servants. Kocher comments that for Tolkien, the exercise of personal free will , the most precious gift, is "the distinguishing mark of his individuality". The wise, like the Wizard Gandalf and the Elf-queen Galadriel , therefore avoid putting pressure on anybody. In contrast, Sauron

10010-470: The ancestor of Sanskrit , Greek, Latin, and others; namely, one labial, one coronal, and three velar plosives (palatal, plain, and labial). The first table below provides some of the "Primary Initial Combinations" from the Comparative Tables . Another characteristic of Quenya reminiscent of ancient natural languages like Old Greek, Old English or Sanskrit is the dual grammatical number which

10140-524: The case. The word is Quenya in Vanyarin, and always so in Parmaquesta." The Elves of the Third Clan, or Teleri , who reached Eldamar later than the Noldor and the Vanyar, spoke a different but closely related tongue, usually called Telerin . It was seen by some Elves to be just another dialect of Quenya. This was not the case with the Teleri for whom their tongue was distinct from Quenya. After

10270-419: The closest literary equivalents of Tolkien's descriptions of these lands are the imrama Celtic tales such as those about Saint Brendan from the early Middle Ages . The Christian theme of good and light (from Valinor) opposing evil and dark (from Mordor ) has also been discussed. Valinor lies in Aman ("Unmarred"), a continent on the west of Belegaer , the ocean to the west of Middle-earth . Ekkaia ,

10400-458: The cluster ⟨ht⟩ represents [ç] after ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ and [x] after other vowels. In some instances ⟨x⟩ was used for the combination /ks/ as in Helcaraxë . Some consonants are realised differently when they occur in clusters with certain other consonants. This particularly concerns clusters that involve the approximants /w, j/ or

10530-959: The computational linguist Paul Strack created the Elvish Data Model (abbreviated to "Eldamo") to provide a lexicon – both a dictionary and an analysis of language development – of all Tolkien's languages (despite the name, not limited to Elvish). Eldamo groups Tolkien's creative work into three real-world periods: up to 1930 ("Early"); from then to 1950 ("Middle"); and from then to 1973 ("Late"). Forms of Quenya occur in each of these periods, as follows: Early Primitive Elvish Early Quenya Middle Primitive Elvish Middle Ancient Quenya Middle Quenya Lindarin Primitive Elvish Ancient Quenya Quenya Vanyarin The linguist Alexander Stainton published an analysis of Quenya's prosodic structure in 2022. Attempts by fans to write in Quenya began in

10660-425: The early 1930s, Tolkien decided that the proto-language of the Elves was Valarin , the tongue of the gods or Valar as he called them: "The language of the Elves derived in the beginning from the Valar, but they changed it even in the learning, and moreover modified and enriched it constantly at all times by their own invention." In the Comparative Tables the mechanisms of sound change were described by Tolkien for

10790-529: The editing and publishing of Tolkien's mass of unpublished linguistic papers. Important grammatical texts, alluded to in the History of Middle-earth series and described as almost unreadable or quite incomprehensible, have been published in these two journals. The "Early Qenya Grammar", written by Tolkien c. 1925, was edited and published in Parma Eldalamberon No. 14. In 1992, according to

10920-456: The encircling sea, surrounds both Aman and Middle-earth. Tolkien wrote that the name "Aman" was "chiefly used as the name of the land in which the Valar dwelt". The Pelóri mountains run along the east coast; their highest peak is Taniquetil. Tolkien created no detailed maps of Aman; those drawn by Karen Wynn Fonstad , based on Tolkien's rough sketch of Arda 's landmasses and seas, show Valinor about 700 miles (1,100 km) wide, west to east (from

11050-408: The following daughter languages: Qenya, Lindarin (a dialect of Qenya), Telerin, Old Noldorin (or Fëanorian ), Noldorin (or Gondolinian ), Ilkorin (especially of Doriath ), Danian of Ossiriand, East Danian, Taliska , West Lemberin, North Lemberin, and East Lemberin . For this proto-language of the Elves, Tolkien appears to have borrowed the five-part plosive system of Proto-Indo-European ,

11180-427: The fondness for the ending -inen, -ainen, -oinen , also in some points of grammar, such as the inflexional endings -sse (rest at or in), -nna (movement to, towards), and -llo (movement from); the personal possessives are also expressed by suffixes; there is no gender. Tolkien never intended Quenya or any of his constructed languages to be used in everyday life as an international auxiliary language , although he

11310-489: The friendly races has been debated by critics. David Ibata, writing in The Chicago Tribune , asserts that the protagonists in The Lord of the Rings all have fair skin, and they are mainly blond-haired and blue-eyed as well. Ibata suggests that having the "good guys" white and their opponents of other races, in both book and film, is uncomfortably close to racism. The theologian Fleming Rutledge states that

11440-456: The glottal fricative /h/ . Clusters where the second consonant was /j/ are realised as palatalised consonants, and clusters where the second consonant was /w/ are realised as labialised. Consonant clusters where the initial consonant is /h/ are realised as preaspirated and devoiced. The pronunciation of the consonant cluster ⟨hy⟩ is [ç] in Noldorin Quenya, which is a "strong voiceless y, similar to, but more frictional than

11570-402: The godlike Valar , when they become weary of Middle-earth, or are killed in battle. Men, however, are mortal. Morgoth's servant, Sauron , tempts the Men of Númenor to attack Valinor, in their search for immortality: Sauron has falsely insinuated that Men can become immortal just by being in that place. The Men and Númenor are destroyed: the island is drowned, Atlantis -like, beneath the waves;

11700-512: The godlike Valar . Men are one of the four "free peoples" in the list-poem spoken by the Ent Treebeard ; the others being Elves, Dwarves , and Ents. Hobbits , not included on that list, were a branch of the lineage of Men. Hobbits were not known to the Ents, but on meeting Merry and Pippin , Treebeard at once worked that people into the list. The concept of the free peoples

11830-415: The grammar of Quenya was influenced by Finnish, an agglutinative language , but much more by Latin , a synthetic and fusional language , and also Greek , from which he probably took the idea of the diglossia of Quenya with its highly codified variety: the Parmaquesta, used only in certain situations such as literature. The phonology of Quenya was also inspired by certain aspects of Finnish, but this

11960-501: The historical languages which he studied professionally—not in a vacuum, but as a result of the migrations and interactions of the peoples who spoke them. Within Tolkien's legendarium, Quenya is one of the many Elvish languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called Quendi ('speakers') in Quenya. Quenya translates as simply "language" or, in contrast to other tongues that the Elves met later in their long history, "elf-language". After

12090-485: The ideal language, to match the moral and aesthetic objectives that were part of his project of creating "a mythology for England". Fimi argues that Tolkien deliberately used sound symbolism to unify sound and meaning and make the language appear as an ideal language, fit to be spoken in the utopian realm of the Elves and fairies of Valinor. Tolkien considered Quenya to be "the one language which has been designed to give play to my own most normal phonetic taste". From

12220-457: The initial sound in English huge ". In Vanyarin Quenya, ⟨hy⟩ is pronounced [ʃ] . According to Tolkien, the cluster /cj/ ⟨ty⟩ is pronounced as "a 'front explosive' [c], as e.g. Hungarian ty , but it is followed by an appreciable partly unvoiced y-offglide". Tolkien stated that the cluster ⟨ny⟩ is pronounced as in English "new" [njuː] . In

12350-502: The islands of Aman are initially just the dwelling-places of the Valar (in the Ages of the Trees, while the rest of the world lies in darkness). The Valar help The One, Eru Ilúvatar , to create the world. Gradually some of the immortal and ageless Elves are allowed to live there as well, sailing across the ocean to the West. After the fall of Númenor and the reshaping of the world, Aman becomes

12480-401: The land itself does not cause mortals to live forever. However, only immortal beings are generally allowed to reside there. Exceptions are made for the surviving bearers of the One Ring : Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee , who dwell there for a time, and the dwarf Gimli . Tolkien's myth of the attempt of Númenor to capture Aman has been likened to the biblical Tower of Babel and

12610-709: The leader of the Drúedain, Ghân-buri-Ghân, is treated as a noble savage . Michael N. Stanton writes in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that Hobbits were "a distinctive form of human beings", and notes that their speech contains "vestigial elements" which hint that they originated in the North of Middle-earth. The scholar Margaret Sinex states that Tolkiens' construction of the Easterlings and Southrons draws on centuries of Christian tradition of creating an "imaginary Saracen". Zakarya Anwar judges that while Tolkien himself

12740-686: The light of the Two Trees to forge the three Silmarils , beautiful and irreplaceable jewels. Belatedly, the Valar learn what Melkor has done. Knowing that he is discovered, Melkor goes to the home of the Noldor's High King Finwë , kills him and steals the Silmarils. He then destroys the Two Trees with the help of Ungoliant , plunging Valinor into darkness, the Long Night, relieved only by stars. Melkor and Ungoliant flee to Middle-earth. The Valar manage to save one last luminous flower from one of

12870-533: The linguist Helge Fauskanger , the Tolkien scholar Anthony Appleyard made "the first comprehensive attempt ... to systematize Quenya grammar in light of the new information published in The History of Middle-earth , particularly The Etymologies , in his article 'Quenya Grammar Reexamined'." Hostetter commented that Appleyard's work was by 2007 useful mainly for summarising the attitudes to Tolkien's languages at that time. He characterised it as: In 2008,

13000-650: The nine Black Riders. The other is Boromir , elder son of the Steward of Gondor, and the two Men are sharply opposed. Both are ambitious, and both intend one day to rule Gondor. Boromir means to fight valiantly, to save Gondor, with any help he can get, and to inherit the Stewardship. Aragorn knows he is in the line of kings by his ancestry, but he is unknown in Gondor. When they meet at the Council of Elrond , they dispute who has been holding back Sauron. Aragorn presents

13130-556: The north of Valmar, is Fëanor 's city of Formenos, built after his banishment from Tirion. Valinor is established on the western continent Aman when Melkor (a Vala later named Morgoth, "the black foe", by the Elves) destroys the Valar's original home on the island Almaren in primeval Middle-earth, ending the Years of the Lamps . To defend their new home from attack, they raise the Pelóri Mountains. They also establish Valimar,

13260-522: The only easy pass through the Pelóri, a huge mountain range fencing Valinor on three sides, created to keep Morgoth 's forces out. The city of the Noldor (and for a time the Vanyar Elves also) is Tirion, built on the hill of Túna, inside the Calacirya mountain pass; it is just north of Taniquetil, facing both the Two Trees and the starlit seas. In the northern inner foothills of the Pelóri, far to

13390-420: The onset, Tolkien used comparative philology and the tree model as his major tools in his constructed languages. He usually started with the phonological system of the proto-language and then proceeded by inventing for each daughter language the necessary sequence of sound changes . "I find the construction and the interrelation of the languages an aesthetic pleasure in itself, quite apart from The Lord of

13520-573: The other Eldar continued to Eldamar ('Elvenhome') in Aman and founded the great city of Tirion, where they developed Quenya. Quenya's older form, first recorded in the sarati of Rúmil, is called Old or Ancient Quenya ( Yára-Quenya in Quenya). In Eldamar, the Noldor and Vanyar spoke two slightly different though mutually intelligible dialects of Tarquesta: Noldorin Quenya and Vanyarin Quenya . Later Noldorin Quenya became Exilic Quenya , when most of

13650-555: The other peoples, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents and all the rest, are dwindling and fading, leaving only a world of Men. Kocher writes that the furthest look into Man's future in The Lord of the Rings is the conversation between the Elf Legolas and the Dwarf Gimli , close friends, at the moment when they first visit Minas Tirith , the capital city of the Men of Gondor, "and see the marks of decay around them". Gimli says that

13780-460: The paradise described in the Middle English poem Pearl . The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey adds that in 1927 Tolkien wrote a poem, The Nameless Land , in the complex stanza-form of Pearl . It spoke of a land further away than paradise, and more beautiful than the Irish Tír na nÓg , the deathless otherworld. Kelly and Livingston similarly draw on Pearl , noting that it states that "fair as

13910-521: The phial. Burns comments that Sam's request to the "Lady" sounds distinctly Catholic , and that the "female principle, embodied in Varda of Valinor and Galadriel of Middle-earth, most clearly represents the charitable Christian heart." The scholar of literature Richard Z. Gallant comments that while Tolkien made use of pagan Germanic heroism in his legendarium, and admired its Northern courage , he disliked its emphasis on "overmastering pride". This created

14040-686: The place " between (sic) Over-heaven and Middle-earth". It is accessible only in special circumstances like Frodo's, allowed to come to Aman through the offices of the Valar and of Gandalf, one of the Valar's emissaries, the Istari or Wizards. However, Aman is not, they write, exactly paradise . Firstly, being there does not confer immortality, contrary to what the Númenóreans supposed. Secondly, those mortals like Frodo who are allowed to go there will eventually choose to die. They note that in another of Tolkien's writings, " Leaf by Niggle ", understood to be

14170-519: The radiant Two Trees, and their dwelling-places. Valinor is said to surpass Almaren in beauty. Later, the Valar hear of the awakening of the Elves in Middle-earth, where Melkor is unopposed. They propose to bring the Elves to the safety of Valinor, but to do that, they need to get Melkor out of the way. A war is fought, and Melkor's stronghold Utumno is destroyed. Then, many Elves come to Valinor, and establish their cities Tirion and Alqualondë, beginning Valinor's age of glory. Melkor comes back to Valinor as

14300-410: The recognition of sound-changes which had begun among the Noldor before the exile and had caused Noldorin Quenya to diverge from Vanyarin Quenya. The change of z (< old intervocalic s ) to r was the latest in Noldorin, belonging to early Exilic Quenya. The grammatical changes were only small though since the features of their "old language" were carefully taught. From the Second Age on, Quenya

14430-413: The royal family intermarried with other people of Gondor, to maintain or extend the lifespan of the entire race. The overall feeling in The Lord of the Rings , however, despite the victories and Aragorn's long-awaited kingship and marriage, is of decline and fall , echoing the view of Norse mythology that everything will inevitably be destroyed. As the Tolkien scholar Marjorie Burns put it, "Here

14560-429: The same was not true of mortal Men. The "prideful" Men of Númenor, imagining they could acquire immortality by capturing the physical lands of Aman, were punished by the destruction of their own island, which is engulfed by the sea, and the permanent removal of Aman "from the circles of the world". Kelly and Livingston note the similarity to the ancient Greek myth of Atlantis , the greatest human civilisation lost beneath

14690-603: The sea; and the resemblance to the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel , the hubristic and " sacrilegious " attempt by mortal men to climb up into God's realm. The scholar of English literature Paul H. Kocher writes that the Undying Lands of the Uttermost West including Eldamar and Valinor, is "so far outside our experience that Tolkien can only ask us to take it completely on faith." Kocher comments that these lands have an integral place both geographically and spiritually in Middle-earth, and that their closest literary equivalents are

14820-577: The shards of the broken sword of his ancestor, Elendil, and asks Boromir if he wants the House of Elendil (the line of kings) to return. Boromir evasively replies that he would welcome the sword. The One Ring is then shown to the Council. Boromir at once thinks of using it himself. Elrond explains how dangerous the Ring is; Boromir reluctantly sets the idea of using it aside for the moment, and suggests again that Elendil's sword might help save Gondor, if Aragorn

14950-843: The side of the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings are the Dúnedain , the men who fought on the side of the Elves in the First Age against Morgoth in Beleriand , from whom other friendly groups, the Rangers including Aragorn , and the men of Gondor are descended; and their allies the Rohirrim . The main human adversaries in The Lord of the Rings are the Haradrim and the Easterlings. The Haradrim or Southrons were hostile to Gondor, and used elephants in war. Tolkien describes them as "swart", meaning "dark-skinned". The Easterlings lived in Rhûn,

15080-400: The struggles between the Noldor and Morgoth in Middle-earth. But near the end of the First Age , when the Noldor are in total defeat, the mariner Eärendil convinces the Valar to make a last attack on Morgoth. A mighty host of Maiar, Vanyar and the remaining Noldor in Valinor destroy Morgoth's gigantic army and his stronghold Angband , and cast Morgoth into the void. During the Second Age ,

15210-402: The tongue and the back of the teeth), alveolar (involving the tongue and the alveolar ridge of the jaw), palatal (involving the tongue and the middle part of the roof of the mouth), velar (involving the back of the tongue and the back part of the roof of the mouth), and glottal (involving the vocal folds ). The dental fricative ( /θ/ ) and the voiced alveolar fricative ( /z/ ) occur in

15340-673: The vast eastern region of Middle-earth; they fought in the armies of Morgoth and Sauron . Tolkien describes them as "slant-eyed"; they ride horses or wagons, leading to the name "wain-riders". The Variags of Khand formed a third but smaller group, who appear as vassals of Mordor in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields . Their name is from Russian : Варяги ( Variag ), meaning the Varangians , Viking or other Germanic warriors who served as mercenaries . Other human adversaries include

15470-445: The works of Men always "fail of their promise"; Legolas replies that even if that's so, "seldom do they fail of their seed", in marked contrast to the scarcity of children among Elves and Dwarves, implying that Men will outlast the other races. Gimli suggests again that Men's projects "come to naught in the end but might-have-beens". Legolas just replies "To that the Elves know not the answer". Kocher comments that this "sad little fugue"

15600-520: The world is made round; and Valinor is removed from the world, so that only the Elves can reach it. Sauron's body is destroyed, but his spirit escapes to become the new Dark Lord of Middle-earth. A remnant of the Men of Númenor who remained faithful, under Elendil , sail to Middle-earth, where they found the kingdoms of Arnor in the North and Gondor in the South, remaining known as the Dúnedain, "Men of

15730-485: The years as new words have been created, forming a Neo-Quenya language that is based on Tolkien's original Quenya but incorporates many new elements. Quenya and its writing system Tengwar have limited application in hobbyist and public domain works. The Elvish languages are a family of several related languages and dialects. The following is a brief overview of the fictional internal history of late Quenya as conceived by Tolkien. Tolkien imagined an Elvish society with

15860-565: Was Tolkien's favourite modern Romance language. The tables below list the consonants (Q. ólamar ) and vowels of late colloquial Noldorin Quenya, i.e. Quenya as spoken among the Exiled Noldor in Middle-earth. They are written using the International Phonetic Alphabet , unless otherwise noted. The Quenya consonant system has 6 major places of articulation: labial (involving the lips), dental (involving

15990-407: Was a continuous process, Quenya underwent a number of major revisions in its grammar, mostly in conjugation and the pronominal system . The vocabulary, however, was not subject to sudden or extreme change. Tolkien sometimes changed the meaning of a word, but he almost never discarded it once invented, and he kept on refining its meaning, and countlessly forged new synonyms. Moreover, Elvish etymology

16120-504: Was also fluent in Latin and Old English , and was familiar with Greek , Welsh (the primary inspiration for Sindarin , Tolkien's other major Elvish language), and other ancient Germanic languages , particularly Gothic , during his development of Quenya. Tolkien developed a complex internal history of characters to speak his Elvish languages in their own fictional universe. He felt that his languages changed and developed over time, as did

16250-459: Was anti-racist, his fantasy writings can certainly be taken the wrong way. With his different races of Men arranged from good in the West to evil in the East, simple in the North and sophisticated in the South, Tolkien had, in the view of John Magoun, constructed a "fully expressed moral geography ": Gondor is both virtuous, being West, and has problems, being South; Mordor in the Southeast

16380-527: Was in constant flux. Tolkien delighted in inventing new etymons for his Quenya vocabulary. But after the publication of The Lord of the Rings (finished c. 1949–1950, published in 1954–1955), the grammar rules of Quenya went through very few changes and this version was then defined as late Quenya (c. 1950–1973). The spelling Qenya is sometimes used to distinguish early Quenya from later versions. Qenya differs from late Quenya by having different internal history, vocabulary, and grammar rules as described in

16510-481: Was in favour of the idea of Esperanto as an auxiliary language within Europe. With his Quenya, Tolkien pursued a double aesthetic goal: "classical and inflected". This urge was a major motivation for his creation of a 'mythology' . While the language developed, Tolkien felt that it needed speakers, including their own history and mythology, which he thought would give a language its 'individual flavour'. The Lord of

16640-535: Was the hither shore, far lovelier was the further land" where the Dreamer could not pass. So, they write, each stage looks like paradise, until the traveller realises that beyond it lies something even more paradisiacal, glimpsed and beyond description. The Earthly Paradise can be described; Aman, the Undying Lands, can thus be compared to the Garden of Eden , the paradise that the Bible says once existed upon Earth before

16770-432: Was the usual Vanyarin name given to the Quenya language, since in Vanyarin, the consonant groups ndy and ny remained quite distinct. In Noldorin, ndy eventually became ny . Tolkien explained that "the word Quenya itself has been cited as an exempla (e.g. by Ælfwine), but this is a mistake due to supposition that kwenya was properly kwendya and directly derived from the name Quendi 'Elves'. This appears not to be

16900-510: Was used ceremonially by the Men of Númenor and their descendants in Gondor and Arnor for the official names of kings and queens; this practice was resumed by Aragorn when he took the crown as Elessar Telcontar. Quenya in the Third Age had almost the same status as the Latin language had in medieval Europe, and was called Elven-latin by Tolkien. Tolkien described the pronunciation of

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