Quenya - the Language of High Elves

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, most widely known as the author of fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, was first and foremost a devoted linguist, and he was primarily fascinated by languages. He knew how languages developed, changed depending on time, geography, migrations, and how dialects formed. The world of Middle-Earth started with a language, and they developed together. Its mythology was interdependent with development of Elvish languages. The first language constructed by Tolkien and from which all others eventually developed is the language of High Elves – Quenya. It was specifically designed to be beautiful both in sound and in writing, as befitted the most beautiful and wise race that were Tolkien Elves. It was constructed according to linguistic rules and not without exceptions. Due to its developed phonological and grammatical systems, as well as vocabulary that can be drawn from existing poems and dialogues, Quenya could be further reconstructed and it is possible to learn it. Tolkien began the construction of his own language as early as 1910, and with two goals: it was “intended (a) to be definitely of a European kind in style and structure (not in detail); and (b) to be specially pleasant. The former is not difficult to achieve, but the latter is more difficult, since individuals' personal predilections, especially in the phonetic structure of languages, varies widely... I have therefore pleased myself.” (Letters, 1981) Tolkien considered Finnish and Welsh to be the most beautiful languages, and liked Latin, Greek, and Spanish, but not French. He started constructing names and toponyms from elements of existing languages, and later characters and places began to take form too. It was always a “Fairy” language, first named “Qenya”, and then Tolien began devising the world and people for his language. Tolkien continued working on Quenya all his lifetime, leaving numerous notes and articles about its development. One of the longest full Quenya texts with translation is found in the Lord of the Rings. The Quenya spoken in The Lord of the Rings is already a “late” Quenya, and a language of books and lore, in contrast with the spoken Elvish – Sindarin, and is mostly used in old toponyms and by High Elves. Due to Elven migrations Quenya and Sindarin – two branches of previously common Elven tongue – developed separately, and further divided into dialects. They underwent pronunciation, grammar, and lexical changes and interference as the different clans of Elves interacted with each other and other races. Even though Quenya words may have roots similar to real languages, they are given their own origin in-universe, as the Elves adopted and adapted words from other languages. (Fauskanger) Quenya is supposed to be more melodious than any human language, and to achieve the clear style Quenya phonology is quite restrictive and is void of the sounds and sound combinations Tolkien considered unpleasant, such as [ʁ], [tʃ] or [zg]. Quenya contains nineteen consonants similar to those in English, five vowels, varied in length and quality, and six diphthongs, all of them falling. Rules for pronunciation were given in the Appendixes of Tolkien novels. It is mostly based on Finnish with influence of Latin and Spanish. “C” is always pronounced as [k], as in Latin, and the final e is never mute. (Tolkien, 1991) The position of the stress is determined by the form of the word, and usually falls to second or third syllable from the end. Quenya has complex grammar and syntax, as Tolkien sought to built a comprehensive system and construct an archaic language. Quenya nouns have no gender, but four numbers: dual and partitive plural in addition to singular and plural; one definite article, and ten cases. Verbs could be divided in two categories, and have five tenses, as well as gerund, participles, and infinitive. From Finnish Quenya derived its agglutinative nature, i. e. grammatical functions are expressed through affixes.