How Can You Learn Tolkien's Elvish Languages?

A viewer asked how he could go about learning Elvish. A seemingly simple question with a complicated answer....
My video on translating the title page of LOTR (and some other pages) is here: • Translating the LOTR T...
The two journals for anyone seriously dedicated are the Vinyar Tengwar (www.elvish.org/VT) and the Parma Eldalamberon (www.eldalamberon.com/)
Check out Marquette's oral history project, where you can volunteer to give a brief interview about what Tolkien means to you, here: www.marquette.edu/library/arc...
My own interview is now online: cdm16280.contentdm.oclc.org/cd...
You can support my channel by visiting my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/tolkiengeek.

Пікірлер: 72

  • @phoule76
    @phoule764 жыл бұрын

    I recommend a semester abroad in Rivendell.

  • @takimanislandsgamingchanel4651

    @takimanislandsgamingchanel4651

    3 жыл бұрын

    Is it good

  • @nydap5506

    @nydap5506

    Жыл бұрын

    👏

  • @TimothyChenAllen

    @TimothyChenAllen

    Жыл бұрын

    It’s a party school. Pipeweed City

  • @lilangels2980

    @lilangels2980

    Жыл бұрын

    Lol

  • @0ak3nshi3ld88

    @0ak3nshi3ld88

    Жыл бұрын

    Where's it at?

  • @MrYTGuy1
    @MrYTGuy14 жыл бұрын

    Legs are literally translated as 'hustle sticks' in my language.

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    4 жыл бұрын

    😂 How on earth did I do that!?

  • @vivanhuber4319

    @vivanhuber4319

    3 жыл бұрын

    Wa

  • @vivanhuber4319

    @vivanhuber4319

    3 жыл бұрын

    Yay

  • @jim.rnilsen9
    @jim.rnilsen9 Жыл бұрын

    I love the "Mae govannen" greeting, in my language ( Norvegian) it's sounds like someone with a old dialect greeting with saying "my good friend" min gode venn

  • @FC-EXTRA.

    @FC-EXTRA.

    Жыл бұрын

    I love this phrase too, it's actually used in the sindarin language too

  • @andrewpankiw2144
    @andrewpankiw21444 жыл бұрын

    the vinyar tengwar alphabet was printed out on paper at a tolkien exhibition in oxford made by the tolkien oxford society. in the exhibition it showed how some of his fans wrote to tolkien expressing their admiration for his works in elvish. however, tolkien would reply saying they got their grammar wrong. so learning the language must be possible somehow. i think i can recall something like tolkien displayed the alphabet in his book during some of his first publishing before his work became mainstream

  • @atanvardo5730

    @atanvardo5730

    3 жыл бұрын

    The Elvish script is referred to just as "Tengwar". Vinyar Tengwar is the name of a periodic on which Elvish material written by Tolkien is published from time to time (it happens in a slow rate, though), insofar as Christopher Tolkien allows the material to come to light. Another periodic like this is Parma Eldalamberon. Regarding the grammar, there is a number of websites with lessons on Quenya and Sindarin (the only two learnable Elvish tongues), dictionaries, articles, translations,... Not all sites are reliable, of course. I can suggest some good ones.

  • @username5606

    @username5606

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@atanvardo5730 hello, may I ask for some suggestions? I am afraid that I'd pick an unreliable source and won't realize it for I do not know the language and can't tell right from wrong.

  • @atanvardo5730

    @atanvardo5730

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@username5606 I think the best place to begin learning Quenya and/or Sindarin is the _Council of Elrond_ website ( www.councilofelrond.com ). Both the Quenya and the Sindarin courses on this site are very well-written, in a way that the material they contain is very easy to learn. This makes them ideal for beginners, while they are great also for more advanced students. They are also very "complete" courses, too. I put "complete" between question marks because no Elvish course is really complete. My advice is that you learn from different courses (and this way, you will also be in contact with different points of view and interpretations on grammar, etc., so that you can form your own opinion). The Elvish courses on CoE also contain excercises, which you submit to the languages staff for checking. This is very helpful. The site also counts with other Elvish learning tools like dicitionaries (besides Elvish, other languages from Tolkien's mythology are also covered), articles, translations, discussion forums, study buddies, and even an Elvish names database (in case you want to know how your or someone's name transates in Quenya, Sindarin or quite a few other Tolkien's languages). CoE does not address solely Elvish or Tolkien's languages. It is a site for everything LotR and Tolkien related stuff, so it contains other kinds of material other than languages.

  • @atanvardo5730

    @atanvardo5730

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@username5606 Another very good website is Ardalambion ( folk.uib.no/hnohf/ ) by Helge Kåre Fauskanger. It has a Quenya course, but no Sindarin course. His Quenya course is also very complete, although somewhat more technical than CoE's course. But don't be afraid. Even if you don't have any previous knowledge on linguistics (like me), you can learn the language through his course with no problems. The site also has Quenya dictionaries (Quenya-English and English-Quenya), which I think are perhaps the best Quenya dictionaries I can think of, and several articles on various Elvish languages (not only Quenya and Sindarin) and other Tolkien languages too. This is another site which I strongly recommend. Helge Fauskanger is the most famous guy in the universe of Elvish languages (and Tolkien's languages in general).

  • @atanvardo5730

    @atanvardo5730

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@username5606 Finally, I also recommend another great site: Eldamo ( eldamo.org/ ). Elvish courses and several articles. It has probably the most "complete" Elvish material on the web. This site also includes Neo-Elvish (Neo-Quenya/Neo-Sindarin)-you can find out what it is on the site itself.

  • @edwardbarach2263
    @edwardbarach22632 ай бұрын

    Noel's book, Languages of Middle Earth, a little red paperback, is great. She goes into verb conjugations and everything.

  • @SamiP-ik7vj
    @SamiP-ik7vj2 жыл бұрын

    Learning even a little Esperanto, Spanish or Latin before an Eldarin language is a good idea. Because in most languages in the world, the letters and letter-combinations don't have several sound values (depending on their position in a word) the way they do in English.

  • @kashperanto

    @kashperanto

    2 жыл бұрын

    Eĉ Tolkien mem lernis Esperanton antaŭ ol li faris la elfajn lingvojn :)

  • @ariel.l.borrero

    @ariel.l.borrero

    Жыл бұрын

    Is that syriac in your name?

  • @nefla2

    @nefla2

    3 ай бұрын

    ​@@kashperanto hard to belive, cause Tolkien started to create Elvish in childhood.

  • Ай бұрын

    @@nefla2Esperanto (1887) is 5 years older than Tolkien (1892).

  • @julialumina1615
    @julialumina1615 Жыл бұрын

    Thank you for this! It’s been my dream to speak elvish for about 10 years now and i finally have the mental energy and space for it!

  • @uriah-s97
    @uriah-s974 жыл бұрын

    Just finishing up the lotr, and I just gotta say I would have like to listen to the conversation between Gandalf and Tom bombadil, just saying.

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    4 жыл бұрын

    Indeed!

  • @Micdrop773
    @Micdrop7734 жыл бұрын

    So glad this popped up it’s nearly 5 am over here in the UK but I’m really looking forward to this video I love all of ur videos keep up the good work my mate 💙‼️💫

  • @andrewpankiw2144

    @andrewpankiw2144

    4 жыл бұрын

    SAAAMMMMEEEEE!!!!!!!

  • @LMinem
    @LMinem Жыл бұрын

    As you point out, there is more than one language spoken by Tolkien's Elves. However, hearing people say, "I want to learn Elvish." irritates me somewhat. It is like hearing somebody say "I want to learn European."

  • @FC-EXTRA.

    @FC-EXTRA.

    Жыл бұрын

    True, it's just like English. There are a lot of dialects of to this language, Australian English, British English, and American English

  • @MrDuck797
    @MrDuck7974 жыл бұрын

    This channel seriously deserves way more subs. I will steal a million from Pewdiepie and give them to you.

  • @nerdify710
    @nerdify7104 жыл бұрын

    This definitely helped! I think it was me who asked the question but im not sure what video it was on

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    4 жыл бұрын

    You and one other had similar questions.

  • @FC-EXTRA.
    @FC-EXTRA. Жыл бұрын

    Thanks for this video I'm actually been trying to learn sindrin but I couldn't find any course

  • @ATREIDESDUNCAN88
    @ATREIDESDUNCAN882 жыл бұрын

    There is a book that was made with every word and is a dictionary but it was made for a linguist.

  • @Kielimies
    @Kielimies4 ай бұрын

    It just bears remembering that in light of Tolkien's notes from the 1960's (published in _Parma Eldalamberon_ #22) one ought to use Sindarin future forms like *carathon* "I shall do (it)" instead of "cerithon" (the old reconstruction theory promoted at sites like Ardalambion).

  • @ATREIDESDUNCAN88
    @ATREIDESDUNCAN882 жыл бұрын

    There is a made language of Elvish called silver speech. Arvendase. It is on Amazon by the silver elves.

  • @erathor9120
    @erathor91204 жыл бұрын

    I tried once via some videos... it got hard when they started how to pronounce stuff differently.

  • @PincheCubano
    @PincheCubano3 жыл бұрын

    Love this work brother. Do you do custom translations By chance?

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    3 жыл бұрын

    I guess that depends on what you want. I’m no Elvish expert, but I can write transliteration a in Elvish script and I know a smattering of Elvish words and grammar.

  • @RigaldoVulpes
    @RigaldoVulpes3 жыл бұрын

    How do you say "House of the Golden Leaves" in Sindarin and in Quanyan? I would really appreciate it.

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    3 жыл бұрын

    Not sure about that one. Laure is the root for golden in one of the two, and of course Legolas means green leaf, I think in Sindarin, but my off-hand knowledge doesn’t go beyond that so I’d have to research through the glossaries in the Silmarillion and History of Middle-earth series to tell you more, and regardless I’m not up on the grammar so I wouldn’t get it perfect lol

  • @RigaldoVulpes

    @RigaldoVulpes

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@TolkienLorePodcast I would respect the research and help of a Tolkien scholar like you than an amateur like me haha.

  • @Gilruin

    @Gilruin

    3 жыл бұрын

    Sindarin: bâr in lais 'lórin ([m]bâr' house, in 'the', lass 'leaf' > plural lais, glórin 'golden' > 'lórin after noun, the genitive simply happens by putting the words on after the other), Quenya: már i laurie lassion (már 'house', i 'the' laurea 'golden' > plural laurie, lasse 'leaf' > genitive plural lassion). An accent means the vowel is long, a circumflex that it is over-long.

  • @RigaldoVulpes

    @RigaldoVulpes

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Gilruin Thank you so much for helping me and also informing me. :)

  • @DINOLOVER6717

    @DINOLOVER6717

    Жыл бұрын

    @@TolkienLorePodcast wait, so when Gandalf says Legolas Greenleaf in the movies he’s basically saying “Greenleaf Greenleaf”…? 😟

  • @Bigred7642
    @Bigred76422 жыл бұрын

    Sorry man, but nobody wants to scour a million novels to hopefully piece together some words. There are people that have already learned it, is there anyone teaching it who has already learned it?

  • @thomasgallaher9538
    @thomasgallaher95384 жыл бұрын

    You are saying Sindarin wrong. There is no schwa on the “a” and the accent should be on the penultimate syllable as sin-DAR-in.

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    4 жыл бұрын

    I know, but every now and the lazy southern comes out on top lol

  • @thomasgallaher9538

    @thomasgallaher9538

    3 жыл бұрын

    @33ForestAve page 1116 of Lord of the Rings “In words of two syllables it (the stress) falls in practically all cases in the first syllable. In longer words it falls on the last syllable but one” For more info look in the book.

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    3 жыл бұрын

    The appendices in LOTR and pronunciation guide in the Silmarillion are the only solid sources I know of

  • @TolkienLorePodcast

    @TolkienLorePodcast

    3 жыл бұрын

    You left out the important part of that quote though. For longer words the stress falls on the second to last syllable when it contains a long vowel, diphthong, or vowel followed by 2+ consonants. In other cases it would be the third to last syllable. Which is why actually the stress in “Sindarin” would be on the first syllable, not the second. My laziness in pronunciation extends only to not giving the “a” the proper pronunciation.

  • @regularstan6212
    @regularstan6212 Жыл бұрын

    Rootwords are the worst way to learn a language. My ukrianian parents learned that the hard way when they lookup up the root words for hotdog

  • @vivanhuber4319
    @vivanhuber43193 жыл бұрын

    My elf sent me a letter it's so small

  • @horrormaus5181

    @horrormaus5181

    3 жыл бұрын

    But elves are tall ... like normally diced people 0-0 why is the letter small ?

  • @imriyashaul7791

    @imriyashaul7791

    3 жыл бұрын

    Is this a Hilda reference?

  • @vivanhuber4319

    @vivanhuber4319

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@imriyashaul7791 it's true

  • @imriyashaul7791

    @imriyashaul7791

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@vivanhuber4319 Amazing

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