- Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Online
- Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Lesson
- Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons For Beginners
- Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Pdf
Sindarin was inspired by Welsh. It is an inflected language, meaning that verbs take different forms according to who is doing the action. It also has consonant mutation, which means that the first letter(s) of a word sometimes change. When you learn where and how they change. In modern Third Age Sindarin, the suffix is -ian (pl. If you are creating a First Age Sindarin place name, you would use the older form of the suffix which is -iand. Some attested examples: Beleriand = Land of the Valar Ossiriand = Land of seven rivers (an area of Beleriand).
Topics:
Which Elvish language should I study?
It depends on what you want to do with it.
If you just want to speak an Elvish language with friends on the internet, if you want your translations to not easily become obsolete, if you want a language that is more complete, if you want a language that’s easy to pick up (at first), then you’ll want Quenya.
If you want to do roleplay or fanfic set in Middle-earth, if you want a language that is more challenging and has a lot more interesting research happening as more of Tolkien’s notes on the language are published, then you want Sindarin.
How do I get the most out of the Neo-Elvish courses?
Learning a language is hard. It takes a lot of dedication, a lot of time, and a lot of practice. Your coursework should definitely not be the only thing you do to learn. Basically, you have two main skills you need to learn – passive and active language use. Passive skills have to do with being able to understand the language, and active skills have to do with communicating your own thoughts using the language. The free lessons, which aren’t led by a teacher, only help you with active skills in a very narrow section of grammar at a time. To make these little lessons stick, you’ll need some extra practice.
Here are some other ways to practice the languages on your own.
Listening/Speaking Skills
These aren’t very important for most of us because the vast majority of communication in Tolkien’s languages is done entirely through text. But, being able to recite Tolkien’s Elvish poetry is a great party trick. I use it often. The best way I’ve found for improving your pronunciation is to just practice it a lot. At first you’ll be very analytical, but slowly you’ll get a feel for the rhythm of the languages, and it’ll start to come more naturally. One method I’ve found helpful is to record myself speaking the language with Audacity (a free sound-recording app) and play it back. Listening to others speak the lines then echoing them is a good method too. I have the Recorded Scripts for this purpose, and another great source of recordings is Glǽmscrafu.
Tengwar/Cirth Skills
These are important if you are an artist or craftsman of some sort, but other than that, the vast majority of using Tolkien’s languages is done with the Latin Alphabet online. Getting Tengwar or Cirth fonts to work on websites is VERY difficult, and impossible for the most part when you don’t have access to the CSS of the website, like with social media websites. That means it’s relegated to the slow, clumsy uploading of images.
But, you DO want to learn these scripts and become a fluent calligrapher. Start small at first. Practice getting the forms of the letters right, making the symbols readable and beautiful. Make flashcards for yourself using your new calligraphic skills and memorize the symbols a few at a time. Once you have a decent handle of the symbols, start working on little lines of text in the relevant language, doing your best to not stop and look up any symbols. As you gain speed, do more and more lines, until you can do an entire page’s worth of transliterating with ease.
AFTER you have learned the writing systems, you can start with the fonts. The reason you’re doing this after learning how to do the writing by hand is several-fold. It’ll be much easier to use the fonts, none of which have a truly QWERTY keyboard. You’ll be constantly referencing keymaps, so not needing to also reference symbol-charts will make it go much easier. The second is that you’ll just learn the symbols faster and more completely if you learn to make them by hand first. You’ve probably heard before of the wonders of “learning by doing.” You get a lot more of that learning when you’re forming the letters with your own fingers instead of just typing them.
Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Online
Learning vocabulary
To start with, you’ll want to focus on phrases instead of individual words. Go to the Phrasebooks and start with simple topics like Greetings, Farewells, Exclamations, Please, Sorry, Questions, and Curses. Though, don’t try to do all at once. Take the set of phrases, turn them into flashcards, and memorize them. Then make short conversations with those phrases, without looking the phrases up.
As you learn more grammar, you can move on to themed Phrasebooks like Rescue Mission, At the Inn Eating Dinner, Bartering, Weather, War, and Journey Phrases. This time, using Elfdict and/or Eldamo, construct lists of vocabulary dealing with these topics. Make your flashcards; memorize the vocabulary, then write little essays, narratives, or conversations using the vocabulary you just learned.
Retaining the vocabulary you’ve learned is a matter of daily practice. You have your notecards from earlier topics, so go through not just your current one, but also one of the older ones, switching it up daily.
Communication Skills
This one will take some courage. A lot of these exercises have been solitary. Now you’ll need to talk to real people. You can find these real people who are willing to chat in the languages in several places: Vinyë Lambengolmor, Quenya Chat, and Sindarin Chat. Of these three, I suggest the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord server the most because it is the most active.
Start with basic introductions and let the conversations flow from there. Answer questions and ask questions of your own. And, don’t worry too much about mistakes. Focus more on communicating what you’re trying to get across than making perfect sentences. You’ll improve with time. Try to spend a little time every week chatting with people. Don’t be afraid to reference your dictionary or use a phrasebook, especially at first. If you can’t understand something, it’s fine to ask for clarification. Everyone had to start at the beginning, so everyone will be (should be) understanding as you get more comfortable communicating.
Learning and Retaining a Language in General
It takes a lot of work. Expect an hour or two a day, especially at first. And keep it up. Every day. After a year of practice, you can bring it down to 15 minutes a day, as long as you also spend a few hours once a week on bigger translation projects. If you keep this up, eventually you’ll have pieces of work you can be really proud of. Maybe you’ll translate a chapter of The Silmarillion into Quenya, then turn it into an illuminated manuscript. One guy translated chunks of the Torah into Quenya. Another is making a Sindarin translation of The Hobbit. One gal made the RealElvish websites. The point is, now that you have the language in your heart, enjoy it.
Why no Duolingo Neo-Sindarin or Neo-Quenya course?
I’ve been asked multiple times to make Neo-Elvish Duolingo courses, and after inspecting Duolingo, I’ve decided against it. There are two major reasons.
Firstly, Neo-Sindarin and Neo-Quenya change a lot faster than regular languages do. Major chunks of the course would have to be redone yearly as new pieces of Tolkien’s notes are published and overturn old theories, and new theories are always coming out. Keeping up with those and updating my website and my own lessons keeps me very busy already, and I just don’t have the time to spend keeping a Duolingo course updated.
The second reason has to do with the way that Duolingo advertises itself versus how it actually works. Duolingo is a flashcard game with a linguistic twist. That’s fine… but they don’t market it that way. They talk about it as if you can learn a language just using flashcards, and the truth is, you can’t. Flashcards are useful for review and memorizing vocabulary, but as a teacher and student of many languages, flashcards are only one small piece of language learning.
Besides, flashcards are far more effective if you make them yourself, with good old-fashioned slips of paper. I suggest going to Elfdict or Eldamo and finding words having to do with specific topics. Memorize the words with your flashcards, then write little essays or stories using the vocab you just learned, without consulting a dictionary. This will be far more helpful than any fancy automated program or app.
How do I register for this semester?
Registration is now open all year ’round.
- Complete the Gelio Edhellen! course.
- Go to the Available Courses page.
- There will be a button next too the Nevio Edhellen! course labeled “Click to Enroll.” Click it.
- That’s it! Then you just have to wait for me to accept your registration.
How much do the lessons cost?
The lessons are free, on their own. To access the teacher-led course you’ll need to have a Paid Membership, which is $20 a month.
How to turn homework in:
When you open up an assignment, it’ll have a way to submit your answers – either through uploading a file or copy+pasting the text into the submission box. I prefer PDFs, because I can comment and annotate those easily. If you need a way to make them, here is a freeware program that I use: CutePDF.
Weekly Schedule:
Before Monday: Study, practice, do the exercises, chat with fellow students or with me if you have questions, and finish your homework. If you will be late turning in your homework, let me know through a PM.
Monday-Wednesday: Turn in the first draft of your homework. I’ll be correcting it and sending it back to you soon after you submit it. Unless things go really wrong on my end, you can expect to get your corrected homework back within a day.
Tuesday-Sunday: Redo the questions that you got wrong, and turn in them in as soon as possible. Then I will correct your homework again, and send it back to you. You will redo the remaining questions and send it back to me. This process continues until you have all of the questions 100 percent correct.
Wednesday: If you can’t turn in your homework yet, please let me know. I may be able to help with any blocks you’re struggling with.
Semester Schedule:
Barring conventions and other events, they will always start on the first Monday of the month, and end on the last Sunday of the month. Odd-numbered months class will be in session, and Even number months will be vacation!
January: New semester starts!
February: Class is on vacation
March: Class is in session
April: Class is on vacation
May: Class is in session
June: Class is on vacation
July: Class is in session
August-December: Class is on vacation
Schedule for Carpho Edhellen!, Teitho Edhellen!, and Gelio Edhellen!
The Carpho Edhellen!, Teitho Edhellen!, and Gelio Edhellen! courses can be done at any time, on your own schedule. None of them requires input from me.
Student Advancement
You must complete the Carpho Edhellen! course before you can advance to any other course. Gelio Edhellen! is required to enter the teacher-led Nevio Edhellen! course.
The Nevio Edhellen! course takes 7 months to complete, January-July.
Stuff happened, and now I know I won’t be able to keep up with the class. What do I do?
Click the “Un-enroll from this course” link on the courses page. Then send me a message letting me know you’re dropping out of the class. Include in the message whether or not you’ll be returning for the next semester to try again. If you’re returning to try again, I won’t purge your records, and you can start on the course you had left off on. If not, or if you’d like to start again from the beginning, I’ll purge your records, giving you a clean slate to start over again.
Returning students don’t have to worry about taking a place from a newly registering person or ending up on the wait-list.
How do I join the Discord chatroom for the class?
Click this link. Login to your Discord account. Done! Now you can chat with your fellow students, get real-time help, and learn about the developments happening to the website while they’re being dreamed up.
Linguistic Foolery
Sindarin vs Quenya: RELEVANCE FIGHT!
By Darth Fingon
Where Tolkien's two major Elvish languages are concerned, there's a lot of confusion regarding which one is used when for naming original characters and including random words and snippets of dialogue. This is a Back to Basics Linguistic Foolery article for people who have no interest in listening to me blathering about obscure stuff like how the letter D in primitive Elvish roots might present itself in later Vanyarin dialects. Instead of that, let's pit Sindarin against Quenya in an ultimate battle showdown to see which is more useful in the average fanfiction story. And let's begin with a very quick reference guide:
Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Lesson
If you write Second or Third Age Elf fiction, always choose Sindarin.
If you write pre-Second Age Elf fiction, it's probably better to choose Sindarin.
Okay, that's a little absolute. Let's examine these scenarios in greater detail, starting with a brief overview of the two languages.
Quenya is the language spoken by the Noldor and Vanyar in Aman. While the Noldor did bring their language back to Middle-earth with them at the start of the First Age, it was not adopted by the locals. Instead, the Noldor preferred to learn Sindarin. When Thingol learned of the kinslaying at Alqualondë, he passed a ban on Quenya, but only in his own realm. Quenya became forbidden in Doriath; not so elsewhere. Thingol's ban would not have affected the language the Noldor used among themselves in their own homes. We have examples of Quenya being used in Gondolin in the later First Age: Aredhel gave Maeglin the Quenya name Lómion, and Eärendil is likewise a Quenya name. After the First Age, though, it does not appear that Quenya was used as anything other than a ceremonial or poetic language anywhere in Middle-earth. Sindarin took over as the language of daily use.
Sindarin, through various evolutions and dialects, has been the primary Elvish language of Middle-earth since before the First Age. It is the language Tolkien used almost exclusively for naming characters and places in Middle-earth. The vast majority of the names given in The Silmarillion are Sindarin names, which makes Sindarin the better choice in most cases even when writing Silmarillion fiction. If in doubt about which language to use, choose Sindarin. It has a much higher probability of being appropriate.
Even if you know very little to nothing about Elvish languages, it's not difficult to differentiate between the two at sight by looking for a few important clues. Quenya words and names are far more likely to end in a vowel: compare Q Findekáno, Ondolindë, Endórë to S Fingon, Gondolin, Endor. A Sindarin word will never end in ë. If the letters B, D or G occur in (Noldorin) Quenya, they will always be part of a cluster (MB, RD, NG, etc.) and never at the beginning or ending of a word, but they can stand anywhere on their own in Sindarin. Quenya uses K, Q, and X; Sindarin does not. Sindarin uses CH, DH, LH, RH, and TH; (Noldorin) Quenya uses none of these. Sindarin uses both acute and circumflex accents, while Quenya uses only acute. However, acute accents will show up far more frequently in Quenya than in Sindarin.
Typically Quenya words: Helkaraxë, Valinórë, Turukáno, Quendi, Nyellë
Typically Sindarin words: Elrond, Gurthang, Edhel, Rhîw, Acharn
So assuming that Sindarin is the default to be used in all other cases, when and where would Quenya names, words, or dialogue be appropriate? Primarily, characters would be speaking Quenya in Valinor during the First Age and prior. An Elf born in Valinor would be named in Quenya, and likewise so would places in Valinor. Sindarin would be unknown here until the end of the First Age and the migration of Elves from Middle-earth.
Throughout the First Age, as Noldorin society became more and more integrated with that of the Sindar of Beleriand, and as those Elves that had been born in Valinor were killed, the use of Quenya as an everyday spoken language waned. By the Second Age, its function had shifted to that of a language of ceremony, lore, and poetry for those of Noldorin or Númenórean descent; proclamations were still spoken in Quenya (as evidenced in numerous places in LotR) even if it no longer held any relevance in day-to-day life. After the First Age, Quenya dialogue would be appropriate in a ceremonial context concerning Noldorin and Númenórean characters.
The continuation of Quenya naming, for people and places alike, is more limited. From the Second Age on, Elves of Middle-earth no longer use Quenya names for themselves or their lands. Where Quenya names were used, though, was in Númenor. While the language was not spoken there on a daily basis, the Númenórean royals used Quenya, rather than Sindarin, names, until the breaking of ties with the Elves. Thereafter, only the Faithful continued the Quenya naming tradition, and through them, Quenya names survived well into Third Age Gondor. The names of all of Arnor's and Gondor's kings (and the first few of Gondor's stewards) are Quenya, including Aragorn's chosen name, Elessar Telcontar, and that of his son, Eldarion.
With all of that in mind, when would Quenya be used to name a city or an original character in your story? If the city is in Valinor or Númenor, it would be named in Quenya. The character would be named in Quenya if he or she was born in Valinor to Vanyarin or Noldorin parents, or is a queen, prince, or princess of Númenórean descent. Other inhabitants of Númenor might be named in Quenya, though Sindarin (and, of course, Adûnaic) names also appear. The probability of a Quenya name here would have varied across time period, geographical location, and social status. Gondolin is another place where children could have been named in Quenya, though, given that its population comprised both Noldorin and Sindarin Elves, Sindarin names would have been found here as well. Quenya may have been used in other Noldorin realms, but there is unfortunately little data to support a claim either way. Of the few known first-generation Noldorin descendants to be born in Middle-earth in the First Age, Eärendil was named in Quenya, Maeglin in both languages (and Gil-galad, too, if you consider all possible names), and Finduilas in Sindarin.
All other Elves of Beleriand, and the Edain, too, would have Sindarin names, and their lands, rivers, and strongholds are named in Sindarin. Less is known specifically about Elves in the Second Age, but their cities (Mithlond, Ost-in-Edhil) have Sindarin names. Sindarin would be the language to use when naming any Elf of Middle-earth in the Second Age and beyond.
Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons For Beginners
The TL;DR version of all that waffle? Quenya is limited in its usefulness to a few specific situations. Looking through all of Tolkien's writing, the vast majority of names that appear are Sindarin. Even in the First Age. Even in Valinor, where Sindarin did not exist. But we can write this off on the assumption that The Silmarillion, as a history, was 'written' by a Sindarin speaker who rendered all the names into the common language of the day. This is why, if you're not sure which language is the one to use and you want to be safe, you should choose Sindarin. Tolkien did.
NEXT MONTH: Sindarin is a Quenya Word, and other ways to make fanfiction Elvish way more confusing.
Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Pdf
Linguistic Foolery:: Sindarin vs Quenya: RELEVANCE FIGHT!
© Darth Fingon
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/reference/linguistic_foolery/sindarin-vs-quenya.php