Re: Quenya Wikibook

2007/2/22, Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>:
> I know some ppl here study Quenya. I found a textbook among the Wikibooks:
>
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/5/5d/Quenya_wikibooks.pdf
>
> What do you think, how reliable/trustworthy is it?
I quickly skimmed it. It looks like a good summary of current
knowledges, in standard "reconciled" coursebook form.

By "reconciled" I mean, it is done by the school who thinks writing a
coursebook on Quenya is possible at all, while "Quenya" itself is
continuum of ever-shifting fifty years of development, contradicting
itself. I also note that this book makes absolutely zero effort to
state how its materials were derived from Tolkien's writings, which is
a good fun of detective work but very fragile in many places.

It's like "Gospel harmony", a similar futile attempt to reconcile
so-called "synoptic" gospels. No, it's much worse.

To anyone trying to read any such Quenya coursebooks, I recommend
reading "Elvish as She Is Spoke" together to balance the view.

http://www.elvish.org/articles/EASIS.pdf

From Tolkien's manuscripts, we know that he tried to write
comprehensive grammar of Quenya himself multiple times. He always
started with sounds, then etymology, and at one time he managed to pin
down the noun paradigm which is included in Appendix 1 of the above
coursebook. In all cases, he never reached the stage of writing down
the verb paradigm of Quenya, to say nothing of syntax. In the process
of writing he started to tinker with the language, which soon became
too extensive that he had to start from scratch.

In one of his story, he let one of his character speak this line:
'I've got something new!', he shouted. 'More than mere words. Verbs!
Syntax at last!' Alas, Quenya never reached that stage.

--
Seo Sanghyeon

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