Re: Tolkien language(s) question

On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 08:21:11PM +0000, Robert B Wilson wrote:
> but sindarin isn't descended from quenya... they're both descended
> from common eldarin, which is a very different language from quenya.
I was speaking in terms of the way the languages were used, not their
familial relationship.  As someone else said (and darn
if I can remember who) there isn't a really good analogy
that captures both aspects.

Linguistically, Quenya and Sindarin are siblings, or perhaps
aunt/neice; Quenya is at least the elder sister.   Culturally,
Quenya is the language of the good old days, the language
of history and scholarship, while the everyday speech is
Sindarin.  At least, that's the case at the time that LotR
takes place.

However, Quenya is also far and away the more developed of
the two languages in terms of what Tolkein actually created,
or at least what has been made available to the public.  So
there are a lot more resources for Quenya just because there
is so much more source material to work with.  You may not
be able to have much in the way of weighty discourse in
Quenya, but you can learn enough to carry on some conversation.
I'm not sure how far you can get in Sindarin.

-Mark