Re: Tolkien language(s) question

----- Original Message -----
From: "JS Bangs" <jaspax@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 8:03 PM
Subject: Re: Tolkien language(s) question


> Mark J. Reed sikyal:
>
> > On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 05:27:51PM +0000, Robert B Wilson wrote:
> > > actually it's more like Sindarin:Quenya :: French:Italian...
> >
> > Not really, because Q[u]enya was specifically envisioned by Tolkein as
> > the "Elvish Latin".  The French/Italian comparison works if you
> > consider Italy to be all of Middle-Earth and France to be
> > another dimension.  That latter bit isn't too far off, actually . . .
> > ;-)
> >
> > But among the Elves still dwelling in Middle-Earth, Sindarin is
> > what they actually speak in their daily lives, while Quenya
> > is the language of scholarship.
>
> No good analogy can be made here. True, Quenya is the language of
> scholarship, like Latin in the middle ages. However, Sindarin is not a
> *descendant* of Latin (as the Spanish:Latin comparison implies), but a
> sister of it, a sister that happens to be mostly dead within Middle Earth.
>
> It might be a little better to say Sindarin : Quenya :: Old Russian :
> Church Slavic.
I'd say normal Russian, as that's not dead.  But that's the best comparison
so far..