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INTERNAL HISTORY Sindarin was the main Eldarin tongue in Middle-earth, the living vernacular of the Grey-elves or Sindar. It was the most prominent descendant of Common Telerin, Common Telerin itself branching off from Common Eldarin, the ancestor of Quenya, Telerin, Sindarin and Nandorin. "The Grey-elven was in origin akin to Quenya," Tolkien explains, "for it was the language of those Eldar who, coming to the shores of Middle-earth, had not passed over the Sea but had lingered on the coasts in the country of Beleriand. There Thingol Greycloak of Doriath was their king, and in the long twilight their tongue...had become far estranged from the speech of the Eldar from beyond the Sea" (LotR Appendix F). Though Sindarin is said to be the best preserved of the Eldarin tongues of Middle-earth (PM:305), it is nonetheless the most radically changed Elvish language we have any extensive knowledge of: "The language of the Sindar had changed much, even in unheeded growth as a tree may imperceptibly change its shape: as much maybe as an unwritten mortal tongue might change in five hundred years or more. It was already ere the Rising of the Sun a speech greatly different to the ear from [Quenya], and after that Rising all change was swift, for a while in the second Spring of Arda very swift indeed" (WJ:20). The development from Common Eldarin to Sindarin involves much more radical changes than the development from CE to Quenya, or to the Telerin of Aman. Tolkien suggested that Sindarin "had changed with the changefulness of mortal lands" (LotR Appendix F). This is not to say that the changes were chaotic and unsystematic; they were definitely regular - but they dramatically changed the general sound and "music" of the language. Some prominent changes include the final vowels being dropped, the unvoiced stops p, t, k becoming voiced b, d, g following a vowel, the voiced stops becoming spirants in the same position (except g, that disappeared altogether) and many vowels being altered, often by assimilation to other vowels. According to PM:401, "the development of Sindarin had become, long before the arrival of the Ñoldorin exiles, mainly the product of unheeded change like the tongues of Men". Commenting on the great changes, PM:78 remarks that "it was a fair tongue still, well fitted to the forests, the hills, and the shores where it had taken shape". By the time the Noldor returned to Middle-earth, nearly three and a half millennia after their separation from the Sindar, the classical Sindarin language was fully developed. (Indeed it seems to have entered a more stable phase, despite Tolkien's statement that change was swift after the rising of the Sun: the changes that occurred during the next seven thousand years, until Frodo's day, were small indeed compared to the swift development in the previous three thousand years.) In the First Age, there were various dialects of Sindarin - the archaic language of Doriath, the western dialect of the Falathrim or "Shore-people" and the Northern dialect of the Mithrim. Which of these was the basis of the Sindarin spoken in later Ages is not known with certainty, but the tongue of the Falathrim seems the best candidate, since Doriath was destroyed and what very little we know about North Sindarin suggests that it differed from the Sindarin of Frodo's day. (The name Hithlum is North Sindarin; see WJ:400.) The Noldor and the Sindar were not at first able to understand one another, their languages having drawn too far apart during their long separation. The Noldor learnt Sindarin quickly and even started to render their Quenya names into Grey-elven, for "they felt it absurd and distasteful to call living persons who spoke Sindarin in daily life by names in quite a different linguistic mode" (PM:341). Sometimes the names were adapted with great care, as when Altariel must have been tracked back to its (hypothetical) Common Eldarin form *Ñalatârigellê; starting with this "reconstruction" the Noldor then derived the Sindarin form that would have appeared in Sindarin if there had actually been an ancient name *Ñalatârigellê: Galadriel. The names were not always converted with such care. The prominent name Fëanor is in fact a compromise between pure Quenya Fëanáro and the "correct" Sindarin form Faenor ("correct" in the sense that this is what primitive *Phayanâro would have become in Sindarin, if this name had actually occurred in Common Eldarin in ancient times). Some names, like Turukáno or Aikanáro, were simply Sindarized in sound, though the resulting forms Turgon and Aegnor were pretty meaningless in Grey-elven (PM:345). Many of the name-translations took place very early, before the Noldor had sorted out all the subtleties of Sindarin - therefore the resulting names "were often inaccurate: that is, they did not always precisely correspond in sense; nor were the equated elements always actually the nearest Sindarin forms of the Quenya elements" (PM:342). But the Noldor, ever ready linguists, soon achieved full mastery of the Sindarin language and sorted out its precise relationship to Quenya. Twenty years after the coming of the Noldor to Middle-earth, during the Mereth Aderthad or Feast of Reuniting, "the tongue of the Grey-elves was most spoken even by the Noldor, for they learned swiftly the speech of Beleriand, whereas the Sindar were slow to master the tongue of Valinor" (Silmarillion ch. 13). Quenya as a spoken tongue was finally abolished by Thingol when he learnt that the Noldor had killed many Teleri and stolen their ships to get back to Middle-earth: "Never again in my ears shall be heard the tongue of those who slew my kin in Alqualondë! Nor in all my realm shall it be openly spoken." Consequently "the Exiles took the Sindarin tongue in all their daily uses" (Silm. ch. 15). It seems that Thingol's edict merely accelerated the process; as noted, many of the Noldor spoke Sindarin already. Later, mortal Men appeared in Beleriand. Appendix F in LotR (and UT:216) informs us that "the Dúnedain alone of all races of Men knew and spoke an Elvish tongue; for their forefathers had learned the Sindarin tongue, and this they handed on to their children as a matter of lore, changing little with the passing of the years". Perhaps it was the Dúnedain that stabilized the Sindarin language, at least as used among themselves (UT:216 states that Sindarin spoken by mortal Men otherwise "tended to become divergent and dialectal"). Whatever the standard of Mannish Sindarin might have been in later ages, back in the First Age "the most part of [the Edain] soon learned the Grey-elven tongue, both as a common speech among themselves and because many were eager to learn the lore of the Elves" (Silmarillion ch. 17). Eventually, some Men knew and spoke Sindarin just as well as the Elves. The famous lay Narn i Chîn Húrin (as it is properly spelt) was made by a Mannish poet by the name of Dírhavel, "but it was prized by the Eldar, for Dírhavel used the Grey-elven tongue, in which he had great skill" (UT:146. On the other hand, the people of Haleth did not learn Sindarin well or with enthusiasm; see UT:378). Túrin learnt Sindarin in Doriath; one Nellas "taught him to speak the Sindarin tongue after the manner of the ancient realm, older, and more courteous, and richer in beautiful words" (UT:76). The Elves themselves continued to use Sindarin throughout the First Age. In a Noldo-colony like Gondolin one might have thought that the Noldor would have revived Quenya as their spoken language, but this appears not to have been the case, except in the royal house: "For most of the people of Gondolin [Quenya] had become a language of books, and as the other Noldor they used Sindarin in daily speech" (UT:55). Tuor heard the Guard of Gondolin speak first in Quenya and then "in the tongue of Beleriand [Sindarin], though in a manner somewhat strange to his ears, as of a people long sundered from their kin" (UT:44). Even the Quenya name of the city, Ondolindë, always appears in its Sindarized form Gondolin (though this is a mere adaptation and not "real" Sindarin; primitive *Gondolindê should have produced **Gonglin, if the word was inherited). Many speakers of Sindarin perished in the wars of Beleriand, but by the intervention of the Valar, Morgoth was finally overthrown in the War of Wrath. Many Elves went to Eressëa when the First Age was ended, and from now on Sindarin evidently became a spoken tongue in the Blessed Realm as well as in Middle-earth (a passage in the Akallabêth, quoted below, indicates that the Númenóreans held converse with the Eressëans in Sindarin). The Valar wanted to reward the Edain for their sufferings in the war against Morgoth and raised an island out of the sea, and Men, following the Star of Eärendil to their new home, founded the realm of Númenor. Sindarin was widely used in Númenor: "Though this people used still their own speech, their kings and lords knew and spoke also the Elven tongue, which they had learned in the days of their alliance, and thus they held converse still with the Eldar, whether of Eressëa or of the westlands of Middle-earth" (Akallabêth). The descendants of the people of Bëor even used Sindarin as their daily speech (UT:215). Though Adûnaic was the vernacular for most of the Númenórean population, Sindarin was "known in some degree to nearly all" (UT:216). But times later changed. The Númenóreans started to envy the immortality of the Elves, and eventually they turned away from their ancient friendship with Aman and the Valar. When Ar-Gimilzôr "forbade utterly the use of the Eldarin tongues" in the 3100s of the Second Age, we must assume that even the Bëorians dropped Sindarin and took up Adûnaic instead (UT:223). The story of the folly of Ar-Pharazôn, Sauron's cunning "surrender", the total corruption of the Númenóreans and the Downfall of Númenor is well known from the Akallabêth. After the Downfall, the surviving Elf-friends set up the Realms in Exile, Arnor and Gondor, in Middle-earth. PM:315 states: "The Faithful [after the Downfall]...used Sindarin, and in that tongue devised all names of places that they gave anew in Middle-earth. Adûnaic was abandoned to unheeded change and corruption as the language of daily life, and the only tongue of the unlettered. All men of high lineage and all those who were taught to read and write used Sindarin, even as a daily tongue among themselves. In some families, it is said, Sindarin became the native tongue, and the vulgar tongue of Adûnaic was only learned casually as it was needed. The Sindarin was not however taught to aliens, both because it was held a mark of Númenórean descent and because it proved difficult to acquire - far more so than the 'vulgar tongue'." In accordance with this, Sindarin is stated to have been "the normal spoken language of Elendil's people" (UT:282). Among the Elves themselves, Sindarin crept eastwards in the Second and Third Age and eventually displaced some of the Silvan (Nandorin, Danian) tongues. "By the end of the Third Age, the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring: Lórien and the realm of Thranduil in northern Mirkwood" (UT:257). Silvan was out, Sindarin was in. True, we get the impression from LotR1/II ch. 6 that the language used in Lórien was some strange Wood-elven tongue, but Frodo, the author of the Red Book, got it wrong. A footnote in LotR Appendix F explains that in Frodo's day, Sindarin was indeed spoken in Lórien, "though with an 'accent', since most of its folk were of Silvan origin. This 'accent' and his own limited acquaintance with Sindarin misled Frodo (as is pointed out in The Thain's Book by a commentator of Gondor)". UT:257 elaborates on this: "In Lórien, where many of the people were Sindar in origin, or Noldor, survivors from Eregion, Sindarin had become the language of all the people. In what way their Sindarin differed from the forms of Beleriand - see [LotR1] II 6, where Frodo reports that the speech of the Silvan folk that they used among themselves was unlike that of the West - is not of course now known. It probably differed in little more than what would now be popularly called 'accent': mainly differences of vowel-sounds and intonation sufficient to mislead one who, like Frodo, was not well acquainted with purer Sindarin. There may of course also have been some local words and other features ultimately due to the influence of the former Silvan tongue." Standard Sindarin, with no "accent", was evidently spoken in Rivendell and among Círdan's people in the Havens. But by the end of the Third Age, the Elves were fading away in Middle-earth, no matter what tongue they spoke. The rule of Mortal Men, the Second-born of Ilúvatar, was about to begin. Tolkien notes that at the end of the Third Age there were more Men who spoke Sindarin or knew Quenya than there were Elves who did either (Letters:425). When Frodo and Sam met Faramir's men in Ithilien, they heard them speak first in the Common Tongue (Westron), but then they changed to "another language of their own. To his amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it was the Elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he knew then that they must be Dúnedain of the South, men of the line of the Lords of Westernesse" (LotR2/IV ch. 4). In Gondor, "Sindarin was an acquired polite language and used by those of more pure N[úmenórean] descent" (Letters:425). The talkative herb-master of the Houses of Healing referred to Sindarin as the "noble tongue" (LotR3/V ch. 8: "Your lordship asked for kingsfoil, as the rustics name it, or athelas in the noble tongue, or to those who know somewhat of the Valinorean [= Quenya]..."). How Sindarin fared in the Fourth Age we shall never know. Like Quenya, it must have been remembered as long as the realm of Gondor endured. Designations of the language "Sindarin" is the Quenya name of this language, derived from Sindar *"Grey ones" = Grey-elves; it may be (and is) translated Grey-elven. What Sindarin was called by its own term is not known with certainty. It is said of the Elves in Beleriand that "their own language was the only one that they ever heard; and they needed no word to distinguish it" (WJ:376). The Sindar probably referred to their own tongue simply as Edhellen, "Elvish". As noted above, the herb-master of the Houses of Healing referred to Sindarin as the "noble tongue" (while "the noblest tongue in the world" remains Quenya, UT:218). Throughout LotR, the term usually employed is simply "the Elven-tongue", since Sindarin was the living vernacular of the Elves. EXTERNAL HISTORY In 1954, in Letters:176, Tolkien stated that "the living language of the Western Elves (Sindarin or Grey-elven) is the one usually met [in LotR], especially in names. This is derived from an origin common to it and Quenya, but the changes have been deliberately devised to give it a linguistic character very like (though not identical with) British-Welsh: because that character is one I find, in some linguistic moods, very attractive; and because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers". Later, he found that "this element in the tale has given perhaps more pleasure to more readers than anything else in it" (MC:197). A Welsh- or Celtic-sounding language was present in Tolkien's mythos from the beginning. This language was originally called Gnomish or I•Lam na•Ngoldathon, "the tongue of the Gnomes (Noldor)". Tolkien's original Gnomish dictionary, dating from about 1917, was published in Parma Eldalamberon #11 and turns out to be a very comprehensive document, with thousands of words. Many Gnomish words are also found in the appendices to LT1 and LT2. Parma also published a (never completed) Gnomish grammar. But though Tolkien put much work into this language, it was in effect rejected later. In PM:379, in a late document, Tolkien refers to Gnomish as "the Elvish language that ultimately became that of the type called Sindarin" and notes that it "was in a primitive and unorganized form". Some of the central concepts of Gnomish grammar, in particular certain consonant mutations, were later recycled in Sindarin. A number of Gnomish vocabulary items also survived into Sindarin, unchanged or in recognizable forms. Even so, Gnomish was really a wholly different language, though it had a phonetic style somewhat similar to that of Sindarin (lots of ch's and th's, and most words end in a consonant!) An important feature of Sindarin, the umlaut or affection of vowels, reportedly first appears in grammars written by Tolkien in the twenties. But only in the thirties, with the Etymologies, did a language really close to LotR-style Sindarin emerge in Tolkien's notes. This was however called "Noldorin", for like its predecessor Gnomish it was conceived as the language, not of the Sindar, but of the Noldor - developed in Valinor. At this stage, Quenya was thought of as the language of the "Lindar" (later: Vanyar) only. Only as late as when the appendices to LotR were being written did Tolkien abandon this idea, and turned Noldorin into Sindarin. Quenya now became the original language of both the Vanyar and the Noldor - the latter simply adopted Sindarin when they arrived in Middle-earth. It "turned out" that the Celtic-sounding language of Tolkien's mythos was not, after all, their own tongue (though in the annals of Middle-earth, they certainly came to be the most prominent users of it). It did not originate in the Blessed Realm of Valinor, but was an indigenous tongue of Middle-earth. In the former conception, the native Elves of Beleriand spoke a language called Ilkorin, that Sindarin in effect displaced when Tolkien made this revision (Edward Kloczko has argued that some elements of Ilkorin were maintained as the northern dialect of Sindarin; his article is appended to my own treatise about Ilkorin). Tolkien's decision to fundamentally revise the history of the Celtic-sounding language of his mythos was probably a happy one, making the linguistic scenario much more plausible: Surely it was difficult to imagine that the Vanyar and the Noldor could have developed two languages as markedly different as Quenya and "Noldorin" when they lived side by side in Valinor. Turning "Noldorin" into Sindarin took care of that problem; now the two branches of Elvish could develop wholly independently during the long ages their speakers lived in absolute separation from one another. The "Noldorin" of the Etymologies is not entirely identical to Sindarin as it appears in LotR, since Tolkien never stopped refining and altering his invented languages. But many of the differences that separate "Noldorin" from LotR-style Sindarin are happily regular, Tolkien adjusting some details of the evolution from Primitive Elvish. Therefore, most of the "Noldorin" material can quite easily be updated to agree with the linguistic scenario of LotR. A number of words must be subtly altered; for instance, the "Noldorin" diphthong oe should rather be ae in Sindarin. One example involves Belegoer as a name of the Great Ocean (LR:349, 352); this form Tolkien later changed to Belegaer - so on the map of the published Silmarillion. Another change has to do with the consonants lh- and rh-; where they occurred in "Noldorin" many examples show that Sindarin should have simple l- and r- instead. Thus, we can deduce that a "Noldorin" word like rhoeg ("wrong", LR:383) should rather be raeg in Sindarin - though the latter form is nowhere explicitly attested. It has been suggested that the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, with its various peculiarities, can be equated with the "somewhat strange" dialect of Sindarin that the Noldor spoke in Gondolin (UT:44). In this way we could even account for its being called Noldorin rather than Sindarin. However, it is also possible that Tolkien would have considered "Noldorin" wholly obsolete to the extent it differs from his later vision of Sindarin. ELEMENTARY PHONOLOGY Sindarin phonology is less restrictive than that of Quenya. Many consonant clusters are allowed in all positions, while initial and final clusters are virtually absent in Quenya. The sounds ch (German ach-Laut, NOT "tsh" as in English church) and th, dh ("th" as in think and this, respectively) are frequent. Tolkien sometimes used the special letter eth (ð) to spell dh, and occasionally we also see the letter thorn (þ) instead of th. However, we will here use the digraphs, as in LotR. The unvoiced plosives p, t, c never occur following a vowel, but are lenited (see below) to b, d, g. Note that as in Quenya, c is always pronounced k (standard example: Celeborn = "Keleborn", not "Seleborn"). At the end of words, f is pronounced v, as in English of. (In Tengwar spelling, a word like nef is actually spelt nev.) R should be trilled, as in Spanish, Russian etc. The digraphs rh and lh represent unvoiced r and l (but sometimes these combinations may actually mean r + h or l + h, as in Edhelharn - not surprisingly, our alphabet cannot represent Sindarin quite adequately). Sindarin has six vowels, a, e, i, o, u and y, the last of which corresponds to German ü or French u as in Lune (pronounce ee as in English see with rounded lips as when you pronounce oo, and you've got it). Long vowels are marked with an accent (á, é etc.), but in the case of stressed monosyllables the vowels tended to become especially long and are marked with a circumflex: â, ê etc. In HTML one unfortunately cannot place a circumflex above the vowel y. To avoid ugly spellings like my^l ("gulls", WJ:418), we here use an accent instead (the relevant words occurring in this article are býr, thýn, fýr, rýn, mrýg, mýl, 'lýg and hýn - ideally these should have had a circumflex instead). This is not very critical: In Tengwar writing, no distinction is made between long and super-long vowels; the use of circumflexes instead of accents in monosyllables is merely an extra complication Tolkien introduced in his Roman orthography for Sindarin (evidently to make it abundantly clear how the words are to be pronounced). The Sindarin diphthongs include ai (as in English aisle, NOT as in mail), ei, ui (as "ooy" in too young) and au (as in German Haus, or as "ow" in English cow). At the end of words, au is spelt aw. There are also the diphthongs ae and oe, with no English counterparts; Tolkien actually suggests substituting ai and oi if you don't care about such details (indeed he sometimes anglicized Maedhros as "Maidros", but anyone reading this document probably does care about the details). Ae and oe are simply the vowels a, o pronounced in one syllable with the vowel e (as in English pet), just like ai and oi are a and o pronounced together with i. Somewhat confusingly, in Tolkien's writings the digraph oe is sometimes also used to signify umlauted o, apparently the same sound as German ö (actually we often prefer the spelling ö in this article, to avoid confusion). By the end of the Third Age, ö had merged with e (that's why the Grey Mountains appear as Ered Mithrin and not Öröd Mithrin on the Map to LotR!), but we still need to refer to this sound when discussing archaic Sindarin. THE CORPUS Important samples of Sindarin in LotR include: • Glorfindel's greeting to Aragorn: Ai na vedui Dúnadan! Mae govannen! (LotR1/I ch. 12). The first words are not translated, but probably mean *"Ah, at last, Westman!" Mae govannen means "well met" (Letters:308). • Glorfindel's cry to his horse: Noro lim, noro lim, Asfaloth! (same chapter). Untranslated; evidently meaning *"run fast, run fast, Asfaloth!" (Variants of this line have been transferred to Arwen in the Peter Jackson movie, since the movie-makers dropped the Glorfindel character.) The name of the horse cannot be interpreted, but seems to include loth "flower". • Gandalf's fire-spell: Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth! The first part literally means, according to TI:175, "fire be for saving of us". (Actually there seems to be no word meaning "be".) The second part must mean *"fire against the werewolf-host!" (Cf. Gandalf's remark the morning after the wolf-attack: "It is as I feared. These were no ordinary wolves.") (LotR1/II ch. 4) • Gandalf's invocation before the Moria Gate: Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen! Fennas nogothrim, lasto beth lammen! "Elvish gate open now for us; doorway of the Dwarf-folk listen to the word of my tongue" (LotR1/II ch. 4, translated in RS:463). An earlier variant of the invocation is found in RS:451. • The inscription on the Moria Gate itself: Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno. Im Narvi hain echant: Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin. "The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter. I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin [Eregion] drew these signs." • The song A Elbereth Gilthoniel / silivren penna míriel / o menel aglar elenath! / Na-chaered palan-díriel / o galadhremmin ennorath, / Fanuilos le linnathon / nef aear, sí nef aearon (LotR1/II ch. 1). It is translated in RGEO:72 and means roughly, "O Elbereth Starkindler, white-glittering, sparkling like jewels, the glory of the starry host slants down. Having gazed far away from the tree-woven lands of Middle-earth, to thee, Everwhite, I will sing, on this side of the Sea, here on this side of the Ocean" (my translation based on Tolkien's interlinear rendering). An earlier variant of the song is found in RS:394. (The hymn is quite similar to Lúthien's Song [untranslated] in The Lays of Beleriand p. 354: Ir Ithil ammen Eruchîn / menel-vîr síla díriel / si loth a galadh lasto dîn! / A Hîr Annûn gilthoniel, le linnon im Tinúviel.) • Sam's "inspired" cry in Cirith Ungol: A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon sí di-nguruthos! A tiro nin, Fanuilos! "O Elbereth Star-kindler, from heaven gazing afar, to thee I cry now in [lit. beneath] the shadow of death. O look towards me, Everwhite!" (translated in Letters:278 and RGEO:72). • The praise received by the Ringbearers on the Fields of Cormallen (LotR3/VI ch. 4): Cuio i Pheriain anann! Aglar'ni Pheriannath! ... Daur a Berhael, Conin en Annûn, eglerio! ... Eglerio! This is translated in Letters:308 and means "may the Halflings live long, glory to the Halflings... Frodo and Sam, princes of the west, glorify (them)! ... Glorify (them)!" • Gilraen's linnod to Aragorn in LotR Appendix A: Ónen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel anim, translated "I gave Hope to the Dúnedain; I have kept no hope for myself". Outside LotR, the most important source - indeed the longest Sindarin text we have, and the longest prose text in any Elvish tongue - is the King's Letter, a part of the Epilogue to LotR, that Tolkien later dropped. It was finally published in SD:128-9: Elessar Telcontar: Aragorn Arathornion Edhelharn, aran Gondor ar Hîr i Mbair Annui, anglennatha i Varanduiniant erin dolothen Ethuil, egor ben genediad Drannail erin Gwirith edwen. Ar e aníra ennas suilannad mhellyn în phain: edregol e aníra tírad i Cherdir Perhael (i sennui Panthael estathar aen) Condir i Drann, ar Meril bess dîn; ar Elanor, Meril, Glorfinniel, ar Eirien sellath dîn; ar Iorhael, Gelir, Cordof, ar Baravorn, ionnath dîn. A Pherhael ar am Meril suilad uin aran o Minas Tirith nelchaenen uin Echuir. (The names Elessar Telcontar are Quenya; the Sindarin translation of Elessar, Edhelharn [Elfstone], occurs in the text.) This translation is given in SD:128: "Aragorn Strider the Elfstone [but the Elvish text reads "Elessar Telcontar: Aragorn Arathornson Elfstone"], King of Gondor and Lord of the Westlands, will approach the Bridge of Baranduin on the eighth day of Spring, or in the Shire-reckoning the second day of April. And he desires to greet there all his friends. In especial he desires to see Master Samwise (who ought to be called Fullwise), Mayor of the Shire, and Rose his wife; and Elanor, Rose, Goldilocks, and Daisy his daughters; and Frodo, Merry, Pippin and Hamfast, his sons. To Samwise and Rose the King's greeting from Minas Tirith, the thirty-first day of the Stirring [not in the Elvish text:], being the twenty-third of February in their reckoning." The words in the parenthesis ("who ought to...") are omitted from the translation in SD:128, but cf. SD:126. Other samples of Sindarin include: • Voronwë's uttering when he saw the Encircling Mountains around the realm of Turgon: Alae! Ered en Echoriath, ered e•mbar nín! "Alae [= ?behold]! [The] mountains of Echoriath, [the] mountains of my home!" (UT:40, translated in UT:54 note 19.) • Gurth an Glamhoth!, "death to [the] din-horde", Tuor cursing the Orcs in UT:39 (cf. UT:54). • The battle-cry of the Edain of the North, given in UT:65: Lacho calad! Drego morn! "Flame Light! Flee Night!" • An exclamation of Húrin's: Tôl acharn, "Vengeance comes", also in the form Tûl acharn (WJ:254, 301). • The Sindarin names of the certain Great Tales in the Silmarillion, the Nern in Edenedair or *"Tales of the Fathers of Men", given in MR:373: 1) Narn Beren ion Barahir, "Tale of Beren son of Barahir", also called Narn e•Dinúviel, "Tale of the Nightingale". 2) Narn e•mbar Hador *"Tale of the house of Hador" including Narn i•Chîn Hurin "Tale of the Children of Hurin" (also called Narn e•'Rach Morgoth "Tale of the Curse of Morgoth") and Narn en•Êl "Tale of the Star" (or Narn e•Dant Gondolin ar Orthad en•Êl, *"Tale of the Fall of Gondolin and the Rising of the Star"). • A sentence published in VT41:11: Guren bêd enni "my heart (inner mind) tells me". • An incomplete translation of the Lord's Prayer, published in VT44:21, 22: Ae Adar nín i vi Menel / no aer i eneth lín / tolo i arnad lín / caro den i innas lin / bo Ceven sui vi Menel. / Anno ammen sír i mbas ilaurui vín / ar díheno ammen i úgerth vin / sui mín i gohenam di ai gerir úgerth ammen. In a more-or-less literal translation, this is apparently: "O my [sic!] father who [is] in heaven, / be holy your name / let your kingdom come / make ?it [happen,] your will / on Earth as in Heaven. / Give to us today our daily bread / and forgive us our wrong-doing / like us who forgive those who do wrong-doing to us." • A sentence from the so-called "Túrin Wrapper": Arphent Rían Tuorna, Man agorech?, probably meaning *"And Rían said to Tuor, What did you do?" (Compare agor "did" in WJ:415. The full contents of the Túrin Wrapper will "soon" be published and discussed in Vinyar Tengwar...or so Carl F. Hostetter wrote in TolkLang message 21.09 back in 1996.) THE STRUCTURE OF SINDARIN The most distinctive feature of Sindarin as a language is probably the complex phonology, Grey-elven often relying on phonological features such as umlauts and mutations instead of affixes to express various grammatical ideas. We shall have to touch on such matters quite often in our attempt to survey the structure of Sindarin. 1. THE ARTICLES Like Quenya, Sindarin has no indefinite article like English "a, an"; the absence of a definite article indicates that the noun is indefinite: Edhel = "Elf" or "an Elf". The definite article, "the", is i in the singular: aran "king", i aran "the king". These examples might just as well be Quenya. In an untranslated text in The Lays of Beleriand p. 354 we find the phrase ir Ithil. If this means *"the moon", it would seem to indicate that the article takes the form ir before a word in i- (to avoid two identical vowels in hiatus). However, since this theory was first advanced a new relevant example has been published. The Sindarin Lord's Prayer includes the phrase i innas lin "your will" or literally *"the will of yours". Here we do have i, not ir, even though the next word begins in i-. Moreover, the word for "Moon", Ithil, seems to count as a proper name in Sindarin, so we would not expect it to take any article at all. Some therefore think the ir of the phrase ir Ithil is not a variant of the definite article "the", but has another meaning. Unlike Quenya (and English), Sindarin has a special plural form of the article, in. "Kings" is erain (formed from aran by vocalic umlauts, see below); "the kings" is in erain. In both the singular and the plural, the article may appear as a suffix appended to prepositions. This suffix has the form -n or -in. Thus the preposition na "to" becomes nan "to the". Ben "in the" or more literally *"according to the", a word occurring in the King's Letter, seems to be a preposition be "according to" - not attested by itself - with the suffix -n for "the". (This be would be the Sindarin cognate of Quenya ve "like, as".) The preposition nu (or no) "under" becomes nuin "under the" (as in Dagor-nuin-Giliath "Battle under the Stars", a name occurring in the Silmarillion, chapter 13). When the article occurs in the form -in, it may trigger phonological changes in the word it is appended to. Or "over, on" turns into erin "on the", the vowel i umlauting o to e (via ö; "on the" must have been örin at an earlier stage). The preposition o "from, of" appears as uin when the article is suffixed, since in Sindarin earlier oi becomes ui (cf. Uilos as the cognate of Quenya Oiolossë). One might think that the ending -in added to prepositions corresponded to the independent article in for plural "the", so that words like erin or uin would be used in conjunction with plural words only. But the King's Letter demonstrates that this is not the case; here we find these words used together with singulars: erin dolothen Ethuil "on the eighth [day] of Spring", uin Echuir "of the Stirring" (month-name). Presumably -n, -in suffixed to prepositions represents an oblique form of the article that is used both in the singular and the plural. - In some cases, the normal, independent article is used following an independent preposition, just as in English: cf. naur dan i ngaurhoth *"fire against the werewolf-host" in one of Gandalf's firespells. Dan i "against the" is not replaced by a single word, sc. some form of dan "against" with the article suffixed. Perhaps some prepositions just can't receive a suffixed article, or perhaps it is optional whether one wants to say nan or na i(n) for "to the", erin or or i(n) for "on/over the", uin or o i(n) for "of/from the". We don't know. The genitival article: Sindarin often expresses genitival relationships by word order alone, like Ennyn Durin "Doors (of) Durin" and Aran Moria "Lord (of) Moria" in the Moria Gate inscription. However, if the second word of the construction is a common noun and not a name as in these examples, the genitival article en "of the" is used if the noun is definite. Cf. names like Haudh-en-Elleth "Mound of the Elf-maid" (Silmarillion ch. 21), Cabed-en-Aras "Deer's Leap", *"Leap of the Deer" (UT:140), Methed-en-Glad "End of the Wood" (UT:153) or the phrase orthad en•Êl "Rising of the Star" in MR:373. Cf. also Frodo and Sam being called Conin en Annûn "princes of the West" on the Field of Cormallen. (This genitival article sometimes takes the shorter form e; cf. Narn e•Dinúviel "Tale of the Nightingale", MR:373. See below, in the section about consonant mutations, concerning the various incarnations of this article and the environments in which they occur.) Only infrequently does the normal sg. article i replace e(n)- in genitival phrases, but in the King's Letter we have Condir i Drann for "Mayor of the Shire". But in the plural, the normal pl. article in is normally used even in a genitival construction, cf. Annon-in-Gelydh "Gate (of) the Noldor" (UT:18), Aerlinn in Edhil *"Hymn (of) the Elves" (RGEO:70, in Tengwar writing). However, there are examples of the explicitly genitival article en being used in the plural as well: Bar-en-Nibin-Noeg, "Home of the Petty-dwarves" (UT:100), Haudh-en-Ndengin "Hill of Slain", or *"of the Slain Ones" (Silmarillion ch. 20). This seems to be less usual, though. In many cases, the articles cause the initial consonant of the following word to change. These phonological intricacies are described below, in the section about consonant mutations. The article i triggers lenition or soft mutation of the following noun; see below. The final n of the article in is often swallowed up in a process called nasal mutation; the n disappears and the initial consonant of the noun is changed instead. On the other hand, the nasal of the suffix -n or -in, "the" appended to prepositions, apparently persists - though it seems to trigger what we tentatively call mixed mutation in the following word. The articles are also used as relative pronouns; cf. Perhael (i sennui Panthael estathar aen) "Samwise (who ought to be called Panthael)" in the King's Letter, or the name Dor Gyrth i chuinar "Land of the Dead that Live" (Letters:417 - this represents *Dor Gyrth in cuinar, an example of nasal mutation. Dor Firn i Guinar in the Silmarillion ch. 20 employs singular i as a relative pronoun even though Firn is plural; the reading Dor Gyrth i chuinar from a very late letter (1972) is to be preferred). It will be noted that Tolkien sometimes, but not always, connects the Sindarin articles to the next word by means of a hyphen or a dot. This is apparently optional. In this work, when not quoting the sources directly, we connect the genitival article e, en "of the" to the next word by means of a hyphen (since it would otherwise often be hard to tell apart from the preposition ed, e "out of"), but we do not hyphenate the other articles. 2. THE NOUN In the fictional timeline, the Sindarin noun originally had three numbers: singular, plural and dual. However, we are told that the dual form early became obsolete except in written works (Letters:427). On the other hand, a so-called class plural developed, coexisting with the "normal" plural; see below. As in most languages, the singular is the basic, uninflected form of the noun. Tolkien noted that the Sindarin plurals "were mostly made with vowel-changes" (RGEO:74). For instance, amon "hill" becomes emyn "hills"; aran "king" becomes erain "kings". The consonants remain the same, but the vowels change. There are a few English nouns that form their plurals in a similar way: man pl. men, woman pl. women (pronounced "wimen"), goose pl. geese, mouse pl. mice etc. Yet English usually relies on the plural ending -s. In Sindarin, the situation is the opposite: the trick of changing the vowels is the usual way of forming the plurals, and only a few words display some kind of ending in the plural. The rules for these vowel-changes are the same for both nouns and adjectives (the latter agree in number), so we will also quote adjectives among the examples as we explore the Sindarin plural patterns. Ultimately, the vowel-changes go back on so-called umlaut phenomena. Umlaut (in origin a German term literally meaning something like "changed sound") is an important feature of Sindarin phonology; the Sindarin term for this phenomenon is prestanneth, meaning disturbance or affection. It has to do with one vowel "affecting" another vowel in the same word, making it more like itself, in linguistic terms assimilating it. The umlaut relevant for the plural formation Tolkien referred to as "i-affection" (WJ:376), since it was a vowel i that originally triggered it. Tolkien imagined that the primitive Elvish language had a plural ending *-î, still present in Quenya as -i (as in Quendi, Atani, Teleri etc). This ending as such did not survive into Sindarin, but there are clear traces of its former presence, and these "traces" have themselves become the indicator of plurality in Grey-elven. When the plural form of, say, fang "beard" (as in Fangorn "Treebeard") is feng, this is because the a was affected by the old plural ending *-î, -i while the latter was still present. In the most primitive form of Elvish, the word for "beard" appeared as spangâ, plural spangâi; by the stage we call Old Sindarin, this had become sphanga pl. sphangi. The former yielded "Classical" Sindarin fang, but the plural sphangi became feng, the original vowel a drifting towards the quality of the plural ending -i before the ending was lost - and so in the later plural form feng we have e as a kind of compromise between (the original vowel) a and (the lost ending) i. (It may be that there was an intermediate stage that had ei, hence ?feing.) SINDARIN PLURAL PATTERNS When "affected" or "umlauted", the various vowels and diphthongs undergo different changes. The precise environment and the phonological history must sometimes be taken into account to determine how the word would appear in the plural. We will list the vowels by their "normal" or unaffected forms. • The vowel A: An a occurring in the final syllable of a word usually turns into ai in the plural. This also applies when the final syllable is also the only syllable, sc. the word is monosyllabic (in such words we often see long â). The example we used above, fang pl. feng instead of **faing, is somewhat atypical (see below); otherwise this pattern is relatively well attested: tâl "foot", pl. tail (singular in LR:390 s.v. TAL; the plural tail is attested in lenited form -dail in the compound tad-dail "bipeds" in WJ:388) cant "shape", pl. caint (singular in LR:362 s.v. KAT; for the pl. form cf. morchaint = "dark shapes, shadows" in the Silmarillion Appendix [entry gwath, wath]; this is mor "dark" + caint "shapes", c here becoming ch for phonological reasons) rach "wagon, wain", pl. raich (cf. Imrath Gondraich "Stonewain Valley" in UT:465) barad "tower", pl. beraid (Silmarillion Appendix, entry barad) lavan "animal", pl. levain (WJ:416) aran "king", pl. erain (LR:360 s.v. 3AR) NOTE: In the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, a in a final syllable often comes out as ei instead. Hence we have adar "father" pl. edeir (entry ATA), Balan "Vala" pl. Belein (BAL), habad "shore" pl. hebeid (SKYAP), nawag "dwarf" pl. neweig (NAUK), talaf "ground, floor" pl. teleif (TAL). Same thing in monosyllables: Dân "Nandorin elf", pl. Dein (NDAN), mâl "pollen" pl. meil (SMAL), pân "plank" pl. pein (PAN), tâl "foot" pl. teil (TAL). But as demonstrated above, the plural form of tâl had become tail in Tolkien's later Sindarin (lenited form -dail in tad-dail in WJ:388). Likewise, the Sindarin plural of adar is seen to be, not edeir as in the Etymologies, but edair (as in Edenedair "Fathers of Men", MR:373 - this is a post-LotR source). The Silmarillion Appendix, entry val-, also confirms that in Sindarin the plural form of Balan "Vala" is Belain, not Belein as in the Etymologies. It seems that in all the examples just listed, we should read Sindarin ai for "Noldorin" ei in the plural forms. In one case at least, evidence from the Etymologies agrees with the patterns observed in later Sindarin: the already-quoted example aran "king" pl. erain (not *erein) in the entry 3AR. (For erain as the Sindarin plural, compare the name Fornost Erain "Norbury of the Kings" occurring in LotR3/VI ch. 7.) Interestingly, Christopher Tolkien notes that in the Etymologies, the group of entries that 3AR belongs to was "struck out and replaced more legibly" (LR:360). Perhaps this was after his father had revised the plural patterns that otherwise persist in Etym. PM:31, reproducing a draft for a LotR Appendix, shows Tolkien changing the plural of Dúnadan from Dúnedein to Dúnedain. It seems that the older "Noldorin" plurals in ei are not conceptually obsolete; they may be seen as archaic Sindarin: In certain environments, the change ei > ai occurred also within the imagined history, so Dúnedain could indeed have been Dúnedein at an earlier stage. It seems that Tolkien decided that ei in the final syllable of a word (this also goes for monosyllables) became ai, but otherwise remained ei. Hence we have teithant for "drew" (or *"wrote") in the Moria Gate inscription, and this teith- is related to the second element -deith of the word andeith "longmark" (a symbol used to mark long vowels in writing, LR:391 s.v. TEK). Yet the word andeith from the Etymologies instead appears as andaith in LotR Appendix E, since ei was here in a final syllable. Teithant could not become **taithant because ei here is not in a final syllable. Other words confirm this pattern. As indicated above, the normal plural of aran is erain, but erein- is seen in the name Ereinion "Scion of Kings" (a name of Gil-galad, PM:347/UT:436). Evidently the plural form was erein in archaic Sindarin, later becoming erain because ei changed to ai in final syllables, but in a compound like Ereinion the diphthong ei was not in a final syllable and therefore remained unchanged. In words of a particular shape, a in the final (or only) syllable becomes e instead of ai. In the plural forms, a may first have become ei as usual, but then the final element of the diphthong was evidently lost (before ei turned into ai) leaving only e that simply remained unchanged later. MR:373 indicates that the plural form of narn "tale" is nern, not **nairn or **neirn, though the latter may have occurred at an earlier stage. It seems that we have e rather than ei/ai before ng as well; the Etymologies provides the example Anfang pl. Enfeng (not **Enfaing) for "Longbeards", one of the tribes of the Dwarves (LR:387 s.v. SPÁNAG). WJ:10, reproducing a post-LotR source, confirms that the plural Enfeng was still valid in Tolkien's later Sindarin. Following the example of fang "beard" pl. feng it would seem that the plural of words like lang "cutlass, sword" (for "Noldorin" lhang, LR:367), tang "bowstring" or thang "need" should be leng, teng, theng. NOTE: In the Etymologies, there are further examples of "Noldorin" plurals where a in a final syllable becomes e instead of ai or ei. We have adab "construction, building" pl. edeb (TAK), adar "father" pl. eder besides edeir (ATA), Balan "Vala" pl. Belen besides Belein (BAL), falas "beach, shore" pl. feles (PHAL/PHALAS), nawag "dwarf" pl. neweg besides neweig (NAUK), rhofal "pinion" pl. rhofel (RAM) and salab "herb" pl. seleb (SALÂK-WÊ). However, in the case of these words there seems to be little reason to believe that the e-plurals would still be valid in Tolkien's later Sindarin. At least two of these "Noldorin" plurals - eder and Belen - clash with the attested Sindarin plurals edair and Belain. It seems, then, that we can feel free to replace also edeb, feles, neweg, rhofel, seleb with Sindarin edaib, felais, newaig, rovail, selaib, though the latter forms are not directly attested (notice that "Noldorin" rhofal "pinion", pl. rhofel, must become roval pl. rovail if we introduce Sindarin phonology and spelling). - Another "Noldorin" case of an a > e plural is rhanc "arm" pl. rhenc (RAK). The singular must become ranc if we update it to LotR-style Sindarin, but should the plural be renc or rainc? The Sindarin example cant "shape" pl. caint (see above) seems to indicate that a before a cluster consisting of n + an unvoiced stop becomes ai in the plural; hence "arms" should probably be rainc in Sindarin. In one word at least, earlier ei stays unchanged and does not turn into ai even though it occurs in a final syllable. According to UT:265, the plural form of alph "swan" is eilph; it would seem that ei is unchanged before a consonant cluster beginning in l. (Earlier, in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, the word for "swan" was spelt alf, and its plural was given as elf: LR:348 s.v. ÁLAK; for the plural form, cf. hobas in Elf *"Haven of Swans" in LR:364 s.v. KHOP.) In accordance with the example eilph, the Sindarin plural of lalf "elm-tree" should probably be leilf, though the "Noldorin" plural listed in the Etymologies was lelf (LR:348 s.v. ÁLAM). In a non-final syllable, a becomes e in plural forms, as is seen in some of the examples already quoted: aran "king", pl. erain; amon "hill", pl. emyn; lavan "animal", pl. levain. This does not only go for the vowel in a second-to-last syllable as in these examples; it can be carried through a longer word as well, a in any non-final syllable turning into e. This goes even if a occurs several times: According to WJ:387, the word Aphadon "Follower" becomes Ephedyn in the plural. LR:391 s.v. TÁWAR indicates that the adjective tawaren "wooden" has the plural form tewerin. In MR:373 we have Edenedair for "Fathers of Men", the plural of a compound Adanadar "Man-father" (adan "man" + adar "father"). Here we see a in the final syllable becoming ai, but in all three non-final syllables, a becomes e. Of course, the plural of adan would be edain (well attested) if the word occurred by itself, since the second a would then be in the final syllable. But in the compound Adanadar it is not, and so we see Eden- in the plural. • The vowel E: Concerning this vowel, there happily seems to be agreement between Tolkien's mature Sindarin and most of the earlier material from the Etymologies. The behavior of this vowel is quite simple. In the final syllable of a word, e turns into i: edhel "Elf", pl. edhil (WJ:364, 377; cf. "Noldorin" eledh pl. elidh in LR:356 s.v. ELED) ereg "holly-tree", pl. erig (LR:356 s.v. ERÉK) Laegel "Green-elf", pl. Laegil (WJ:385) lalven "elm-tree", pl. lelvin (LR:348 s.v. ÁLAM) malen "yellow", pl. melin (LR:386 s.v. SMAL) This also goes for monosyllables, where the final syllable is also the only syllable: certh "rune", pl. cirth (WJ:396) telch "stem", pl. tilch (LR:391 s.v. TÉLEK) In the case of long ê, we also find long î in the plural: hên "child", pl. hîn (WJ:403) têw "letter", pl. tîw (WJ:396) LR:363 s.v. KEM lists a word cef "soil", pl. ceif; both forms are somewhat weird. If we regularize this from "Noldorin" to Sindarin it would probably be best to read cêf (with a long vowel), pl. cîf. If there is another i immediately before the e in the final syllable, this group ie simply becomes i in the plural: Miniel "Minya" (Elf of the First Clan), pl. Mínil (WJ:383 - perhaps the i in the first syllable is lengthened to í to somehow compensate for the fact that the word is reduced from three to two syllables in the plural? This does not happen in comparable cases in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, though - e.g. Mirion "Silmaril" pl. Miruin, not ?Míruin, in LR:373 s.v. MIR) In non-final syllables, e is unchanged in the plural, as can be seen from the examples eledh pl. elidh and ereg pl. erig quoted above. • The vowel I: There is only one thing to say about this vowel: in the plural it does not change at all, whether it occurs in a final or a non-final syllable. (For examples of the latter, cf. Ithron "Wizard" pl. Ithryn in UT:388, 390, or Glinnel "Elf of the Third Clan" pl. Glinnil in WJ:378.) After all, the vowel-shifts seen in Sindarin plurals are ultimately due to i-umlaut, the Old Sindarin plural ending -i making the vowels of the noun it was added to more like itself before the ending was lost. But where one of the vowels of such a word is i, it obviously cannot become more like the -i that constituted the plural ending simply because it was 100 % i to begin with. The Sindarin form of Silmaril, Silevril, is seen to cover both singular and plural: The singular is listed in LR:383 s.v. RIL, but in LR:202 and MR:200 we have Pennas Silevril as the equivalent of Quenya Quenta Silmarillion, the History of the Silmarils (plural!) Another apparent example of a word that is unchanged in the plural is found in WJ:149, where we have Amon Ethir for "Hill of Spies". The word ethir "spies" is undoubtedly derived from the stem TIR- "watch" (LR:394, though this word as such is not mentioned there). We can be quite certain that the singular "spy" is also ethir. Only the context can determine whether this word is singular or plural, as would also be the case with a number of other Sindarin words (e.g. dîs "bride" or sigil "dagger"). However, since Sindarin possesses distinct singular and plural definite articles, you can tell (for instance) "the spy" apart from "the spies" - evidently i ethir vs. in ethir. Furthermore, you can add the collective plural ending -ath to any noun, and it would perhaps be used more frequently in the case of words that otherwise would not have distinct plural forms. • The vowel O: In the final syllable of a word (whether or not that is also the only syllable), o becomes y in the plural; long ó likewise become long ý: orch "orc, goblin" pl. yrch (LR:379 s.v. ÓROK) toll "island" pl. tyll (LR:394 s.v. TOL2) bór "trusty man" pl. býr (so in LR:353 s.v. BOR; according to LotR-style spelling, the accent should rather be a circumflex in both sg. and pl., since these words are monosyllabic) amon "hill" pl. emyn (LR:348 s.v. AM1) annon "great gate" pl. ennyn (LR:348 s.v. AD) In the case of amon, the Etymologies also lists emuin as a possible plural form; we are evidently to assume that this is an older form, the diphthong ui turning into y at a later stage. (We can also conclude that when LR:152 mentions "Peringiul" as the pl. of Peringol "half-Gnome", this is certainly a misreading for Peringuil - Christopher Tolkien describes the passage in question as "hastily pencilled", prone to be misread. The later form, not attested, would be Peringyl.) If there is an i before the o in the final syllable, what would be "iy" in the plural is simplified to y: hence we have thelyn as the pl. of thalion "hero" (LR:388 s.v. STÁLAG). Miruin as the pl. of Mirion "Silmaril" (LR:373 s.v. MIR) must be seen as an archaic form. We may assume that thelyn was at an earlier stage theluin and that Miruin later became Miryn; the y-plurals are to be preferred in LotR-style Sindarin. NOTE: All the examples above are excerpted from the Etymologies, but the plurals yrch, emyn, ennyn are also attested in LotR. For a thoroughly Sindarin example, cf. ithron "wizard" pl. ithryn (UT:388, 390, reproducing a post-LotR source). However, in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, there are also examples of o in a final syllable behaving in a quite different manner, namely becoming öi (in Etym spelt "oei") in the plural. This öi in turn became ei when all ö's turned into e's. Hence in the entry ÑGOL the pl. of golodh "Noldo" is listed as both gölöidh ("goeloeidh") and geleidh - evidently intended as an earlier and a later form. In other cases only the later form in ei is listed: gwador "sworn brother" pl. gwedeir (TOR), orod "mountain" pl. ereid (ÓROT), thoron "eagle" pl. therein (THOR/THORON). However, there seems to be little reason to assume that these forms would be valid in LotR-style Sindarin: In two of these cases, ereid and gölöidh/geleidh, the corresponding Sindarin plurals are attested, showing y instead of ei: namely eryd "mountains" and gelydh "Noldor" (cf. Eryd Engrin "Iron Mountains" in WJ:6 and Annon-in-Gelydh "Gate of the Noldor" in the Silmarillion Index, entry Golodhrim - in WJ:364 the pl. of Golodh is given as "Goelydh" = Gölydh, but this is merely an archaic form of Gelydh). In light of these examples, we can feel free to update the "Noldorin" plurals gwedeir "brothers" and therein "eagles" to Sindarin gwedyr, theryn (archaic thöryn). In the Etymologies there are also two examples of o in the final syllable of words becoming e rather than y in the plural: doron "oak" pl. deren (DÓRON) and orod "mountain" pl. ered besides ereid (ÓROT). The plural ered is still valid in later Sindarin, competing with eryd (see the many variants listed in the index to The War of the Jewels, e.g. Eryd Engrin besides Ered Engrin, WJ:440). It seems that ered is not normally used as an independent word for "mountains" - that should probably be eryd only - but ered may be used when the word is the first element in a name of several parts, hence Ered Engrin is a valid alternative to Eryd Engrin. In Letters:224, Tolkien gives enyd as the pl. of onod "Ent", but also notices that ened might be a form used in Gondor. Perhaps, then, the Gondorians would also tend to use ered rather than eryd as the pl. of orod, but there can be no doubt that eryd is the regular Sindarin form. Deren as the pl. of doron "oak" may be seen in the same light; though the regular Sindarin plural deryn is not attested, it is perhaps to be preferred. In a non-final syllable, the vowel o normally becomes e in the plural: Alchoron "Ilkorin Elf", pl. Elcheryn (LR:367 s.v. LA). Such an e was in archaic Sindarin ö instead (e.g. Golodh "Noldo", pl. Gelydh for earlier Gölydh; see references in the note above). Another example is nogoth "dwarf"; in WJ:388 the plural is given as nögyth ("noegyth"), but in WJ:338 we have Athrad-i-Negyth for "Ford of the Dwarves". There is no real discrepancy; nögyth is simply the archaic form that later became negyth. In LotR-style Sindarin, we would prefer the plurals negyth and Gelydh; cf. also Tolkien mentioning Enyd as the plural of Onod "Ent" in Letters:224. (The archaic plural, nowhere mentioned, would be Önyd.) There are, however, a few words where o or ó in a non-final syllable does not become (ö >) e in the plural forms. This is when o represents earlier A; the development is roughly â > au > o. One example is Rodon "Vala" pl. Rodyn instead of **Rödyn > **Redin (MR:200 has Dor-Rodyn for Quenya Valinor = "Land of the Valar"; it would seem that Rodyn is an alternative to Belain as the Sindarin word for "Valar"; it has even been suggested that Rodyn replaced Belain in Tolkien's conception). The first syllable of Rodyn evidently has the same origin as the middle syllable -rat- in Aratar, the Quenya term for some of the supreme Valar. An o representing earlier A is not subject to i-umlaut. Compare Ódhel "Elf that departed from Middle-earth" pl. Ódhil in WJ:364, this long ó representing earlier aw (the primitive form of Ódhel is quoted as aw(a)delo, literally "away-goer"). The later form Gódhel (influenced by Golodh "Noldo") likewise had the plural form Gódhil: despite the influence from Golodh pl. Gelydh, no form **Gédhil arose. These examples come from post-LotR Sindarin, but the same thing is found already in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies. The example rhofal "pinion" pl. rhofel in the entry RAM (LR:382), where the primitive sg. form is given as râmalê, confirms that o from â (via au) is not subject to i-umlaut. As mentioned above, "Noldorin" rhofal pl. rhofel must become Sindarin roval pl. rovail if we update the forms to LotR-style spelling and phonology - roval is actually attested in LotR as part of the eagle-name Landroval - but this o still should not become e in the plural (**revail being impossible because of the phonological history). • The vowel U: Short u, whether in a final or a non-final syllable, in the plural becomes y, as indicated by the example tulus "poplar", pl. tylys (LR:395 s.v. TYUL). However, long û in a final syllable (or in a monosyllable) becomes ui instead; hence the adjective dûr "dark" (as in Barad-dûr "Dark Tower") appears as duir when modifying a plural word in a phrase like Emyn Duir "Dark Mountains" (UT:434). NOTE: The plural of the word cû "bow" would probably be cui, apparently in accordance with the pattern sketched above. But actually cui would represent the older plural ku3i (or kuhi), since the stem is KU3 (LR:365). The primitive sound Tolkien variously reconstructed as h or 3 (the latter = spirant g) had disappeared in Classical Sindarin, so older uhi would become ui. • The vowel Y: As far as we can imagine, this vowel (long or short) cannot change in the plural. A word like ylf "drinking-vessel" (WJ:416) in all likelihood covers plural "drinking-vessels" as well; there simply isn't anything the umlaut can "do" with such a vowel, just like it cannot change the vowel i. We lack any explicit example of a word with the vowel y occurring both in the singular and the plural, but in WJ:418 we find Bar-i(n)-Mýl for "Home of the Gulls". Likely the word for "gull" is mýl in the singular as well (this would be the case if it is derived from the stem MIW "whine" in LR:373, though a quite different "Noldorin" word for "gull" is there given - quite different because the forms listed there, Q |
