Why Tolkien Did Not Invent Elvish

When "Tolkien" and "constructed languages" are under discussion, I often hear remarks like "Tolkien invented the language Elvish that appears in The Lord of the Rings." But this is regrettably imprecise (not to say inaccurate). [NB: If tengwar and Telerin are part of your active vocabulary, you have my permission to go.] Tolkien actually conceived of an entire family of languages spoken by the Elves; two of these, Sindarin and Quenya, were well developed and are what we might think of as "Elvish". The other languages of the Elves were more conceptual than anything else - Tolkien invented a rough grammar and phonetic structure for them that showed how they were linked to one another historically (after all, his specialty was historical linguistics or 'philology'), but very little vocabulary exists for them. Tolkien also sketched in languages spoken by the other races in Middle Earth: The Lord of the Rings includes words and phrases in Khuzdul (the language of the Dwarves), Entish, and the Black Speech used by Sauron in the inscription inside the One Ring. But his two principal languages have a nearly complete grammar structure and extensive vocabulary, and are each so distinctive and beautiful that it is well worth being properly introduced to each one so that you may recognize them in the future.

Sindarin is the language Elves would use for everyday purposes and conversation. Also called "the grey-elven speech," Sindarin is inspired by Welsh, and is found throughout The Lord of the Rings, where it is used not only by Elves but also by the Dunedain (such as Aragorn), Gandalf, and a few of the hobbits.  Here is an example (The Fellowship of the Ring, Many Meetings):

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!

Glorfindel's greeting to Aragorn: 

Ai na vedui, Dúnadan! Mae govannen!

Quenya is the language that Tolkien described as "Elvish Latin," and in The Lord of the Rings it is sometimes called "the high-elven speech" or "the Ancient Tongue." It would be used by the Elves for ceremonial occasions and "high matters of lore and song" rather than for everyday speech, and had a more ancient history than Sindarin. Quenya is inspired by Finnish, as well as Latin and Greek, with a heavily inflected grammar structure and vowel-heavy vocabulary. The longest example of Quenya written by Tolkien is the farewell song that Galadriel sings to the Fellowship, a lament called Namárië (The Fellowship of the Ring, Farewell to Lorien). Here is the first stanza:

Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,

yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!

Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier

mi oromardi lissë-miruvóreva

Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar

nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni

ómaryo airetári-lírinen.

"Now she sang in the ancient tongue of the Elves beyond
the Sea...fair was the song, but it did not comfort him."

If you compare the two texts, you can see that Sindarin words tend to end with consonants and contain very few diacritical marks, while Quenya words tend to end with vowels and contain more vowels in general. In this text sample, Sindarin contains many more consonant pairs like th, gl, lb, dhr, and ch, while Quenya rarely has two successive consonants and uses the letter y much more often; the difference in letter frequency and combinations helps the two languages look distinct from each other. To me, Sindarin looks more familiar, like a language you could pronounce even if you can't understand the words, while Quenya seems more alien, with more unusual phonetic combinations. 

Are you inspired to reread The Lord of the Rings with an eye to those odd bits of other languages Tolkien scatters so liberally? If you begin to get a feel for the sound and look of Sindarin as opposed to Quenya, you will not only be able to tell them apart yourself and impress your friends, but (I hope) will join me in raising one eyebrow at those less well informed writers who go around announcing Tolkien's invention of that non-existent language "Elvish."

Yours etc.

Liv Quicksilver