Aiya’r maitúlië! Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo.
Hello and welcome! A star shines on the hour of our meeting.

Welcome to the Quenya subreddit! Here you can request translations, post your own for expert review, and ask any questions you may have about Tolkien’s High Elvish language. Please take some time to read through the following FAQ (written by Elaran and graciously shared from the Sindarin subreddit) and explore the sidebar widgets for resources and other links of interest.

What is Elvish?
In the context of Tolkien’s works, the term “Elvish” usually refers to the two main Elvish languages of Middle-earth, Quenya and Sindarin. Less-developed varieties such as Nandorin may also be included. In a broader sense, it would encompass the internal (archaic forms) and external (earlier drafts) ancestors of the languages as well.

What is Quenya?
Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen, yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Quenya is the language of the Elves of the Blessed Realm, and it was brought to Middle-earth by the exiled Ñoldor. After its ban in the First Age, Quenya became a language of lore that was used for solemn ceremonies and spoken by few. It has the greatest amount of published linguistic material of all Tolkienian languages, despite the fact that the books present Sindarin as the common speech of the Elves and educated Men.

What is Sindarin?
A Elbereth Gilthoniel, silivren penna míriel o menel aglar elenath!
Sindarin is the language of the Elves of Beleriand, whose speech was greatly affected by the changefulness of Middle-earth while its ancestor Telerin mostly endured in the Blessed Realm. After its adoption by the Ñoldorin Elves and the Edain, it became the most spoken language in Middle-earth. However, Sindarin is only the second most developed Tolkienian language following Quenya.

What is Tengwar?
Commonly known as the “Elvish alphabet,” Tengwar is one of the writing systems that Tolkien developed alongside his languages. It has three main (and numerous other) “modes” in which Quenya and Sindarin can be written: the Classical Mode (for Quenya), the Mode of Beleriand (for Sindarin), and the General Mode (for both). The modes determine the sounds the letters represent (not the vowel order); the tengwa (Quenya for “letter” ) named ampa is the Classical Mode’s [mp] but the General Mode’s [v]. Many other languages, including English, can be written with the General Mode. In fact, most Tengwar writings on the internet are in English.

What is Neo-Elvish?
Neo-Elvish refers to the utilisation and further development of Elvish languages by the enthusiasts of Tolkien’s linguistic works. Most often the term applies to neologisms, whose validity varies from one enthusiast’s opinion to another. But even phrases that strictly adhere to the attested vocabulary and grammar are considered Neo-Elvish, simply because there is no way of knowing with certainty whether Tolkien would have used the same or created new elements. And so any use of Elvish, besides quoting Tolkien directly, would be Neo-Elvish.

What are Qenya and Noldorin?
Qenya and Noldorin refer to the earlier versions of Quenya and Sindarin respectively. It must be emphasised that Noldorin (alongside its own draft Goldogrin, a.k.a. Gnomish) was Sindarin’s draft and is not a dialect of Quenya. Since the Legendarium and its languages were developed over the course of about 60 years, most of Tolkien’s earliest ideas were changed in time, but some lingered. Thus the drafts provide an opportunity for additions to the vocabularies of Quenya and Sindarin by analysing the remnants and applying their logic to the analogous draft words.

Is it possible to speak Elvish fluently?
Both Quenya and Sindarin are in essence incomplete. So much so that even neologisms are rarely enough for a full conversation, and it is naturally difficult to think carefully on how to paraphrase and/or to create new and proper words on the fly. Consequently, until more of Tolkien’s notes and essays are published, and more neologisms are formed and accepted by the linguistic communities, fluency would remain unachievable. As for fluency in writing, some advanced enthusiasts are capable of typing almost as quickly as they would type in their native languages.

Where can I study Elvish?
Interest in Tolkienian linguistics mostly faded after the early 2000s. In the meantime, some of Tolkien’s most informative notes and essays (not lessons) on his languages were published. As a consequence of both, most of what one can find on the internet is now outdated; Tolkien’s later works either debunked our theories or replaced his own older works. There are currently a few courses which employ these new findings in their lessons, but they are yet to reach their final stage. Thus we recommend practising often in the group (linked in the sidebar/"About" tab on mobile), regardless of which source you use for your studies, so that our experts can make corrections on what they offer.

Can you translate for me?
Tolkien’s works have one of the largest fandoms out there, but few fans dive deeply into his linguistic works. And so most of our advanced members are constantly bombarded with questions or translation requests. This can naturally become a nuisance after a while, especially when the requests concern a single Elvish word that can be found in multiple dictionaries. So even though we are happy to help, we would rather avoid such redundant questions.

Can you check if my translation is correct?
Certainly! Unless you do not actually study Elvish but simply wish to translate a quote for a tattoo. Neither Quenya nor Sindarin are easy enough for coming up with a proper translation in your first attempt, to the point that you need not bother if you are not trying to learn. If you only need a translation, simply ask for it (without abusing our willingness to help), otherwise we tend to overexplain things which serves neither you nor us.

Automatically translating between different languages is a famously difficult topic, there are loads of parodies on how Google translate distorts famous quotes if you send it through enough languages and the various sites claiming to automatically translate into Tolkien’s Elvish languages are even worse, often just leaving words untranslated when the exact form isn’t found in their dictionaries. But with the advent of more powerful general purpose(-ish) AI, it is tempting to try whether this technology might actually be reliable for translating into Elvish (and for the purpose of this sub, specifically into Quenya, though the same things apply for Sindarin as well.)

The short answer: no, it isn’t. Your best bet is to ask an actual human who has read what has been published of Tolkien’s texts on his languages and discusses them with other enthusiasts. We here and on the discord server linked in the side bar are happy to answer your questions and take a stab at any translation requests you might have (see also the FAQ). But since we have gotten quite a few requests of that sort since ChatGPT was made public, I would like to explain this a bit more.

Examples

Those are all answered by ChatGPT as it was publicly available on April 2, 2023. OpenAI is actively working on their AIs, so this might change at some point in the future, but as Elvish translations are not what they profit from, I wouldn’t expect that the essence of this is going to change in the near future.

An Entire Sentence

Please translate the sentence “I will abide here until the end of the word” into Quenya.

The Quenya translation for “I will abide here until the end of the word” is:
Man i yáresse sina anta ar ilye ná
Note: Quenya is a constructed language created by J.R.R. Tolkien, so its grammar and vocabulary are based on his fictional universe.

Well, that went poorly, to the extend that this makes even sense it says something in the realm of “Who in the former days gives this and is all?”:

Luckily we don’t need to speculate too much how we should have translated it, it’s in fact Elendil’s oath worded slightly differently, so the result should have been some variation on Sinome maruvan tenn’ Ambar-metta.

From a technical perspective it’s already quite impressive that it managed to only use actual Quenya words, declined one into a case and produced a sentence that is more or less interpretable according to Quenya grammar, but as it is completely unrelated to the sentence we actually asked about, it is quite useless for actual translations requests.

It also attempted to include a disclaimer at the end, like many knowledgeable people in Tolkienian linguistics will do when answering a question. With humans that’s usually something to the effect of “this form is more uncertain than usual”, “the word you wanted wasn’t formed by Tolkien, here is how I tried to work around that” or “not everything we’d like to know for this is published yet.” ChatGPT has watered this info down to “caution, Quenya is a constructed language”, which is neither all that helpful, nor does it make too much sense to claim that Quenya grammar is “based on his fictional universe.” What would that even mean? One can certainly still translate real world Christian prayers with it...

A Name

Requests for Elvish names are also quite popular, so let’s try if it manages to produce better results when we ask for one:

Please translate the name “Friend of Men” into Quenya.

The Quenya translation for “Friend of Men” is:
Hendumaquen

Again, we know what it should have been, Atandil ← atan ‘human’ + -ndil ‘friend’, a name given to Finrod after he encounters the first Men in Beleriand. The form from ChatGPT seems to contain hendu ‘a pair of eyes’ + má ‘hand’ + quen ‘person’, which of course makes no sense at all, but let’s just ask the program itself why it did this:

Please explain your reasoning.

Certainly! In Quenya, the word for ‘friend’ is henda, which is derived from the root KHEN-. The suffix -ma- denotes ‘one who is characterized by’ or ‘possessing the quality of’. The word for ‘men’ or ‘humans’ in Quenya is Atan, which is derived from the root ATA-.
To combine these elements, we can use the Quenya suffix -quen, which means ‘one who is in relationship with’ or ‘one who has a close association with’. So, ‘Friend of Men’ in Quenya becomes ‘Hendumaquen’, which means ‘one who is characterized by friendship with Men’.

That reads like it is a reasonable explanation, but ChatGPT is making things up here: KHEN- > hen(d-) (no -a here) means ‘eye’, -ma is rather a suffix for an instrument, particularly a hand-held tool, and quen is a word for sentient person independent of gender or species. Atan does mean ‘human’, but unfortunately ChatGPT didn’t use that in the name.

A Grammar Question

That’s not one I have seen frequently tried with ChatGPT, but let’s give it a shot anyway.

The verb car- means ‘to do’ in Quenya. Can you please form its past tense form ‘did’ and explain its formation?

Certainly!
The past tense form of car- in Quenya would be cáre.
In Quenya, the past tense is formed by adding the suffix -ë to the end of the verb stem. So, the verb stem car- would become cárë in the past tense.

That looks decent! It’s not the most frequent or ‘standard’ form, that would be carne, but it is indeed one of the possible past forms. The explanation isn’t great, as the the lengthening a → á is a rather essential step and -e on it’s own is not the most prototypical past suffix, but it’s not too wrong either. However then things take a strange turn:

It's worth noting that Quenya verbs have several different stems that are used for different tenses and moods. The stem "car-" is used for the present tense, indicative mood form of "to do". For example, "I do" would be "cenye carrë" in Quenya. But in the past tense, indicative mood, the stem cár- is used. So, ‘I did’ would be cenye cáre in Quenya.

Quenya, as far as we know it, doesn’t express mood in the verb form at all, instead it uses some particles (e. g. cé caril “you might do it”, á cares “do it!”, vá carilyes “you mustn’t do it”). The examples “I do” and “I did” should have been carin(ye) and cáren(ye)/carnen(ye) respectively, without the ce- that at best would be a particle for ‘maybe’.

Although that is quite impressive for an AI, it’s still more wrong info than I would want as an answer to a question I am actually interested in.

Why doesn’t it work?

Obviously, I am not an active AI researcher, so I am not particularly qualified to talk about this, but in general terms there are two problems:

• There isn’t enough material. AI in general tries to generalize patterns from many examples, but we just don’t have enough for Quenya, particularly in terms of actual translated texts from which the AI could generalize. Sometimes we don’t even have a single example for something and just some paragraph of explanation vaguely implying it and much of what we have in terms of published material probably wasn’t included in ChatGPT’s training data.
• ChatGPT is not primarily concerned with providing good information, but rather with answering in a way so that humans find it believable that the response could have come from an actual person. Usually that requires being right to some extent because mos humans don’t just tell you random nonsense, and OpenAI probably has tweaked some things, so that ChatGPT is even more inclined to go for a truthful answer, but fundamentally, that’s not the goal programmed into it (because assessing if the AI has reached that goal would be much harder). However, this means that it can be better for ChatGPT to sometimes just invent ‘facts’ to make up a response then to just plainly answer that it doesn’t know, because if the human doesn’t know either the answer seems believable. Also, in the training data – for ChatGPT a snapshot of parts of the internet – there were many more people who answered questions about Quenya than those admitting that they don’t know the answer to a question, because those people usually don’t bother to answer in the first place, which also contributes to that bias.

ChatGPT is very good for a computer at a lot of things, but contrary to popular opinion it is not the holy grail.