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Middle Earth Languages

Sindarin and Quenya are often written in the tengwar script, which Tolkien especially devised for them, or alternatively in the rune-like cirth. When Middle-earth languages are written with the Latin alphabet, either acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú) or circumflex accents (â, ê, î, ô, û, ŷ) mark long vowels depending on language or other convention. The diaeresis (ä, ë, ö) is normally used to mark that a short vowel is to be separately pronounced, that it is not silent or part of a diphthong. For example, the last four letters of Ainulindalë should be sounded as if spelled dah-leh in English rather than as dale and the first three letters of Eärendil represent something like eh-ahr rather than the English word ear. (But occasionally, especially when writing proto-Eldarin forms, Tolkien used the macron to indicate long vowels and the dieresis on ä, ö, and ü as in German to indicate i-modification or e-modification.)

In the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien adopted the literary device of claiming to have replaced the original Westron with English. This device of rendering an imaginary language with a real language he carried further, rendering Rohirric, related to an older form of Westron, by Old English, and names in the tongue of Dale in the north of Rhovanion by Old Norse forms, thus mapping the genetic relation of his fictional languages on the existing historical relations of the Germanic languages. A natural consequence of this is that the languages thus replaced were never worked out by Tolkien in any detail because they never appeared in the texts.


List of Languages

Elvish languages
I. Primitive Quendian
A. Avarin languages (at least six languages)
B. Common Eldarin
1. Quenya
(a) Vanyarin Quenya
(b) Noldorin Quenya
2. Common Telerin
(a) Telerin of Valinor
(b) Sindarin (at least three dialects, namely Northern, Doriathrin and Gondorian)
(c) Nandorin languages (influenced by Avarin)

II. Mannish languages (all showed influence by Avarin tongues as well as Khuzdul):
A. Languages of forefathers of the First and Third Houses of the Atanatári
1. Taliska (two dialects)
(a) Adûnaic
- Westron or "Common Speech" (influenced by Sindarin, and languages of Eriador)
· Hobbitish (influenced by languages of Northmen)
- Black Adûnaic of Black Númenóreans
2. Languages of Men of Eriador during the Second Age
3. Languages of Northmen
(a). Dalish
(b). Rohirric
B. Language of forefathers of the Second House of the Atanatári
1. Haladin language
2. Dunlending
C. Drûg languages
1. Language of the Drúedain of Brethil
2. Language of the Woses of Drúadan Forest
D. Many Haradrim languages
E. Many tongues of Easterlings

III. Languages of Dwarves:
A. Khuzdul
B. Iglishmek (sign language)

IV. Languages of the Ents
A. Old Entish
B. "New" Entish

V. Languages of the Ainur (Valar and Maiar)
A. Valarin
1. Black Speech, created by Sauron

VI. Languages of the Orcs

VII. Various debased forms of the Black Speech and regional dialects influenced by Westron

VIII. Primitive methods of communication
A. Language of the Trolls
B. Language of the Wargs