View source for Quenya

{{Sources}}
<center>{{Quote|"The High-elven was an ancient tongue of Eldamar beyond the Sea, the first to be recorded in writing. It was no longer a birth-tongue, but had become, as it were, an ‘Elven-latin’, still used for ceremony, and for high matters of lore and song, by the High Elves, who had returned in exile to Middle-earth at the end of the First Age."|From [[Appendix F]] of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''<ref>{{App|Elves}}, p. 1132</ref>}}</center>
{{Pronounce|Quenya - Quenya.mp3|Gilgamesh}}
'''Quenya''' (Q, pron. [ˈkʷwɛɲa])<ref>[[John D. Rateliff]], [[Jason Fisher]], [[Patrick H. Wynne]], et al. (mailing list discussion), "a quick question" (#[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/24071 24071] and related messages; dated 29 January 2013), [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/ Mytsoc mailing list] (accessed 30 January 2012)</ref> was one of the languages spoken by the [[Elves]]. It was the tongue that developed among those non-[[Teleri]]n [[Elves]] who reached [[Aman]] (the [[Calaquendi|High Elves]]) from an earlier language called [[Common Eldarin]]. Quenya was typically written with the [[Tengwar]] of [[Fëanor]]. An older script, [[Rúmil (elf of Tirion)|Rúmil]]'s [[Sarati]], was used also.

==History==
Of the three clans of Elves in Aman, the [[Noldor]] and the [[Vanyar]] spoke slightly different, though mutually intelligible, dialects of Quenya (''[[Valinorean Quenya]]'' and ''[[Vanyarin|Vanyarin Quenya]]'' respectively). Following the [[Exile of the Noldor]] in the [[First Age]], a third dialect, [[Exilic Quenya]] or ''Noldorin Quenya'', developed among the Noldor who had journeyed to [[Middle-earth]]. In general practice, the word ''Quenya'' usually refers to Noldorin Quenya, since it was the only Quenya dialect spoken in Middle-earth.

The language was also adopted by the [[Valar]] who made some new introductions into it from their [[Valarin|own language]], though these loanwords are more numerous in the Vanyarin dialect than the Noldorin one. This is probably the case because of the enduringly close relationship the Vanyar had with the Valar. The third clan in Aman, the [[Teleri]], spoke a different, closely related language: [[Telerin]]. This was by some seen as a dialect of Quenya which was untrue in a historic perspective but plausible in a linguistic one; the languages did not share a common history but were very much alike.

The Noldor who fled to Middle-earth following the [[Darkening of Valinor]] spoke Quenya among themselves. However, when Elu [[Thingol]] of Doriath, who was the king of the [[Sindar]] (Elves of the Telerin line who remained in [[Beleriand]] instead of journeying to Valinor) learnt about their slaying of the Teleri, he forbade the use of Quenya in all his realm. The Sindar had been slow to learn Quenya anyway, while the Noldor at this time had fully mastered Sindarin.

Noldorin Quenya (Exilic) differed somewhat from Valinorean Quenya, because the language continued to evolve after exile, and it underwent some regularisation as it became a language of lore. There were also a few changes in pronunciation.

The Quenya used in Middle-earth of the [[Third Age]] had come to be a scholarly pursuit; it was not typically used in conversation. It was preserved as a formal language and for writing; [[Sindarin]] was the vernacular of all Elves. However, the Noldor still remembered Quenya and valued it highly and were delighted when other wanderers knew anything from the "Ancient Speech"; for example, [[Gildor]] and his party appreciated [[Frodo Baggins]]'s greeting ''[[Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo]]'' ("A star shines on the hour of our meeting"). [[Galadriel]] was perhaps the only known High Elf in Middle-earth during that time who (having being born in Valinor) had learned Quenya as a cradle-tongue. The learned among the people in Gondor knew Quenya at least as well as Latin still is in western Europe. The use of Quenya in Gondor was honorific. At the end of the Third Age there were probably more Men who knew Quenya or spoke Sindarin than there were Elves who either knew the former or spoke the latter.<ref>{{L|347}}</ref>

The poem ''[[Namárië]]'' is the longest piece of Quenya found in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. It is also known as ''Galadriel's Lament''.

==Grammar==
{{main|Quenya Grammar}}

==Texts==
{{main|:Category:Quenya texts}}

==Inspiration==
{{quote|The ingredients in Quenya are various, but worked out in a self-consistent character not precisely like any language that I know.|Tolkien in a [[Letter to W.R. Matthews]]}}
Quenya's phonology and grammar are most strongly influenced by Finnish, which is an agglutinative language; grammatical inspiration also comes from [[Latin]] and Greek. The phonology is also based on Finnish, and to a lesser extent Latin, Italian and Spanish. Some interesting phonological rules are that no consonant cluster can begin or end a syllable (with one exception, the dual dative ending -nt), a word may not end in a non-dental consonant, and voiced stops must be preceded by sonorants. The first two of these phonotactic rules also exist in Finnish.

The most striking feature of Quenya is that it is a highly agglutinating language, meaning that multiple affixes are often added to words to express grammatical function. It is possible for one Quenya word to have the same meaning as an entire English sentence. For example, one could say "I have found it" in Quenya in a single verb, namely ''utúvienyes''.

Tolkien intended Quenya to be an archaic, ancient and august language for the peoples of Middle-earth of the Third Age, being the cultural analogue of Latin in Europe.<ref>{{app|F1i}}</ref><ref>{{L|347}}</ref> For that reason, he decided to make Quenya look like Latin ocularly<ref>{{L|144}}</ref> and substituted ''K'' for ''C'' and ''Q'' for ''QU''. 

Tolkien wrote much more material about Quenya and his other languages than he published in his lifetime.  In fact, Tolkien, a professor of linguistics, originally invented Middle-earth and its inhabitants as a means of imposing upon his artificial languages a history of war, migration and suffering. The famous novels might be considered incidental to his further and more passionately developed linguistic hobby.  The journals ''Vinyar Tengwar'' and ''Parma Eldalamberon'' are devoted to editing and publishing Tolkien's linguistic papers. 

Quenya is one of many constructed languages introduced over the years by science fiction and fantasy writers, some others being Klingon, Newspeak, Nadsat, the Ascian language and Lapine.

==Etymology==
The word ''Quenya'' is in origin an adjective meaning “belonging to the [[Quendi]]”, but despite this unspecific derivation is only ever used as a name of the language. It descends from an older form ''kwendjā'', with the ''d'' surviving only in the [[Vanyarin]] dialect, where the name is still ''Quendya''.<ref>{{WJ|P3}} p. 360, 361, 393.</ref>

In [[Sindarin]] and [[Telerin]], the descendants of the word ''kwendjā'' became too unrecognisable after the sound shift ''kw > p''. There the language is instead called “speech of the [[Ñoldor]]” (because both groups did not frequently interact with the [[Vanyar]]), that is ''Goldórin'' or ''Goldolambe''<ref>{{WJ|P3}}, p. 375.</ref> and ''Golodhbaeth'' or ''Paeth e Ngolodhrim''<ref>{{PE|17}}, p. 126.</ref> respectively.

==Other versions of the legendarium==
Quenya is possibly one of the very first creations of Tolkien's [[legendarium]], as he started constructing it (see: [[Qenya Lexicon]]) around [[1915]], at the age of 23 years old; as he said various times, the languages came first, and stories followed out of the names.

In those early times, the language was called '''[[Qenya]]''' (although pronounced the same as ''Quenya''), and it was spoken mainly by the "Teleri" (an early name for the High Elves that would be renamed '''Vanyar'''). The language underwent countless minor revisions in both grammar and vocabulary before it reached the form found in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' and ''[[The Silmarillion]]''. The spelling "Qenya" is used by the [[fandom]] to refer to the earlier concepts of the language as distinct from the LotR-style Quenya. However, the fluid nature of the revisions makes such a distinction a highly disputed one.

==See also==
*[[Languages]] of [[Middle-earth]]
*''[[The Shibboleth of Fëanor]]''
*[[Sindarin]]
*[[Tengwar]]
*[[Sarati]]
*[[Arktik|Arctic Quenya]]

==External links==
*[https://ardalambion.net/ Ardalambion: Of the Tongues of Arda, the invented world of J.R.R. Tolkien.]
**[https://ardalambion.net/qcourse.htm Quenya Course]
**[https://ardalambion.net/wordlists.htm Quenya Wordlists] 
***[https://ardalambion.net/quen-eng.htm html - Palatinus]
***[https://ardalambion.net/Quettaparma.pdf PDF - J. Sebastián Pagani]
*[https://middangeard.org.uk/aglardh/atanquesta Atanquesta &mdash; a Neo Quenya Course for beginners].
*[[Eldamo]] &mdash; [http://eldamo.org/index.html?neo a Tolkien language lexicon]
*[http://www.elfdict.com Parf Edhellen &mdash; a dictionary website for Tolkien’s languages]
*[http://bit.ly/2sglBcm Vinyë Lambengolmor &mdash; a Discord server about Tolkien’s languages]
*[http://glaemscrafu.jrrvf.com/english/quenya.html Texts and sound samples] at [[Glǽmscrafu]]
*[http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finn_que.htm Are High Elves Finno-Ugric?]
*[http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finnquelinks.htm Quenya's relation to Finnish]
{{references}}
{{languages}}
[[Category:Quenya| ]]
[[Category:Quenya nouns]]
[[de:Quenya]]
[[fi:Quenya]]
[[fr:encyclo/langues/quenya]]