Grelvish
| "Grelvish" is a concept which has only appeared in an adaptation of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. |
Grelvish, or Grey Company Elvish, is a fanon form of "elvish". It was intended to be used primarily by roleplaying sites.
Origin
Grelvish originated on Tel'Mithrim, or "the Grey Company", an RPG players' online community. The website's FAQ mentions that they "simplified the grammatical structure [of Tolkien's Elvish] and expanded the dictionary heavily". It is simplified to the standards of a native English speaker since the grammar as laid out, blindly follows English structure, grammar, syntax and word order.
Since a popular website for this language, which shows up at the top of searches for 'elven phrases' or 'elven language', directly refers to the Grey Company, it can mislead fans into thinking that their Ultima Online roleplaying site is related to Tolkien's rangers, which it is not.
The language meant by "elvish" seems to be Quenya though Sindarin words and elements are used as well. They also copy the tengwar of Fëanor to artfully express their language on some parts of their website.
It is used primarily for interjectional phrases in roleplaying, and as such, it has been propagated by several other sites.
Characteristics
Trademarks of Grelvish are long words with strange plural markers (ea, ie, oo) and double vowels (which replace the long vowels of Tolkien's Elvish, but not consistently). There is also an affinity with apostrophes. Although it borrows deeply from Tolkien's vocabularies, they change the word meanings and mix the dialects of Quenya and Sindarin as it suits them. A phrase may begin in Quenya and end in Sindarin.
The spelling style for their fanon dialect is much closer to Forgotten Realms (D&D) than Tolkien, for example, those elves are called the Tel'Quessir, which is how Tel'Mithrim named themselves. In Forgotten Realms, Tel means 'of', Quessir means 'the Elven People', but Mithrim, in their dialect, uses Sindarin to mean 'Grey Company'. Mith is Sindarin for "(pale) grey" and -rim is a suffix for a collective group. In Middle-earth, Mithrim is a location in Beleriand where grey-elves lived, and the Tel'Mithrim are supposed to be a company of Elves not Dúnedain. Regardless, their dialect follows the same patterns, in places, as Forgotten Realms. The Tel'Quessir words and phrases rely on the apostrophe to link words into compound words and ideas without spelling changes. For example: Ary’Velahr'Kerym is Ary means "noble", Velahr means "fighter", Kerym means "sword", and together it means "Noble Fighter's Sword".
The pronoun amin for the first person in all its forms is also a trademark of their diction. These elements are original (fanon) and do not come from Tolkien's Elvish
Some obscure Elvish words from Tolkien's corpus have found new translations. A well-attested greeting is vedui il'er meaning "Greetings everyone"
Here, il'er which intended to mean "everyone" could be analyzed to il for "every, all" (from canonical Elvish Root (IL cf. ilya) and er "one" (from ER, cf. Eru). Of course, this compounding is not the way Tolkien's Elvish works. The Quenya word for "everybody" is ilquen.
Vedui means "last" in Sindarin (lenited), but the creators of Grelvish considered it a greeting, since it appears in Glorfindel's greeting to Aragorn.
On the same phrase pages as the fanon dialect inventions, directly copied Sindarin greetings like: mae govannen (well met) or Elen sila lumenn' omentilmo (Q. a star shines at the hour of our meeting) are also seen. There are no stated differentiations or clarifications between the actual Quenya and Sindarin words and phrases on these pages and the fanon dialect.
Linguistic response
- "I don't know if I should cry or laugh when I read something like this, or if I should just look away."
- ― Thorsten Renk, Elfling Message 34930
Grelvish tended to be mistaken for authentic Tolkien's Elvish by new fans. During the hype of The Lord of the Rings (film series) they sought online for further info about the strange languages heard in the movies; seeking for "Elvish" in search engines, brought the website of "Tel'mithrim" high in results, and therefore Grelvish had been their first resource, not having a way to know it is non-canon.
The members of Elfling mailing list coined the term "Grelvish" (from Grey Company Elvish) to differentiate it from canonical Elvish.
