Learn To Speak Quenya In 8 Minutes | Tolkien's Elvish

Today, I'll teach you how to speak Elvish. Tolkien's Elvish, that is. And, yeah, that's one of the most accurate descriptions of Quenya.
Remember that I'm not a Quenya expert and all this is just for fun. With that said, enjoy the new language!

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➤ Timestamps
0:00 Meeting Galadriel
3:07 Celebrimbor, the Unexpected Guest
4:10 Galadriel's Powers
7:05 Memorization

#quenya #elvish #tolkien

[Artreii]

Do you have any other constructed languages you'd like to learn?

[atanvardo]

*Aiya* (variant *aia* ) means "hail" as a greeting. It is also described as "a call for help or attention", said to be "only addressed to great or holy people like the Valar, or to Eärendil". Another greetings in Quenya was *hara máriessë* (#) "stay in happiness", or just mariessë "in happiness" for short, and the well-known *elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo* "a star shines upon the hour of our meeting".

# *Hara* is a coloquial form of the imperative of the verb "to sit", "to stay" (verb stem *har-* ); the "actual" imperative form being *á harë*.

[jamies]

It’s amazing to hear that they are similar languages and both sound elvish yet are still different

[XavierBetoN]

Listening Elven speech in Spanish accent hits in whole different level

[kelvottomatpelaajat]

I'm Finnish myself and it is actually quite fun to study the similarities in Finnish and Quenya.

Like welcome in Finnish is tervetuloa a direct translation would be healthycoming or come in health.

Quite close to blessed arrival.
😄

[ZemplinTemplar]

Great video. :-)

Tolkien loved his hidden puns and linguistic in-jokes. :-) Lúmenn intentionally similar to Latin lumen ("light") or names like Dior (again, ostensibly fictional, but rather like French d'or, "of gold").

Quenya also shows a lot of its inspiration in real world Finnish not only by some words sounding vaguely Finnish ("omentielvo", "cuiva", "tulta", etc.) but also by having grammar elements that function the same as in real Ugrofinnic languages (even if the vocabulary is obviously fictional).

For example, in the Quenya lyrics David Salo prepared for the film adaptations, the lyrics heard briefly in the shot when Gandalf and the balrog are plumetting towards the underground lake include one-word Quenya phrases, such as "Mettanna !" ("To the end !") and "Nurunna !" ("To the death !").

Most Indoeuropean languages would have to render these in a short phrase made up of multiple short words (e.g. English "To the end !", "To the death !", or Slovak "Až do konca !", "Až na smrť !", etc.). But in Ugrofinnic languages, you can often agglutinate these with the help of a suffix into just a single word. In real world Hungarian, you could say the above two words as "Végeig !" ("To the end !") and "Halálig !" ("To the death !"), the "-ig" suffix in the language meaning "towards", "to something", appended to the words for "end" (vége) and "death" (halál).

So, Quenya certainly shows grammar rules inspired by Finnish and other related Ugrofinnic languages (Finnish and Hungarian are distinctly different, but much of their basic grammar follows very similar rules).

"Sorya" as Quenya for "worry" reminds me of "Sorgen", the German noun for "worries". Maybe the professor got the idea for it there, or a similar language.

[atanvardo]

_Nanye_ or _nanyë_ (writing the final _e_ as _ë_ in Quenya words is not mandatory) does not mean "name". It means "I am". In many languages, such as English, saying "I am [name]" is a form of telling your name to somebody (in the case of English, for example, it is even much more common to say "I am Carl" than saying "My name is Carl"). This causes many people to think that _nanye_ means "name" or "my name" in Quenya; but this is not correct. We don't know which construction ("My name is..." or "I am....") the Elves used in Quenya when they introduced themselves to someone -- or if they used both constructions. So, people may use whichever they want. _Nanye_ is comprised of _ná_ (an inflected form of the verb "to be") with the ending _~nye_ / _~nyë_ (or just _~n_ ), used for "I", attached to it. Thus, _nanye_ / _nanyë_ (or just _nán_ ) = "I am". When preceding two consonants (like the combination _ny_ of _nye_ ) vowels are not written with an acute accent; so, _nanye_ / _nanyë_ (sometimes, Tolkien wrote _nánye_ / _nányë_, but he wrote _nanye_ / _nanyë_ more often, suggesting the latter is preferable). The Quenya word for "name" is _esse_ / _essë_ instead. To say "my name" in Quenya, you must use this word with the possessive ending _~nya_ ("my") attached to it. Thus, _essenya_ ("my name") -- but not _essënya_ (in the middle of a word, _e_ is never written _ë_, except when this vowel is part of the groups _ea_ / _ëa_ and _eo_ / _ëo_ ). So, in Quenya, "my name is..." would translate, literally, _essenya ná..._ . Thus, when introducing yourself to someone in Quenya, you may say _nanye_ [your name] ("I am [name]") or _essenya ná_ [your name] ("my name is [name]").

[Pyovali]

Alámenë (go with a blessing) sounds like Finnish Älä mene which means "don't go" lol

[atanvardo]

My remarks on *saesa omentien lle* for "pleasure meeting you":
*Saesa* is not a Quenya word. It doesn't even fit the Quenya phonology — the vowel combination *ae* doesn't occur in Quenya, neither as a diphthong nor as a hiatus ( *ae* is a diphthong in Sindarin, but *saesa* doesn't exist in this language, too). A Quenya word that could be used for "pleasure" is *alassë* "joy", "merriment". Also, *llë* is not an independent pronoun. It was meant to be a pronominal ending, *–llë, * to be attached to verbs and used as a plural "you"; but Tolkien changed it to *–ldë* — e.g.: *melinyeldë* "I love you"(as a friend), which containins the verb *mel–* "love" (as a friend) + *–nyë* "I" + *–ldë* "you" (plural — used when you are addressing two or more persons). The independent pronouns for "you" are *tyë* (singular, familiar/intimate), *lyë* (singular, polite) and *le* (plural).

Also, *omentien* actually means "for meeting", "in order to meet". It is the gerund *omentië* "meeting" (verbal stem probably *omenta–* ) with the dative case ending *–n.* In English, the gerund of a verb ("meeting", "singing", ...) is used as a noun, often in place of the infinitive ("to meet") — Saying "pleasure meeting you" is the same as saying "meeting you is a/my pleasure", where the gerund "meeting" is used as a noun (it represents a thing, and thus could be replaced by "it" — "it is a/my pleasure"). In Quenya, the gerund is used in the same way: It functions as a noun and is used in place of the infinitive in sentences like "pleasure to meet you" / "pleasure meeting you". In Quenya, the infinitive is only used to combine verbs, as in "I want to fight the Orcs"; which, in Quenya, translates *méran mahta i Orcor*, where the infinitive *mahta* "to fight" is used in combination with *méran* "I want" ( *méra* "is wanting" or just "wants" + *–n, * the short form of *–nyë* "I"), and *Orcor* is the plural of *Orco* "Orc". But in "I came to fight the Orcs", the infinitive "to fight" denotes a purpose ("I came _for fighting_ the Orcs" or "I came _in order to fight_ the Orcs"); so we use the gerund in the dative case: *mahtien* "for fighting" / "(in order) to fight" → *Tullen mahtien i Orcor* "I came to fight the Orcs", or, literally, "I came for fighting the Orcs". In "pleasure meeting you" (or "pleasure to meet you"), the verbal form "meeting" (or "to meet") has the value of a noun (it is used as a "thing"), so we use the gerund; but, since it does not denote a purpose, we do not use the dative case. Thus, *omentië* "meeting" (seen in the greeting *elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo* "a star shines upon the hour of our meeting"), not *omentien.

All in all, "pleasure to meet you" would literally translate, in Quenya, *alassë omentië le* (if addressing two or more persons) or *alassë omentië lyë* (if addressing only one person — and using the polite/formal "you" because you are not inimate of the other person). But, in Quenya, you would probably say *omentië le/lyë alassenya ná* "it is my pleasure to meet you", or, more literally, "meeting you is my pleasure" / "meeting you is a pleasure of mine" ( *ná* = "is"), or perhaps *omentië le/lyë alassë ná* "meeting you is a pleasure".

[AlisonBryen]

This is going more successfully than my Duolingo course. 😊

[mocchi]

I always loves your videos that discuss elf language, because your videos I already know most of the Sindarin language and now is the Quenya

Need more❤

[atanvardo]

Regarding *hantanyel órenyallo* "I thank you from my heart": It is also possible to say *hantan lyen órenyallo* or, less often, *hantanyë lyen órenyallo* "I thank to you from my heart" — only using the pronominal ending (which is attatched to the verb) for the subject, "I", either in its short form, *-n, * or in its long/full form, *-nyë, * and using the independend pronoun for the object, *lyë* "you" (rather than the pronominal ending *-lyë* ) because it is inflected in the dative case, *lyen* "to you". And, since word order in Quenya is quite free (because it is a highly inflected language), we can also say *órenyallo hantanyel* or *órenyallo hantan(yë) lyen* or *lyen hantan(yë) órenyallo* or *lyen órenyallo hantan(yë)*, ... However, the current understanding is that pronominal endings are only used for the 3rd person. So, *hantanyel* "I thank you" would probably not occur in Quenya. We would only have *hantan(yë) lyë* "I thank you" or *hantan(yë) lyen* "I thank to you" (with dative "you"). Again, different word orders can be used.

[paimoan]

You might not be an expert but I’m my opinion ur great at all types of Elvish ❤️❤️❤️

[APIEngineering]

WOAH!
What was that part starting at about 5:30 minutes! I have not seen this before!

[houlioo]

Please make more videos about quenya. It's by far more complete than both sindarin and khuzdul so I think there's a lot of staff to talk about :)

[RichardLeslieWhereat]

I probably wouldn't use quenya to talk to her. I'm cheeky, but not that cheeky.

[kaceycat]

Do u know where I can I find book for quenya

[dolbar]

Does anyone know how I can say "remember" in quenya?

[tassadar]

could anyone please help me with how to say "would you care to dance with me" in elvish with the pronunciation i have been all over the bloody internet trying to find it but the best i can find is "Lle narna Salk" but even if thats the right elvish sentence i am looking for i got no idea how to say it

[Mowgli]

What game is in the background. I need it