Let's learn Quenya on the Downs

[Child of the 7th Age]

The guy who be short -

Whoops! It's great to hear such enthusiasm but don't get too far ahead of where you are! The old Language forum died because there weren't enough posters to pose serious questions beyond simply asking someone else to do a translation for them. Whether or not there ever would be enough posters to carry on a whole Forum, I don't know. That would be for the B-W to decide.

However, I believe having people work with Quenyan is definitely a step in the right direction as far as taking a more in-depth look at the languages on this site, and many feel that the languages stand at the heart of Tolkien's Legendarium. I appluad your efforts.

Even some of us that won't actively be studying Elvish do have questions about languages. Right now, for example, there seems to be a huge disagreement going on within the Elvish community: linguists like Carl Hostetter who want to toe a "strict" line in terms of what Tolkien gave us and others, like David Salo (the grad student who worked with PJ), who are willing to see the language (especially Sindarin) evolve at least a little beyond what Tolkien gave us. This is a vexing question because Tolkien left so many issues of grammar unresolved. He gave one answer one time and another answer at a different time. Do we pick and choose, or just leave things unresolved? (Sounds just like the discussions in Books! ) And what about the apparently enormous volume of papers that have never been published? I don't think these questions have been discussed in depth on the BD.

The "nuts and bolts" of grammar and vocabulary are the obvious place to start, just as you've suggested. In addition to this announcement thread in the B-D, you might want to have a thread for sharing information and questions about the language itself, perhaps in one of the forums moderated by Esty. ( I'm sure you could pm her to check if you're uncertain.) In any case, great and good luck!