Gnome or Elf?

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Anárion Cúthalion

The Noldor. The Silmarillian states that they are Elves, but the Lays of Beleriand and the Unfinished Tales both say that they are Gnomes.

In The Book of Lost Tales I (which I think you really mean there as opposed to Unfinished Tales), Christopher Tolkien looks at the sometimes confusing terminology in The Music of the Ainur -- including a chart (page 50) which sets out...

I Teleri (including Inwir) .. .. .. .. Vanyar

II Noldoli (Gnomes) .. .. .. .. Noldor

III Solsosimpi .. .. .. .. Teleri

This simplifies the relation between the old conception and that of the published Silmarillion

I hope that the revised Silmarillian resolves this minor issue.

Is someone revising it?

By the way, could someone point me to a good resource for using Elvish as a spoken and written language?

Not even Tolkien could speak Elvish, though that might depend on what one means by 'speaking' any of the Elvish tongues. In the BBC TV program 'Tolkien in Oxford' JRRT commented about Elvish:

'No. no, no... I wouldn't mind other people knowing it, and enjoying it but I didn't really want to (like some people who have been equally inventive in language) sort of make cults and have people all speaking it together, no. I don't want to go and have afternoons talking Elvish to chaps. For one thing, of course - Elvish is too complicated, and I never finished making it'.

JRRT 1968

A brief statement. And for a more in depth look at the issue, I highly recommend the following article Elvish as She Is Spoke before delving into secondary sources (book or web).

http://www.elvish.org/articles/

There is also a link to resources.

http://www.elvish.org/resources.html

And E.L.F. likely lists this under secondary sources (web), but anyway, for the Tengwar I like:

http://at.mansbjorkman.net/