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Sindarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| joeyayoub Tetraglot Newbie Lebanon Joined 5609 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English, Arabic (Written) Studies: Esperanto, French*, Spanish Studies: Italian, Japanese | Message 1 of 22 10 April 2011 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey, I've just recently decided to study Sindarin and I was wondering why it isn't on the
list of this website? I see no reason, Sindarin is a complete language and one can reach fluency in it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6378 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 22 10 April 2011 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||
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If a language is a small one and there is no one studying it, then it isn't likely to be on the list. You can PM the administrator to add it if you would like to add it to your language list. Edited by newyorkeric on 10 April 2011 at 6:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5528 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 3 of 22 18 April 2011 at 7:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I requested that Sindarin and Quenya be added to the list a while back, but was informed that only languages that have dictionaries, grammar books and independent literature will be included.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6378 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 22 18 April 2011 at 7:44am | IP Logged | ||
Didn't know that. Thanks for telling us. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5225 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 5 of 22 30 April 2011 at 10:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I know this was invented by JRR Tolkien, so that explains that it has no 'independent literature'; as I see it, that's not a major obstacle. But now, how can Sindarin/Quenya/whatever be called 'a complete language' without dictionaries, nor grammar references?
Or, are there such things? Edited by mrwarper on 30 April 2011 at 10:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gambi Newbie New Zealand Joined 5108 days ago 37 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English Studies: Indonesian, Burmese | Message 6 of 22 30 April 2011 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually there are many small indigenous tribal languages spoken around the world in places like Papua New Guinea and Brazil which still do not have grammar references and dictionaries etc. So those people do not speak a 'complete language'? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5225 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 22 30 April 2011 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Of course they do, please don't misread me. Quenya etc., are invented, and thus they are used very little, if at all, in the real world. My question is, how can any of these artifacts be called 'a complete language' in the absence of real use AND a complete reference? To further clarify: any language is as complete as its potential uses, be it via imitation of actual (written, spoken) use or produced from a set of constructors (grammar + vocabulary). Obviously one can be derived from the other, but without either of them, all you have is... some made up words :) It is apparently quite clear that Tolkien's mind children are not used in real life, but to what lengths did he go to give a language reference? It has been demonstrated that Klingon is far from 'complete', for example. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5446 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 8 of 22 30 April 2011 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not an expert on Tolkien, so those who are can feel free to expand upon/correct my remarks. But to take a stab at mrwarper's questions:
The situation of Tolkien's languages is an odd one: The Lord of the Rings and other books started as a way to give a history/mythology to languages he was already creating. His books contain snippets of the languages. His notebooks contain still more. Within his notebooks, there are even sketches of the different languages, sometimes in multiple versions. However, it is taking a long time to assemble, edit and publish the material in those notebooks, so we don't know exactly how complete they are. While those in charge of Tolkien's notebooks are working their way through, afficianadoes of his work have compiled and revised their own grammars and dictionaries as information from the notebooks dribble out. They've also been writing their own poetry and more. Studying Tolkien's languages is like studying dead languages of which fragments are preserved from different times and locations: There's enough material to sketch the grammar, to form a basic vocabulary and, interestingly, to revise our understanding and criticize previous scholarship as new fragments are found - i.e. new bits of the notebooks are published. Different from dead languages, we even know, with relative certainty, that fragments not yet found - published - remain and will one day be available to us. At this point, to my mind, the justifications given for not including Quenya and Sindarin no longer hold. There is at least one (much criticized) dictionary for Quenya and Sindarin that has been in print for some time. For Quenya, there's a pretty good self-teaching manual and several grammar studies online. (Some of these, I think, can also be purchased in printed form.) I will not make the argument as to whether Quenya and Sindarin deserve to be listed on the forum. But purely on the question of whether there are things to read and adequate study materials, I would rather study Quenya than Gaulish or Hittite any day of the week. Edit/Update: For those interested in Quenya, the place to start is this self-teaching course (free for download): http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/qcourse.htm It will be noted that this is not a mere list of words and phrases with ad hoc translations; there is a grammar and a vocabulary and the course has been revised to align with the latest information to be released from Tolkien's notebooks. Edited by BartoG on 30 April 2011 at 7:31pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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