This entry is especially rough, since it is a high-level summary of basic grammar written before I’ve done any of the actual research. Take what is written here with some very large grains of salt. I will revisit this entry once the research in the more detailed entries is done.
The sound change [nl] > [ll] was noted by David Salo in his book, Gateway to Sindarin (GS/§4.158), on the basis of the names Mithrellas (UT/248, PM/222) and Finellach (PM/351). Neither name is glossed, but the first seems to be a combination of mithren and lass.
Like all Elvish languages, the origin of Sindarin dates back to the Common Quenderin [CQ] language spoken by the Elves when they awoke beside the shores of Cuiviénen (S. Nen Echui). Even in those early days, the Elves divided themselves into three tribes, and Sindarin is ultimately derived from the dialect of the third tribe, later called the Teleri.
Sindarin was originally the native language of the Elves of Beleriand, but by the Third Age it was the language spoken by nearly all the Elves of western Middle Earth. As Tolkien described it in The Lord of the Rings Appendix F:
Of the Eldarin tongues two are found in this book: the High-elven or Quenya, and the Grey-elven or Sindarin ...
Now that I’ve wrapped up Quenya Grammar (for now), I’m starting a new series on Sindarin. Like the Quenya series, this information will eventually be collected in Eldamo:
The Quenya Grammar series is done for now. The content is collected in the Eldamo site, which is downloaded as usual:
See:
I've released Eldamo 0.7.7:
The main change in this release is the collected and complete(ish) Quenya Grammar:
A subordinate or dependent clause is one that is not a sentence on its own, but modifies the larger context in which it appears: “the man who came here yesterday was very angry”. Many subordinate clauses begin with relative pronouns, as in the previous example: “who”.
Tolkien wrote a series of essays on Elvish numbers in the late 1960s. One of those essays, Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi (ELN), gave a set of numbers that many Neo-Quenya writers now use (VT48/6):
