Mae govannen  ✦  well met

Every elvish word, traced back to where Tolkien wrote it

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137,129 words of Sindarin, Quenya, Telerin and the tongues around them — each one carrying the book, the page and the hand it came from.

Free  ✦  no account needed  ✦  open source since 2011

The first chapter

A book of sources, not a list of words

Tolkien revised his languages for fifty years and never felt he had finished them. Parf Edhellen gives you an unopinionated view into the words as they were recorded, including where and how they evolved throughout Tolkien's lifetime.

Every word carries its provenance

Source, publication, page, editor and the full history of revisions — down to the question marks the editors left standing.

quorin

drowned, choked

Phrases opened out, word by word

Real sentences from the legendarium, every word tagged with its inflection — so you watch the grammar working, not merely the translation.

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Kept by the people who read it

Fifteen years of corrections, arguments and additions from readers, linguists and translators. Everything reviewed, credited, and reversible.

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Today in the book

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Phrase of the day

      ⸱      ⸱     ⸱      ⸱      :        ⸱       ⸱          :

Ae Adar nín i vi Menel, no aer i eneth lín, tolo i arnad lín, caro den i innas lín, bo Ceven sui vi Menel. Anno ammen sír i mbas ilaurui vín, ar díheno ammen i úgerth vín, sui mín i gohenam di ai gerir úgerth ammen.

Tolkien translated the Pater Noster into Sindarin in the 50s. The prayer was published and commented in Vinyar Tengwar 44.

Word by word

  • Ae interjection
  • Adar noun
  • nín pronoun 1st singular possessive
  • i pronoun
  • vi preposition
  • Menel noun
  • no verb imperative
  • aer adjective
  • i definite article
  • eneth noun
  • lín pronoun 2nd singular polite possessive
  • tolo verb imperative

and 35 more words

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Word of the hour

quorin

drowned, choked

Quenya · Quettaparma Quenyallo

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The colophon

Fifteen years of dedication

I have kept this book since 2011. Every gloss, every phrase and every line of the thing behind imported, transformed and organized by myself from various linguistic sources over the years.

The servers are the one thing evenings cannot pay for. If the book has been useful to you, a cup of tea is a kind way of saying so.

— Leonard, @parmaeldo

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