Hello everyone!
As some of you might know, Parf Edhellen has changed a lot over the last couple of months. I have improved the user experience, added public flashcards, fixed bugs and introduced some new functionality. I have been listening to your feedback and focused what little time I have on the things I believe would have the biggest, positive impact.
Now, I am at a point where I am considering whether to change my policy on neologisms. To this day, I have intentionally restricted neologisms to words "established by the community." But, as some of you might point out, there is currently no general consensus around what "established" really means. And seeing the discourse at public forums and Discord channels (Vinye Lambengolmor in particular), it appears to me that the public is becoming increasingly interested in extending the vocabulary of Tolkien's languages.
Historically, I have held back against this development because I have seen how wrong similar initiatives have been in the past. As an example, the authors behind the Elvish in the Lord of the Rings movies really dove deep into the material available at the time the movies were made, and produced famous neologisms like **hannon le "thank you" and **I amar prestar aen "the world is changed". While you can make a case for hanna- as a derivative from √KHAN, neither neologism has aged very well.
More material has since been released from the Bodelain Library through publications like Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon, but there are still many gaps in our understanding of the phonetics and overall structure of Tolkien's beloved languages. So I have so far decided to hold back due to the arguably capricious and changeable nature of neologisms.
Now, however, I am curious what you think. Should I change the process, and allow more neologisms on the website? Should there be a set of curated authors who we trust, or should I trust all of our members to contribute quality neologisms?
I am curious of your opinion.
Thanks in advance,
Leonard