Sindarin - la langue Noble

Outside LotR, the most important source - indeed the longest Sindarin text we have, and the longest prose text in any Elvish tongue - is the King's Letter, a part of the Epilogue to LotR, that Tolkien later dropped. It was finally published in SD:128-9: Elessar Telcontar: Aragorn Arathornion Edhelharn, aran Gondor ar Hîr i Mbair Annui, anglennatha i Varanduiniant erin dolothen Ethuil, egor ben genediad Drannail erin Gwirith edwen. Ar e aníra ennas suilannad mhellyn în phain: edregol e aníra tírad i Cherdir Perhael (i sennui Panthael estathar aen) Condir i Drann, ar Meril bess dîn; ar Elanor, Meril, Glorfinniel, ar Eirien sellath dîn; ar Iorhael, Gelir, Cordof, ar Baravorn, ionnath dîn. A Pherhael ar am Meril suilad uin aran o Minas Tirith nelchaenen uin Echuir. (The names Elessar Telcontar are Quenya; the Sindarin translation of Elessar, Edhelharn [Elfstone], occurs in the text.) This translation is given in SD:128: "Aragorn Strider the Elfstone [but the Elvish text reads "Elessar Telcontar: Aragorn Arathornson Elfstone"], King of Gondor and Lord of the Westlands, will approach the Bridge of Baranduin on the eighth day of Spring, or in the Shire-reckoning the second day of April. And he desires to greet there all his friends. In especial he desires to see Master Samwise (who ought to be called Fullwise), Mayor of the Shire, and Rose his wife; and Elanor, Rose, Goldilocks, and Daisy his daughters; and Frodo, Merry, Pippin and Hamfast, his sons. To Samwise and Rose the King's greeting from Minas Tirith, the thirty-first day of the Stirring [not in the Elvish text:], being the twenty-third of February in their reckoning." The words in the parenthesis ("who ought to...") are omitted from the translation in SD:128, but cf. SD:126.

Other samples of Sindarin include:

THE STRUCTURE OF SINDARIN

1. THE ARTICLES

Like Quenya, Sindarin has no indefinite article like English "a, an"; the absence of a definite article indicates that the noun is indefinite: Edhel = "Elf" or "an Elf".

The definite article, "the", is i in the singular: aran "king", i aran "the king". These examples might just as well be Quenya. In an untranslated text in The Lays of Beleriand p. 354 we find the phrase ir Ithil. If this means *"the moon", it would seem to indicate that the article takes the form ir before a word in i- (to avoid two identical vowels in hiatus). However, since this theory was first advanced a new relevant example has been published. The Sindarin Lord's Prayer includes the phrase i innas lin "your will" or literally *"the will of yours". Here we do have i, not ir, even though the next word begins in i-. Moreover, the word for "Moon", Ithil, seems to count as a proper name in Sindarin, so we would not expect it to take any article at all. Some therefore think the ir of the phrase ir Ithil is not a variant of the definite article "the", but has another meaning.

Unlike Quenya (and English), Sindarin has a special plural form of the article, in. "Kings" is erain (formed from aran by vocalic umlauts, see below); "the kings" is in erain.

In both the singular and the plural, the article may appear as a suffix appended to prepositions. This suffix has the form -n or -in. Thus the preposition na "to" becomes nan "to the". Ben "in the" or more literally *"according to the", a word occurring in the King's Letter, seems to be a preposition be "according to" - not attested by itself - with the suffix -n for "the". (This be would be the Sindarin cognate of Quenya ve "like, as".) The preposition nu (or no) "under" becomes nuin "under the" (as in Dagor-nuin-Giliath "Battle under the Stars", a name occurring in the Silmarillion, chapter 13). When the article occurs in the form -in, it may trigger phonological changes in the word it is appended to. Or "over, on" turns into erin "on the", the vowel i umlauting o to e (via ö; "on the" must have been örin at an earlier stage). The preposition o "from, of" appears as uin when the article is suffixed, since in Sindarin earlier oi becomes ui (cf. Uilos as the cognate of Quenya Oiolossë). One might think that the ending -in added to prepositions corresponded to the independent article in for plural "the", so that words like erin or uin would be used in conjunction with plural words only. But the King's Letter demonstrates that this is not the case; here we find these words used together with singulars: erin dolothen Ethuil "on the eighth [day] of Spring", uin Echuir "of the Stirring" (month-name). Presumably -n, -in suffixed to prepositions represents an oblique form of the article that is used both in the singular and the plural. - In some cases, the normal, independent article is used following an independent preposition, just as in English: cf. naur dan i ngaurhoth *"fire against the werewolf-host" in one of Gandalf's firespells. Dan i "against the" is not replaced by a single word, sc. some form of dan "against" with the article suffixed. Perhaps some prepositions just can't receive a suffixed article, or perhaps it is optional whether one wants to say nan or na i(n) for "to the", erin or or i(n) for "on/over the", uin or o i(n) for "of/from the". We don't know.

The genitival article: Sindarin often expresses genitival relationships by word order alone, like Ennyn Durin "Doors (of) Durin" and Aran Moria "Lord (of) Moria" in the Moria Gate inscription. However, if the second word of the construction is a common noun and not a name as in these examples, the genitival article en "of the" is used if the noun is definite. Cf. names like Haudh-en-Elleth "Mound of the Elf-maid" (Silmarillion ch. 21), Cabed-en-Aras "Deer's Leap", *"Leap of the Deer" (UT:140), Methed-en-Glad "End of the Wood" (UT:153) or the phrase orthad en·Êl "Rising of the Star" in MR:373. Cf. also Frodo and Sam being called Conin en Annûn "princes of the West" on the Field of Cormallen. (This genitival article sometimes takes the shorter form e; cf. Narn e·Dinúviel "Tale of the Nightingale", MR:373. See below, in the section about consonant mutations, concerning the various incarnations of this article and the environments in which they occur.) Only infrequently does the normal sg. article i replace e(n)- in genitival phrases, but in the King's Letter we have Condir i Drann for "Mayor of the Shire". But in the plural, the normal pl. article in is normally used even in a genitival construction, cf. Annon-in-Gelydh "Gate (of) the Noldor" (UT:18), Aerlinn in Edhil *"Hymn (of) the Elves" (RGEO:70, in Tengwar writing). However, there are examples of the explicitly genitival article en being used in the plural as well: Bar-en-Nibin-Noeg, "Home of the Petty-dwarves" (UT:100), Haudh-en-Ndengin "Hill of Slain", or *"of the Slain Ones" (Silmarillion ch. 20). This seems to be less usual, though.

In many cases, the articles cause the initial consonant of the following word to change. These phonological intricacies are described below, in the section about consonant mutations. The article i triggers lenition or soft mutation of the following noun; see below. The final n of the article in is often swallowed up in a process called nasal mutation; the n disappears and the initial consonant of the noun is changed instead. On the other hand, the nasal of the suffix -n or -in, "the" appended to prepositions, apparently persists - though it seems to trigger what we tentatively call mixed mutation in the following word.

The articles are also used as relative pronouns; cf. Perhael (i sennui Panthael estathar aen) "Samwise (who ought to be called Panthael)" in the King's Letter, or the name Dor Gyrth i chuinar "Land of the Dead that Live" (Letters:417 - this represents *Dor Gyrth in cuinar, an example of nasal mutation. Dor Firn i Guinar in the Silmarillion ch. 20 employs singular i as a relative pronoun even though Firn is plural; the reading Dor Gyrth i chuinar from a very late letter (1972) is to be preferred).

It will be noted that Tolkien sometimes, but not always, connects the Sindarin articles to the next word by means of a hyphen or a dot. This is apparently optional. In this work, when not quoting the sources directly, we connect the genitival article e, en "of the" to the next word by means of a hyphen (since it would otherwise often be hard to tell apart from the preposition ed, e "out of"), but we do not hyphenate the other articles.

2. THE NOUN

In the fictional timeline, the Sindarin noun originally had three numbers: singular, plural and dual. However, we are told that the dual form early became obsolete except in written works (Letters:427). On the other hand, a so-called class plural developed, coexisting with the "normal" plural; see below.

As in most languages, the singular is the basic, uninflected form of the noun. Tolkien noted that the Sindarin plurals "were mostly made with vowel-changes" (RGEO:74). For instance, amon "hill" becomes emyn "hills"; aran "king" becomes erain "kings". The consonants remain the same, but the vowels change. There are a few English nouns that form their plurals in a similar way: man pl. men, woman pl. women (pronounced "wimen"), goose pl. geese, mouse pl. mice etc. Yet English usually relies on the plural ending -s. In Sindarin, the situation is the opposite: the trick of changing the vowels is the usual way of forming the plurals, and only a few words display some kind of ending in the plural. The rules for these vowel-changes are the same for both nouns and adjectives (the latter agree in number), so we will also quote adjectives among the examples as we explore the Sindarin plural patterns. Ultimately, the vowel-changes go back on so-called umlaut phenomena. Umlaut (in origin a German term literally meaning something like "changed sound") is an important feature of Sindarin phonology; the Sindarin term for this phenomenon is prestanneth, meaning disturbance or affection. It has to do with one vowel "affecting" another vowel in the same word, making it more like itself, in linguistic terms assimilating it. The umlaut relevant for the plural formation Tolkien referred to as "i-affection" (WJ:376), since it was a vowel i that originally triggered it. Tolkien imagined that the primitive Elvish language had a plural ending *-î, still present in Quenya as -i (as in Quendi, Atani, Teleri etc). This ending as such did not survive into Sindarin, but there are clear traces of its former presence, and these "traces" have themselves become the indicator of plurality in Grey-elven. When the plural form of, say, fang "beard" (as in Fangorn "Treebeard") is feng, this is because the a was affected by the old plural ending *-î, -i while the latter was still present. In the most primitive form of Elvish, the word for "beard" appeared as spangâ, plural spangâi; by the stage we call Old Sindarin, this had become sphanga pl. sphangi. The former yielded "Classical" Sindarin fang, but the plural sphangi became feng, the original vowel a drifting towards the quality of the plural ending -i before the ending was lost - and so in the later plural form feng we have e as a kind of compromise between (the original vowel) a and (the lost ending) i. (It may be that there was an intermediate stage that had ei, hence ?feing.)

SINDARIN PLURAL PATTERNS

tâl "foot", pl. tail (singular in LR:390 s.v. TAL; the plural tail is attested in lenited form -dail in the compound tad-dail "bipeds" in WJ:388)
cant "shape", pl. caint (singular in LR:362 s.v. KAT; for the pl. form cf. morchaint = "dark shapes, shadows" in the Silmarillion Appendix [entry gwath, wath]; this is mor "dark" + caint "shapes", c here becoming ch for phonological reasons)
rach "wagon, wain", pl. raich (cf. Imrath Gondraich "Stonewain Valley" in UT:465)
barad "tower", pl. beraid (Silmarillion Appendix, entry barad)
lavan "animal", pl. levain (WJ:416)
aran "king", pl. erain (LR:360 s.v. 3AR)

In words of a particular shape, a in the final (or only) syllable becomes e instead of ai. In the plural forms, a may first have become ei as usual, but then the final element of the diphthong was evidently lost (before ei turned into ai) leaving only e that simply remained unchanged later. MR:373 indicates that the plural form of narn "tale" is nern, not **nairn or **neirn, though the latter may have occurred at an earlier stage. It seems that we have e rather than ei/ai before ng as well; the Etymologies provides the example Anfang pl. Enfeng (not **Enfaing) for "Longbeards", one of the tribes of the Dwarves (LR:387 s.v. SPÁNAG). WJ:10, reproducing a post-LotR source, confirms that the plural Enfeng was still valid in Tolkien's later Sindarin. Following the example of fang "beard" pl. feng it would seem that the plural of words like lang "cutlass, sword" (for "Noldorin" lhang, LR:367), tang "bowstring" or thang "need" should be leng, teng, theng.

NOTE: In the Etymologies, there are further examples of "Noldorin" plurals where a in a final syllable becomes e instead of ai or ei. We have adab "construction, building" pl. edeb (TAK), adar "father" pl. eder besides edeir (ATA), Balan "Vala" pl. Belen besides Belein (BAL), falas "beach, shore" pl. feles (PHAL/PHALAS), nawag "dwarf" pl. neweg besides neweig (NAUK), rhofal "pinion" pl. rhofel (RAM) and salab "herb" pl. seleb (SALÂK-WÊ). However, in the case of these words there seems to be little reason to believe that the e-plurals would still be valid in Tolkien's later Sindarin. At least two of these "Noldorin" plurals - eder and Belen - clash with the attested Sindarin plurals edair and Belain. It seems, then, that we can feel free to replace also edeb, feles, neweg, rhofel, seleb with Sindarin edaib, felais, newaig, rovail, selaib, though the latter forms are not directly attested (notice that "Noldorin" rhofal "pinion", pl. rhofel, must become roval pl. rovail if we introduce Sindarin phonology and spelling). - Another "Noldorin" case of an a > e plural is rhanc "arm" pl. rhenc (RAK). The singular must become ranc if we update it to LotR-style Sindarin, but should the plural be renc or rainc? The Sindarin example cant "shape" pl. caint (see above) seems to indicate that a before a cluster consisting of n + an unvoiced stop becomes ai in the plural; hence "arms" should probably be rainc in Sindarin.

In one word at least, earlier ei stays unchanged and does not turn into ai even though it occurs in a final syllable. According to UT:265, the plural form of alph "swan" is eilph; it would seem that ei is unchanged before a consonant cluster beginning in l. (Earlier, in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, the word for "swan" was spelt alf, and its plural was given as elf: LR:348 s.v. ÁLAK; for the plural form, cf. hobas in Elf *"Haven of Swans" in LR:364 s.v. KHOP.) In accordance with the example eilph, the Sindarin plural of lalf "elm-tree" should probably be leilf, though the "Noldorin" plural listed in the Etymologies was lelf (LR:348 s.v. ÁLAM).

In a non-final syllable, a becomes e in plural forms, as is seen in some of the examples already quoted: aran "king", pl. erain; amon "hill", pl. emyn; lavan "animal", pl. levain. This does not only go for the vowel in a second-to-last syllable as in these examples; it can be carried through a longer word as well, a in any non-final syllable turning into e. This goes even if a occurs several times: According to WJ:387, the word Aphadon "Follower" becomes Ephedyn in the plural. LR:391 s.v. TÁWAR indicates that the adjective tawaren "wooden" has the plural form tewerin. In MR:373 we have Edenedair for "Fathers of Men", the plural of a compound Adanadar "Man-father" (adan "man" + adar "father"). Here we see a in the final syllable becoming ai, but in all three non-final syllables, a becomes e. Of course, the plural of adan would be edain (well attested) if the word occurred by itself, since the second a would then be in the final syllable. But in the compound Adanadar it is not, and so we see Eden- in the plural.

edhel "Elf", pl. edhil (WJ:364, 377; cf. "Noldorin" eledh pl. elidh in LR:356 s.v. ELED)
ereg "holly-tree", pl. erig (LR:356 s.v. ERÉK)
Laegel "Green-elf", pl. Laegil (WJ:385)
lalven "elm-tree", pl. lelvin (LR:348 s.v. ÁLAM)
malen "yellow", pl. melin (LR:386 s.v. SMAL)

certh "rune", pl. cirth (WJ:396)
telch "stem", pl. tilch (LR:391 s.v. TÉLEK)

hên "child", pl. hîn (WJ:403)
têw "letter", pl. tîw (WJ:396)

If there is another i immediately before the e in the final syllable, this group ie simply becomes i in the plural:

Miniel "Minya" (Elf of the First Clan), pl. Mínil (WJ:383 - perhaps the i in the first syllable is lengthened to í to somehow compensate for the fact that the word is reduced from three to two syllables in the plural? This does not happen in comparable cases in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, though - e.g. Mirion "Silmaril" pl. Miruin, not ?Míruin, in LR:373 s.v. MIR)

orch "orc, goblin" pl. yrch (LR:379 s.v. ÓROK)
toll "island" pl. tyll (LR:394 s.v. TOL²)
bór "trusty man" pl. býr (so in LR:353 s.v. BOR; according to LotR-style spelling, the accent should rather be a circumflex in both sg. and pl., since these words are monosyllabic)
amon "hill" pl. emyn (LR:348 s.v. AM¹)
annon "great gate" pl. ennyn (LR:348 s.v. AD)

If there is an i before the o in the final syllable, what would be "iy" in the plural is simplified to y: hence we have thelyn as the pl. of thalion "hero" (LR:388 s.v. STÁLAG). Miruin as the pl. of Mirion "Silmaril" (LR:373 s.v. MIR) must be seen as an archaic form. We may assume that thelyn was at an earlier stage theluin and that Miruin later became Miryn; the y-plurals are to be preferred in LotR-style Sindarin.

NOTE: All the examples above are excerpted from the Etymologies, but the plurals yrch, emyn, ennyn are also attested in LotR. For a thoroughly Sindarin example, cf. ithron "wizard" pl. ithryn (UT:388, 390, reproducing a post-LotR source). However, in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, there are also examples of o in a final syllable behaving in a quite different manner, namely becoming öi (in Etym spelt "oei") in the plural. This öi in turn became ei when all ö's turned into e's. Hence in the entry ÑGOL the pl. of golodh "Noldo" is listed as both gölöidh ("goeloeidh") and geleidh - evidently intended as an earlier and a later form. In other cases only the later form in ei is listed: gwador "sworn brother" pl. gwedeir (TOR), orod "mountain" pl. ereid (ÓROT), thoron "eagle" pl. therein (THOR/THORON). However, there seems to be little reason to assume that these forms would be valid in LotR-style Sindarin: In two of these cases, ereid and gölöidh/geleidh, the corresponding Sindarin plurals are attested, showing y instead of ei: namely eryd "mountains" and gelydh "Noldor" (cf. Eryd Engrin "Iron Mountains" in WJ:6 and Annon-in-Gelydh "Gate of the Noldor" in the Silmarillion Index, entry Golodhrim - in WJ:364 the pl. of Golodh is given as "Goelydh" = Gölydh, but this is merely an archaic form of Gelydh). In light of these examples, we can feel free to update the "Noldorin" plurals gwedeir "brothers" and therein "eagles" to Sindarin gwedyr, theryn (archaic thöryn). In the Etymologies there are also two examples of o in the final syllable of words becoming e rather than y in the plural: doron "oak" pl. deren (DÓRON) and orod "mountain" pl. ered besides ereid (ÓROT). The plural ered is still valid in later Sindarin, competing with eryd (see the many variants listed in the index to The War of the Jewels, e.g. Eryd Engrin besides Ered Engrin, WJ:440). It seems that ered is not normally used as an independent word for "mountains" - that should probably be eryd only - but ered may be used when the word is the first element in a name of several parts, hence Ered Engrin is a valid alternative to Eryd Engrin. In Letters:224, Tolkien gives enyd as the pl. of onod "Ent", but also notices that ened might be a form used in Gondor. Perhaps, then, the Gondorians would also tend to use ered rather than eryd as the pl. of orod, but there can be no doubt that eryd is the regular Sindarin form. Deren as the pl. of doron "oak" may be seen in the same light; though the regular Sindarin plural deryn is not attested, it is perhaps to be preferred.

In a non-final syllable, the vowel o normally becomes e in the plural: Alchoron "Ilkorin Elf", pl. Elcheryn (LR:367 s.v. LA). Such an e was in archaic Sindarin ö instead (e.g. Golodh "Noldo", pl. Gelydh for earlier Gölydh; see references in the note above). Another example is nogoth "dwarf"; in WJ:388 the plural is given as nögyth ("noegyth"), but in WJ:338 we have Athrad-i-Negyth for "Ford of the Dwarves". There is no real discrepancy; nögyth is simply the archaic form that later became negyth. In LotR-style Sindarin, we would prefer the plurals negyth and Gelydh; cf. also Tolkien mentioning Enyd as the plural of Onod "Ent" in Letters:224. (The archaic plural, nowhere mentioned, would be Önyd.)

There are, however, a few words where o or ó in a non-final syllable does not become (ö >) e in the plural forms. This is when o represents earlier A; the development is roughly â > au > o. One example is Rodon "Vala" pl. Rodyn instead of **Rödyn > **Redin (MR:200 has Dor-Rodyn for Quenya Valinor = "Land of the Valar"; it would seem that Rodyn is an alternative to Belain as the Sindarin word for "Valar"; it has even been suggested that Rodyn replaced Belain in Tolkien's conception). The first syllable of Rodyn evidently has the same origin as the middle syllable -rat- in Aratar, the Quenya term for some of the supreme Valar. An o representing earlier A is not subject to i-umlaut. Compare Ódhel "Elf that departed from Middle-earth" pl. Ódhil in WJ:364, this long ó representing earlier aw (the primitive form of Ódhel is quoted as aw(a)delo, literally "away-goer"). The later form Gódhel (influenced by Golodh "Noldo") likewise had the plural form Gódhil: despite the influence from Golodh pl. Gelydh, no form **Gédhil arose. These examples come from post-LotR Sindarin, but the same thing is found already in the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies. The example rhofal "pinion" pl. rhofel in the entry RAM (LR:382), where the primitive sg. form is given as râmalê, confirms that o from â (via au) is not subject to i-umlaut. As mentioned above, "Noldorin" rhofal pl. rhofel must become Sindarin roval pl. rovail if we update the forms to LotR-style spelling and phonology - roval is actually attested in LotR as part of the eagle-name Landroval - but this o still should not become e in the plural (**revail being impossible because of the phonological history).

NOTE: The plural of the word cû "bow" would probably be cui, apparently in accordance with the pattern sketched above. But actually cui would represent the older plural ku3i (or kuhi), since the stem is KU3 (LR:365). The primitive sound Tolkien variously reconstructed as h or 3 (the latter = spirant g) had disappeared in Classical Sindarin, so older uhi would become ui.

gwaun "goose", pl. guin (LR:397 s.v. WA-N)
naw "idea", pl. nui (LR:378 s.v. NOWO)
rhaw "lion", pl. rhui (LR:383 s.v. RAW)
saw "juice", pl. sui (LR:385 s.v. SAB)
thaun "pine-tree", pl. thuin (LR:392 s.v. THÔN)

NOTE: The diphthong au, when occurring in an unstressed syllable in the second element of a compound, is often reduced to o, but presumably it would still become oe in the plural. Hence the plural form of a word like balrog "demon of might" (where the -rog part represents raug "demon") is presumably belroeg - unless analogy prevailed to produce ?belryg.

NOTE: In a phrase like Ithryn Luin "Blue Wizards" (UT:390) the adjective luin "blue" must be plural to agree with "wizards". It might be thought that luin is the plural form of lûn, which is what we would get if we were to make a Sindarin update of the "Noldorin" word for "blue", namely lhûn (LR:370 s.v. LUG²). As indicated above, long û in a final syllable becomes ui in the plural, so everything seems to fit: luin could be the plural form of lûn. What kills this seductively promising theory is the name of the mountain Mindolluin, "Towering Blue-head" (translated in the Silmarillion Index). Here, there is no reason for the adjective "blue" to be plural, so luin has to be the singular/basic form as well. There is also Luindirien "Blue Towers" in WJ:193; at the beginning of a compound, the word for "blue" would be expected to appear in its more or less basic form, not inflected for plural. It should also be noted that the same entry in the Etymologies that gives "Noldorin" lhûn (> Sindarin ?lûn) as the word for "blue", also gives lúne as the corresponding Quenya word. In Namárië in LotR, the adjective "blue" is luini instead (this is a plural form, from the phrase "blue vaults"; the singular is probably luinë). So while in the Etymologies the words for "blue" had been derived from a primitive form lugni (stem LUG², LR:370) producing Quenya lúne and "Noldorin" lhûn, Tolkien must later have decided that the primitive form was something like *luini yielding Quenya luinë and Sindarin luin. Bottom line is that luin "blue" seems to cover both singular and plural, indicating that the diphthong ui undergoes no change in the plural. The fact that the adjective annui "western" is both sg. and pl. points in the same direction.

Special ai-plurals
As indicated above, it seems that the diphthong ai is normally unchanged in the plural. However, in one small group of words, ai becomes either i (usually long î) or more rarely ý in the plural. For instance, the plural form of the noun fair "mortal man" is given as fîr (WJ:387, where the sg. fair is quoted in archaic form feir). The plural forms in î (i) occur where ai in the singular forms ultimately arises from i or e being influenced by y later in the word. The example just quoted, fair or archaic feir, comes from an Old Sindarin form similar to the Quenya cognate firya (in late OS perhaps firia; see skhalia- in the wordlist appended to the Old Sindarin article). We must assume that other words sharing a similar phonological history would form their plurals in a similar way, though in most cases these plurals are not explicitly mentioned in Tolkien's published material. The nouns and adjectives in question are cai "fence" (pl. cî), cair "ship" (pl. cîr), fair "mortal man" (pl. fîr), gwain "new" (pl. gwîn), lhain "lean, thin, meager" (pl. lhîn), mail "dear" (pl. mîl) and paich "juice, syrup" (pl. pich, notice short i). The "Noldorin" word sein "new" pl. sîn (LR:385 s.v. SI) could become Sindarin sain pl. sîn, but it seems that Tolkien changed the Sindarin word for "new" to gwain pl. gwîn as just listed (notice that the same entry in the Etymologies that provides Noldorin sein also gives sinya as the corresponding Quenya word for "new", but in later sources, the Quenya adjective "new" is vinya - apparently the cognate of gwain).

NOTE: In "Noldorin", lhain pl. lhîn appeared as thlein pl. thlîn, the primitive (sg.) form being quoted as slinyâ (LR:386 s.v. SLIN). One revision separating "Noldorin" from Sindarin is that while primitive initial sl- became thl- in N, it becomes lh- in S. We alter the word in accordance with Tolkien's revised phonology. Thlein can be more directly adapted as lhein, but such a form would be archaic in Frodo's day, the current form being lhain instead. Similarly, paich "juice, syrup" actually appears as peich in the Etymologies (LR: 382 s.v. PIS); this "Noldorin" form is not conceptually obsolete, but can be seen as archaic Sindarin. This is also the case with ceir "ship" (LR:365 s.v. KIR); the form cair in LotR-style Sindarin is attested (cf. the footnote in LotR Appendix A explaining that Cair Andros means "Ship of Longfoam"; see also PM:371). - The word cair provides an example of another peculiar property of this group of words: when they occur as the first element in compounds, ai is reduced to í-, as in the name Círdan "Shipwright". However, ai remains unchanged if such a word is the final element of a compound; hence gwain "new" appears as -wain in the Sindarin name of the month of January, Narwain (evidently meaning "New Sun" or "New Fire"; compare Quenya Narvinyë).

In three words, where ai represents ei from even older öi (spelt "oei" by Tolkien), the plural forms should probably show the vowel y, ý, though we lack explicit confirmation in Tolkien's published papers. This theory is based on the fact that the first part of the archaic diphthong öi represents o or u in the original stem, and the umlaut product of these vowels is y, just as in cases where the older vowel-sound still survives in Sindarin (as in orch "Orc" pl. yrch). The words in question are 1) fair adj. "right" or noun "right hand" (pl. fýr, stem PHOR, cf. Quenya forya), 2) rain "slot, spoor, tract, footprint" (pl. rýn, stem RUN, cf. Quenya runya) and 3) the related word tellain "sole of foot" (pl. tellyn, since the final element -lain is actually assimilated from rain < runya, cf. the archaic form talrunya quoted in LR:390 s.v. TAL, TALAM). In the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies, these words appear as feir (the older form "foeir" = föir is also mentioned), rein (older röin) and tellein (older form tellöin not mentioned but clearly intended). Notice that while fair can mean both "right (hand)" and "mortal man", the different derivations make for distinct plurals: fýr in the former case and fîr in the latter.

Monosyllables later becoming polysyllables
(but perhaps still behaving as monosyllables for the purpose of plural formation)
This is something that is not directly addressed in Tolkien's published writings, but then almost nothing of his grammatical writings is available to us. However, our general understanding of the evolution of Grey-elven seems to strongly suggest that certain groups of nouns would behave in somewhat unexpected ways in the plural - though this is perfectly justified when the underlying phonological history is taken into account.

One important change that occurred in the evolution of Sindarin was that final vowels were lost. Hence an old word like ndakro "battle" later became ndakr. In early Sindarin, this word appeared as dagr. Another example is makla "sword" later appearing as makl, early Sindarin magl. We must assume that the plural of words like dagr, magl was formed after the same pattern as other monosyllables of comparable shape, like alph "swan", pl. eilph. So the plurals "battles" and "swords" would presumably be deigr, meigl (this would be before ei in a final syllable normally become ai).

What complicates matters is that words like dagr and magl were eventually changed. The final r, l came to constitute a separate syllable, so that for instance magl was pronounced mag-l just like English "eagle" is pronounced eeg-l. Later, these syllabic consonants turned into full-fledged normal syllables as a vowel o developed before them: Dagr (dag-r) turned into dagor and magl (mag-l) became magol. (Incidentally, the latter word was apparently often replaced by megil, which must be an adapted form of the Quenya word for "sword", namely macil.) The plurals deigr, meigl would presumably undergo the same process to become deigor, meigol (and the late change ei > ai in final syllables would never occur simply because ei was no longer in the final syllable). From a synchronic point of view, this results in what looks like irregularities: Normally, singular words like dagor and magol would be expected to have plural forms degyr, megyl, since o in the final syllable normally becomes y in the plural (e.g. amon "hill" vs. emyn "hills"). But in cases like dagor or magol, the o intruded relatively late and seems to be younger than the umlaut o > y; hence such newly developed o's would - presumably - remain untouched by the umlaut. If Tolkien did not imagine that analogical leveling bulldozed these "irregularities" out of existence, all two-syllable words where the second syllable contains a secondarily developed o must still be treated as monosyllables as far as plural formation is concerned. The o must be left alone and the vowel in the "second-to-last" syllable must be treated as if it were the vowel in the final syllable, which is precisely what it used to be.

The adjectives and nouns in question are: badhor "judge" (pl. beidhor if the theory holds - otherwise it would be analogical bedhyr), bragol "sudden, violent" (pl. breigol; this adjective also appears as bregol, pl. presumably brigol), dagor "battle" (pl. deigor), glamor "echo" (pl. gleimor), hador "thrower, hurler" (pl. heidor), hathol "axe" (pl. heithol), idhor "thoughtfulness" (unchanged in the pl.; luckily a noun with this meaning normally will not require a pl. form), ivor ?"crystal" (unchanged in the pl.), lagor "swift" (pl. leigor), maethor "warrior" (unchanged in the pl.), magol "sword" (pl. meigol), magor "swordsman" (pl. meigor), nadhor "pasture" (pl. neidhor), nagol "tooth" (pl. neigol), naugol "dwarf" (pl. noegol), tadol "double" (pl. teidol), tathor "willow" (pl. teithor), tavor "knocker, woodpecker" (pl. teivor), tegol "pen" (pl. tigol). Perhaps gollor "magician" also belongs on this list (pl. gyllor rather than ?gellyr).

NOTE: Some other peculiarities about this group of words may also be noted here. In (older?) compounds, the newly-developed o does not appear, and the final vowel that has otherwise disappeared, is sometimes preserved. Hence magol, that descends from primitive makla, may appear as magla- in a compound. LR:371 s.v. MAK lists Magladhûr for "Black Sword" (magol "sword" + dûr [lenited dhûr] "black, dark"). If one of these words is prefixed to an element beginning in a vowel, the original final vowel does not reappear, but the newly-developed o is not found: LR:398 s.v. TAM indicates that tavr (also spelt tafr) "woodpecker" retains that form in the compound Tavr-obel, Tavrobel *"Woodpecker-town" - though tavr became tavor as an independent word. Similarly, LR:361 s.v. ID indicates that the word "idher" (misreading for idhor?) "thoughtfulness" appears as idhr- in the name Idhril. - It is possible that in late Sindarin, analogy to some extent prevailed, this group of words being treated like any other. Before the collective plural ending -ath (see below), we would not expect to see the subsequently developed vowel o. For instance, we would expect the collective plural of dagr "battle" to be dagrath (not attested), unaffected by the fact that dagr had later become dagor when it occurred as a simplex (by itself). Yet in UT:395, 396 we find, not dagrath, but dagorath, though there can be little doubt that the latter is a historically unjustified form: R was not final or syllabic in dagrath, so no o would develop in front of it, and dagorath must be formed on analogy with the simplex dagor. This is all the more surprising when another attested form, the collective plural of nagol "tooth", is what we would expect: Naglath (WR:122). A form ?nagolath paralleling dagorath is not found. (The simplex nagol is not attested, but Tolkien undoubtedly imagined a primitive word *nakla "instrument for biting" = "tooth" [cf. the stem NAK "bite", LR:374], this *nakla becoming *nakl and then *nagl > *nagol in Sindarin.) There is also Eglath "The Forsaken" as the name of the Sindar, this collective plural reflecting the primitive (singular) form hekla or heklô (WJ:361; we don't know whether this also yielded an independent sg. form in Sindarin; if so it would be egol for earlier egl, the normal pl. being igl and later igol). A form ?Egolath nowhere occurs (and would be just as surprising as if the attested compound Eglamar "Land of the Forsaken Elves" suddenly were to appear as *Egolmar instead). Are we to assume, then, that Tolkien forgot his own rules when he (twice) wrote dagorath instead of dagrath in UT:395, 396? Rather we may imagine that there were several variants of Sindarin around. In a "purer" or more "classical" style, the collective plurals of words like dagor, nagol would perhaps be the historically correct forms dagrath, naglath, but in a more "colloquial" or "informal" style, forms like dagorath, nagolath may have come into use by analogy. We may speculate that in the form of Sindarin that preferred dagorath to dagrath, the historically justified plural deigor would also be altered to degyr, the umlauts following the more normal pattern. Interestingly, the name Dagorlad "Battle Plain" occurring in LotR gives away that dagor does not become ?dagro- as the first part of a compound, reflecting the earlier form ndakro (contrast examples quoted above: magol "sword" becoming magla- reflecting primitive makla in the compound Magladhûr, and tavor "wood-pecker" occurring in archaic form tavr in the compound Tavrobel). So again, analogy with the simplex form is at work. Perhaps Dagorlad would have been ?Dagrolad if the compound had been older, coined already in the really good old days when the Elves still said something like *Ndakro-lata (final vowel uncertain). Instead Dagorlad was clearly pieced together from dagor "battle" and -lad "plain" later. A late compound "Sword-Black" would presumably be, not Magladhûr, but simply Magoldhûr, and "Woodpecker-village" as a late compound could well be Tavorobel rather than the attested form Tavrobel.

Certain other cases of monosyllables turning into polysyllables involves, not a new vowel intruding before a consonant as in dagr > dagor, but a consonant turning into a vowel. Most of the examples involve older -w becoming -u. Before the stage where the final vowels were lost, some words ended in -wa (typically adjectives) or -we (typically abstracts). When the final vowels disappeared, only -w was left of these endings. For instance, the word for "craft" or "skill" that appears in Quenya as kurwe (curwë), which would also be the Old Sindarin form of the word, came out as curw in early Sindarin. We must assume that in the plural this would become cyrw, a perfectly regular form according to the rules set out above. But as indicated in LR:366 s.v. KUR, curw later became curu: Final -w following another consonant turned into a vowel -u, the semi-vowel becoming a full vowel. Presented with a noun like curu, it would be tempting to let it go like tulus "poplar-tree", pl. tylys - hence curu pl. cyry. In an older version of this article, I noted: "But the latter, if it occurred at all, would be an analogical form. The historically justified plural of curu can only be cyru, the older pl. cyrw turning into cyru just like the older sg. curw turned into curu." However, it now turns out that the analogical plural form cyry was indeed listed by Tolkien in the Etymologies (VT45:24), though it was omitted from the entry KUR as printed in LR.

The attested example cyry may indicate that Tolkien meant the analogical plural forms to have superseded the historically justified ones, at least in the class of nouns with final -u derived from earlier -w. Here are the words that are affected; we will indicate what both the historically justified plural and the analogical alternative would be: anu "a male" (historically justified plural form einu, but analogically eny), celu "spring, source" (hist. pl. cilu, analog. cily), coru adj. "cunning, wily" (hist. pl. cyru, analog. cery), curu "skill, cunning device, craft" (hist. pl. cyru, attested analogical pl. cyry), galu "good fortune" (hist. pl. geilu, analog. gely), gwanu "death, act of dying" (hist. pl. gweinu, analog. gweny), haru "wound" (hist. pl. heiru, analog. hery), hethu "foggy, obscure, vague" (hist. pl. hithu, analog. hethy), hithu "fog" (unchanged as a hist. pl., whereas the analogical pl. form would be distinct: hithy), inu "a female" (again the historically justified pl. would be unchanged, whereas the analogical pl. would be iny), malu "fallow, pale" (hist. pl. meilu, analog. mely), naru "red" (hist. pl. neiru, analog. nery), nedhu "bolster, cushion" (hist. pl. nidhu, analog. nedhy), pathu "level space, sward" (hist. pl. peithu, analog. pethy), talu "flat" (hist. pl. teilu, analog. tely), tinu "spark, small star" (the hist. pl. would be unchanged, the analogical pl. would be tiny). In the historically justified forms, we let words with the stem-vowel a have plural forms in ei rather than ai, again assuming that these words became disyllabic before ei turned into ai in final syllables (that is, when this change occurred, the syllable in which ei was found was no longer final because -w had already become -u, constituting a new final syllable). Hence anu : einu, gwanu : gweinu etc. However, if Tolkien had decided to go for the simpler analogical forms, these extra complications are transcended.

NOTE: In the Etymologies, the later stage where final -w became -u is often not explicitly recorded. There is curu besides older curw (entry KUR) and naru besides older narw (NAR¹), but otherwise only the older forms where -w still persists are listed: Thus we find anw (3AN), celw (KEL), corw (KUR), galw (GALA), gwanw (WAN), harw (SKAR), hethw / hithw (KHITH), inw (INI), malw (SMAL), nedhw (NID), pathw (PATH) and tinw (TIN) instead of anu, celu, coru etc. as above. These later forms are not directly attested in Tolkien's papers. It may be that as far as the "Noldorin" of the Etymologies is concerned, Tolkien still had not decided once and for all that -w in this position did become -u; this idea just pops up in a couple of places. Yet we needn't hesitate to introduce the later forms in -u if we are aiming for the kind of Sindarin exemplified in LotR and the Silmarillion. Notice that in Etym, it is said that the "Noldorin" form of the Quenya name Elwë would have been *Elw, marked with an asterisk since it was not actually used in "Exilic" in this form (LR:398 s.v. WEG). However, in Chapter 4 of the published Silmarillion the scenario is another. "Noldorin" has now become Sindarin, and not only is there a Sindarin form of Elwë, but it is also Elu rather than "Elw" as in the Etymologies: "Elwë's folk who sought him found him not... In after days he became a king renowned... King Greymantle was he, Elu Thingol in the tongue of that land [Beleriand]." Here we are clearly to assume a development Elwë > Elw > Elu. It seems wholly justified, then, to alter (say) celw "spring, source" to its later form celu (to go with Elu), even though the form celu as such is not explicitly attested. A parallel case is provided by the name Finwë; again the Etymologies states that the "Noldorin" form would be *Finw, but that no such form was in use (LR:398 s.v. WEG). A much later, post-LotR source agrees that there was no Sindarin form of Finwë, but if this name "had been treated as a word of this form would have been, had it occurred anciently in Sindarin, it would have been [not Finw, but] Finu" (PM:344). If "Noldorin" Finw would have corresponded to Sindarin Finu, we can also conclude that "Noldorin" gwanw would correspond to Sindarin gwanu. - The word talu "flat" listed above actually appears as dalw (not **talw) in the Etymologies, but listed immediately after dalw is dalath "flat surface, plane, plain" (LR:353 s.v. DAL), occurring in the name Dalath Dirnen "Guarded Plain" (LR:394 s.v. TIR). However, Tolkien later changed dalath to talath; in the published Silmarillion, the "Guarded Plain" in Beleriand is called Talath Dirnen instead. In accordance with this revision, we also alter the related "Noldorin" word dalw "flat" to Sindarin talw > talu. We may still accept (dalw >) dalu - and for that matter dalath - as valid side-forms.

There are also a few cases of final -gh (spirant g) turning into a vowel. One example is provided by LR:381 s.v. PHÉLEG, where a word fela "cave" is derived from Old Sindarin (or "Old Noldorin") phelga. Since final vowels were lost following the Old Sindarin stage, fela is not a case of an original final -a surviving into later Sindarin. What Tolkien imagined seems to be this: Old Sindarin phelga naturally became phelg when the final vowels went. Then stops turned into spirants following the liquids l, r (UT:265), so that phelg became phelgh (or felgh, since the shift ph > f occurred at about the same stage). However, gh in no case survived into the Sindarin of Frodo's day; initially it was lost with no trace, but in this position it was vocalized: Felgh turned into fela. The plural of felgh had evidently been filgh formed according to the normal rules (cf. e.g. telch "stem", pl. tilch - LR:391 s.v. TÉLEK). The plural form filgh then became fili, the vocalization of earlier gh here being i rather than a (perhaps g > gh was somehow palatalized by the lost Old Sindarin plural ending -i that also caused the umlaut, biasing the subsequent vocalization towards i). It matters little precisely how we imagine the development: in any case, the end result is the peculiar pair fela pl. fili, for older felgh pl. filgh.

Fela pl. fili is the only known case of Tolkien explicitly mentioning both the singular and the plural of such a pair. There are, however, two or three other words that share a similar phonological development. The word thela "point (of spear)" derives from a stem STELEG (LR:388), and while Tolkien lists no primitive forms, we are probably to assume a Primitive Elvish form stelgâ (final vowel uncertain) turning into Old Sindarin sthelga and later (s)thelgh, the plural form of which would be (s)thilgh. The singular then yields the attested Sindarin form thela (wholly parallel to fela); the unattested plural "spear-points" must be thili (to go with the attested plural fili).

There are also a very few adjectives. An adjective thala "stalwart, steady, firm" is in LR:388 s.v. STÁLAG is derived from Old Sindarin/"Noldorin" sthalga. The unattested intermediate form would be (s)thalgh pl. (s)theilgh, following the normal pattern of (say) alph "swan", pl. eilph. We must assume that the plural form of thala is theili. A similar case would be tara "tough, still", stated to represent Old "Noldorin"/Sindarin targa (LR:390); again the unattested intermediate form would be targh. The plural form of this adjective could be teirgh, which would presumably produce Sindarin teiri. There is one other possibility: As already mentioned, it seems that ei was at one stage simplified to e before a consonant cluster beginning in r (hence we have nern rather than neirn > nairn as the plural form of narn "tale"). If this happened before the final gh of the plural adjective teirgh became a vowel so that the cluster disappeared, the form would turn into tergh, in later Sindarin teri. Presently we cannot say for sure whether teri or teiri is the best plural form of tara, since we do not know in what exact sequence Tolkien imagined the sound-shifts involved to have taken place; I would probably use teiri.

Expanded plurals
This is a group of words that seem to be longer in the plural than in the singular. Historically speaking it would be more accurate to turn the perspective around and speak of "reduced singulars", for in this case, the shape of the word that underlies the plural form gives a better impression of the primitive word than the current singular form does.

In WJ:363, êl is said to be an (archaic) Sindarin word for "star". According to the rules set out above, based on patterns like hên "child" pl. hîn (WJ:403), we would expect the plural form to be **îl. However, WJ:363 also informs us that the actual plural of êl is elin. Here it might seem that a plural ending -in is present. This, however, is not really the case. By comparing these words to their Quenya cognates elen pl. eleni one may begin to suspect what is really going on. Eleni would also be the plural form used in Old Sindarin, eventually yielding Sindarin elin: the plural ending being lost like all final vowels, but leaving its mark on the word by umlauting the second e to i. But one thing that occasionally happened in Old Sindarin was that consonants at the end of words might drop out. The n of the plural form eleni was "safe" because it was shielded by the plural ending following it, but the singular form elen was apparently reduced to ele, though this form is not explicitly mentioned by Tolkien. Later, final vowels were lost, leaving just el, and later still, the vowel of a monosyllable of this shape was lengthened, producing Sindarin êl. Hence we are left with the curious couple êl pl. elin in Third Age Sindarin. In the case of another, similar couple, nêl "tooth" pl. nelig, the Etymologies lists the Old "Noldorin"/Sindarin forms nele pl. neleki, confirming that the explanation sketched above is correct: By comparing the singular nele to the stem NÉL-EK (LR:376) we understand that the final consonant has dropped out. (In Common Eldarin, nele had evidently