The Feanorian Alphabet, Part 1; Quenya Verb Structure by J.R.R. Tolkien (review)

The latest volume of Parma Eldalamberon focuses largely on linguistic materials produced by Tolkien during the enormously creative decade-and-a-half span of c. 1936–1951, the same period which saw significant elaboration of the 'Quenta Silmarillion' (Lost Road 199–338), the writing of The Lord of the Rings, and an energetic return to the matter of the Elder Days (WJ vii). Many of the documents published in Parma since volume 18 make it clear that Tolkien's creative linguistics somewhat paralleled his literary work on the Silmarillion (in its broad sense), with the periods both just before and just after The Lord of the Rings being particularly fruitful (though language invention, evidently to a greater degree than the Silmarillion, seems never to have been set wholly aside). The materials edited in these last several issues of Parma have generally covered a roughly similar span of years, being distinguished less by period than by topic: volume 18 dealt with the most archaic and essential features of Elvish root structure and basic morphological operations, 19 with the phonology of Quenya, and 21 with nouns (volume 20 was devoted wholly to writing systems). The present volume contains documents on two topics: spelling (both in Elvish and Roman letters), and the verb; the editors tell us that future volumes will cover further writings from this same period on personal pronouns, and demonstrative, relative, and correlative stems.

The first text edited here is "The Feanorian Alphabet, Part 1," described by the editor, Arden R. Smith, as dating from "sometime in the late 1930s" (see below for more on the date). This is both the longest document in the volume, and probably of the most general interest to readers of Tolkien. In one sense, this text can be regarded as a continuation of Smith's formidable presentation of the history of Tolkien's invented scripts, which have formed part or all of many previous volumes of Parma. The current text is, however, of a very different nature from most of its forebears: where the "Pre-Fëanorian Alphabets" or "The Qenya Alphabet" (issues 16, 18, and 20) mostly presented curt notes, scattered charts, and samples of the scripts put to various modern or whimsical uses, "The Feanorian Alphabet" is a coherent and eloquent essay, systematically outlining the history and development of various modes of Elvish writing within Middle-earth.

This subject matter is strongly reminiscent of Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings, outlining the structural principles of the writing system, its adaption for the writing of different languages, and the various sound-values and names of the individual letters. "The Feanorian Alphabet" is, however, rather longer, and differs in numerous details from Tolkien's later conceptions. After a "general or phonetic" mode of the Tengwar, held to be invented by Feanor (so here spelt), is outlined, Tolkien describes four different language-specific applications: for Lindarin, the Parmaqesta variety of Quenya, Old Noldorin, and the Beleriandic or Exilic usage. The uses of these terms reflect Tolkien's older view of Elvish linguistic history, particularly as outlined in the roughly contemporary "Lhammas" (Lost Road 167–98). In this view, Quenya was originally the language only of the First Clan (called the Lindar at this stage, later renamed Vanyar), fixed in an early "classical" form, the Parmaqesta or "book language," recognized by all Elves as a high-status auxiliary language (functionally similar to Latin in medieval Europe). The distinction between normal Lindarin and classical Quenya is concretely demonstrated by Tolkien's invention of separate "modes" of writing for Lindarin and for Parmaqesta. The latter is apparently of far more interest to Tolkien: "The Lindarin Use" is sketched in under three edited pages, while the section on "Parmaqestarin Use" extends for nearly nine. For the latter, Tolkien describes changes in convention over time, variant ways of...