An article about Tolkien's languages

[SarumanCymraeg]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Having Welsh roots, I am interested in the idea of the Elvish language being derived from Welsh. One thing that occurred to me while reading the article is that in both Welsh and Elvish "dh" is (I think) pronounced "th". Does anyone know of any other similarities?

The 'dh' in Sindarin Elvish is pronounced as the 'th' in words such as 'then' or 'those'. In Welsh the equivalent is 'dd'. The letter 'ch' also appears in Sindarin, which is pronounced as the 'ch' in a Scottish 'loch' or the composer 'Bach'.

Not many Sindarin words are directly influenced from Welsh, apart from oddities such as 'galad' (light) which derives from 'golau'. Caradhras comes from 'Cader Idris', a mountain in Wales.

However, there is one striking similarity between Welsh and Sindarin and that's the 'goben'. Ever heard people say that Welsh people speak 'poetically' (in Welsh or English)? The 'goben' is the reason why (and you'll notice that it is retained by non-Welsh speakers as well). In Welsh the accent on any word of more than one syllable is in the 'goben', which is the last syllable but one. Tolkien states that this is the case also with Elvish. For example, one would say CARas GalADHon, not CarAS GALadhon (as Haldir said in the FR movie). Galadriel's monologue at the beginning of the films was also slightly incorrect, as it should have been...

I AMar PRESTar Aen
Han MATHon ne nen
Han MATHon ne chae
A han NOSTon ned 'WILith


Hope that's a small help!