Anyone speak any Elvish? Tolkien ones that is, Darnassian and all that just have like 10 known words in Fictitious languages yes (Y) Spoiler Lë ná vanya = You are beautiful
Nope, I don't speak Elvish nor have I ever studied it but I think it's great how Tolkien came up with these languages for his novels. It's always interested me.
Not to be rude, but I've always wondered why people learn Elvish and Klingon and stuff. If you're gonna learn a language why not learn one you can use like French or something?
Well I'm not learning it properly, I've just read a few 'lessons' on it, and it's pretty interesting. And I do speak a fair amount of German as well so it's not like the only proper language I speak is English
Honstly, because it's fun. Unfortunately no, I don't speak/understand a world. But now I have more language to learn v.v
I find it a very interesting subject. I don't really believe anybody, not even Professor Tolkien, could "speak" it per se. There just isn't enought attested vocabularly to really carry on a conversation. Sure you could use synonyms and some creative compounds to avoid the inevitable lack of vocabulary. There is also the matter of the evolution of these languages over time. The Quenya that Tolkien was developing in the 1920s was quite a bit different than the Quenya used when the Lord of the Rings was published in 1954 and was further revised until his death. I just think there are far too many inconsistencies, a lot of guesswork and limited lexicon for his languages to be practicle as spoken language. That being said, I do think it truly enhances the story and the underlying history of Middle Earth. Every character's name and every placename actually has real meaning and it adds a rich texture to an already detailed world.
