[Kellan]

DOWN WITH PANSY ELVES!

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by Stealth
nooo i don't think Spanish.  I'd say it sounds a bit like French, but Spanish it definately doesn't sound like

Nah, I don't think Quenya sounds like French. Sure, there are sylables like "la" and "le" all over the place, but Elvish (either Quenya or Sindarin) doesn't really sound like French, not even a little bit, to me. (Just MHO.)

Quenya doesn't sound like Spanish all that much, either, now that I think about it. I just said that Spanish and Finnish were just influences on it. And by "influence" I was refering to the grammar and mechanics. Tolkien took small pieces from many different languages that he liked and inseted them into Quenya as he was making it.

Of course, Quenya is by no means an amalgam of the world's languages; it stands on its own as a completely new language unlike anything we have in the modern world today. Same for Sindarin, too.

[Galemp]

Elvish naturally sounds very Celtic or Gaelic to me. The best language I can think of it's near to that is still spoken is Welsh.

Anyone here speak Elephant? You simply say 'eleph' before every vowel sound (usually abbreviated to 'elf.') It's cool, but takes some practice.

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
Elvish naturally sounds very Celtic or Gaelic to me. The best language I can think of it's near to that is still spoken is Welsh.

Exactly right, GE! Welsh was a BIG influence on Tolkien's work. Tolkien loved how this language sounded and worked hard to incorporate Welsh elements in Quenya.

[Styxx]

Originally posted by Maeglamor
In that case try and find out what 'maeglamor' means...

What? You're saying that it's actually not a mispell of mega-lamor?!?

[Styxx]

Originally posted by Shrike
I'm going to have to fumigate this forum.  I hate the smell of elves.

At least they're not gnomes. Gnomes are worse.

[CP5670]

what is elvish by the way? I don't think I have heard of this language...

[Stealth]

the language that the elves in Lord of the Rings (the new movie... the one that got nominated for like 9 academy awards.  If you haven't heard of the movie then you've sleeping in a box or something  just kidding... i know a lot of people that haven't heard of 'elvish' lol)

yeah... the elves in Lord of the Rings speak it briefly at times.  In the other two you'll hear a lot more elvish (two towers; return of the king)

[CP5670]

lol I see; I thought it was a real spoken language or something...

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by CP5670
lol I see; I thought it was a real spoken language or something...

Define "real." Languages are created things and they have no substance. What's the difference between an everyday language like English versus something like Elvish? The number of speakers?

There are as many fluent speakers of Klingon as there are of Gaelic (namely, about 1000 throughout the world). Is Klingon any less "real" than Gaelic?

Would Latin be more "real" than Elvish? Latin was created centuries ago and is a dead language (i.e. not spoken as a mother tongue by a native people) studied only by scholars. Elvish was created only within the last few decades with Tolkien fans creating new words according to Tolkien's grammatical rules that were published by him and his son. In other words, Latin is dead and isn't changing, while Elvish is actively spoken by professional language scholars and other people who aren't professional language scholars and continues to evolve today. Wouldn't this make Elvish more "real" than Latin?

This is just something to think about the next time someone who isn't a Tolkien fan (i.e. the "unclean" )tries to tell you that Elvish isn't a "real" language.

[CP5670]

The main difference between the two "kinds" of language is that one is created for practical communication in the real world while the other is created for entertainment purposes as part of a story universe. Hey, one could even say that the commnode.wav file is actually an advanced language.

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by CP5670
The main difference between the two "kinds" of language is that one is created for practical communication in the real world while the other is created for entertainment purposes as part of a story universe.

But languages like Klingon and Elvish do both. They're spoken in movies, true, but they are also spoken in the real world among people part of a community of like-minded fans. What's the difference?

Originally posted by CP5670
Hey, one could even say that the commnode.wav file is actually an advanced language.

LOL! Oh, really? Then how would you interpret this wavefile?

*Su-tehp moons CP and simultaneously uses the mesage-end.wav file of static to simulate a fart in CP's general direction*

[Nico]

I have a small elvish/orcish/whateverish dictionary from the LotR books, pretty cool, I used the orc language to name my converted chimera for warhammer, called it karshfaroth ( not sure about the spelling ). Cool stuff

[Gortef]

I wonder what "Gortef" would mean in Elvish
sounds more like an Orcish name....

Tolkien did study Kalevala when he was creating Elvish language (still sounds like a drunk trying to spell Elvis ). Go Väinämöinen!

[Stryke 9]

You know, when you look like a no-life geek to a community of computer geeks, you're pretty far gone, tovarisch.

[Kellan]

Originally posted by Stealth
yeah... the elves in Lord of the Rings speak it briefly at times.  In the other two you'll hear a lot more elvish (two towers; return of the king)

I can barely contain my glee. "Let's use subtitles just for the sake of it!!!" Honestly, I don't think anyone except Tolkienites could care less what the elves speak in the movies, as long as it's English.

[Stryke 9]

I always liked it when he launched into Elvish in the books, 'cos that meant that there was that much less of the book to read. After the Tom Bombadil thing, I kinda lost my taste for the series.

[Kellan]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
I always liked it when he launched into Elvish in the books, 'cos that meant that there was that much less of the book to read. After the Tom Bombadil thing, I kinda lost my taste for the series.

I was always put off by the pansy prancy elves thing, and the idealised version of Medieval life which didn't exist. Where was the bubonic plage in The Fellowship of the Ring? Oh yeah, and the critics said it was full of homosexual references.

[Stryke 9]

People claim that every famous piece of literature (or quasi-literature) has homosexual references. And that it's Marxist. And feminist. And Fascist. And white supremacist. People are idiots

[Kellan]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
People claim that every famous piece of literature (or quasi-literature) has homosexual references. And that it's Marxist. And feminist. And Fascist. And white supremacist. People are idiots

Actually I was talking to Shrike about that yesterday. I said that it's a critics' job to find homosexual references in a book.