The Development of the Elvish Languages

By Måns Björkman

Introduction

These diagrams show the relationships and the development of the Elvish languages of Arda. The diagrams are divided by the beginning of time periods, the earliest ("The Awakening of the Quendi") being at the top and the latest ("The Fourth Age") at the bottom. For consistency, the terms used are in their Quenya form, whenever these are known. Below each diagram you will find a list of explanations to the names. If you want an explanation for a particular language, you can click on that language in the diagrams to jump directly to the appropriate explanation (for the GIF image versions, this requires a browser which supports HTML 3.2).

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Many thanks go to the members of the Mellonath Daeron, without whose help and assistance this project would never have been finished. I am also grateful for the comments that I received on the ElfLing mailing list.