Home » Language Readings » Sindarin Workbook - Updated » 03 – More Plurals 00 - Introduction 01 – Phon. + Stress 02 – Plural Formation 03 - More Plurals 04 - Articles + Gen. 05 - Lenition 06 – Nasal Mutation 07 – Mixed Mutation 08 – Stop + Liq. 09 – Adjectives 10 - Intensifiers 11 - Adverbs 12 – Pronouns 13 – A Stem. Some tips on learning Elvish from the workbook lessons: 1) Print out the lessons.This cannot be emphasized enough. Once you have a hard copy you will be able to look over the lesson when ever you have some spare time, as well as highlight the important points. 2) Do not try to memorize all of the Sindarin consonant mutations.
IMPORTANT LINK YOU WILL NEED FOR THIS PLURAL LESSON:
Most Sindarin plurals are formed by vowel changes. These changes are called “umlaut” in English …. “prestanneth” (‘affection’ of vowels) in Sindarin. Some examples of this in English would be: goose > geese, mouse > mice.
Learn Sindarin Elvish
Below is a smaller version of the Mutations Chart showing the plural changes in yellow for NON-FINAL and FINAL (or monosyllabic words) syllables. Keeping the larger form of this chart at your computer will put the information quickly at your fingertips for this plural lesson and all the mutation lessons combined.
NOTE that not all of the vowels and diphthongs in a word change.
The exceptions for NON-final vowels are: E, I, Y, EI, UI, AI, AE.
The exceptions for FINAL vowels are: I, Y, Ý, AE, AI, EI, UI.
With your chart at the computer, there is no pressure to memorize these …. they will become habit with time.
Below are some examples of NON-FINAL syllable vowel changes, shown with capital letters. The final (and monosyllabic) changes are also shown, but not capitalized. They are highlighted in the next set of examples.
a > e … AdAnAdar > EdEnEdair
e > e … Edhel > Edhil
i > i … Ithron > Ithryn
o > e … Onod > Enyd
ó > ó … gÓdhel > gÓdhil
u > y … tUlus > tYlys
y > y … Ylfdan > Ylfdain
au > oe … tAUron > tOEryn
ae > ae … hAEred > hAErid
ai > ai … ————
ei > ei … EIthel > EIthil
ui > ui … cUInar > cUInair
Below are some examples of FINAL vowel or MONOSYLLABIC (word only has one syllable) changes:
a (with 1 consonant following it) > ai … dAm > dAIm
~~ REMEMBER that dh, th, ch are single consonants when considering which “A” rule to apply ~~
a (with 2 or more consonants following it) > e … nArn > nErn
e > i … edhEl > edhIl
é/ê > í/ î … tÊw > tÎw
ie > i … minIEl > mínIl
i > i … sigIl > sigIl
o > y … Orch > Yrch
ó/ô > ý … bÔr > bÝr
io > y … thalIOn > thelYn
u > y … tulUs > tylYs
ú/û > ui … lhÛg > lhUIg
y > y … Ylf > Ylf
ý > ý … mÝl > mÝl
au > oe … nAUg > nOEg
ae > ae … AEw > AEw
ai > ai … andAIth > endAIth
ei > ei … rEIn > rEIn
ui > ui … lUIn>lUIn
Let’s go back and look at the word aran “king” for a second. Because A becomes E in the initial syllable, and because A becomes AI in the final syllable you end up with erain “kings”.
Let’s look at some more examples:
Aran – non final syllable: Ar (a>e) final syllable: an (a>ai) = Erain
Edhel – non final syllable: Edh (e>e) , el (e>i) = Edhil
Naug – one syllable: Naug (au>oe) = Noeg
Orch – one syllable Orch (o>y) = Yrch
Gwachaedir – non final syllable: Gwa (a>e) non final syllable: chae (ae>ae) Final syllable: dir (i>i) = Gwechaedir
Plurals that look the same as Singulars
Some Sindarin words look the same in the singular and plural. In these cases, context (the way a word is used in a sentence) dictates which form is intended by the author.
Examples:
aew > bird, aew > birds
sigil > dagger, sigil > daggers
In this first lesson you’ll learn how to write the six vowels of Sindarin and we’ll use them on one consonant. The other consonants will follow in the next lessons.
Tolkien gave each tengwa a name and a number, and this is the first one:
So it is the tengwa with number 1, its name is ‘tinco’ and it represents the sound ‘t’.
Note: ‘tinco’ is a Quenya word as the names of the tengwar are always in that language (and the words tengwa and tehta are in fact also Quenya).
Sindarin has 6 vowel sounds (we’ll meet the diphthongs in a later lesson). In the mode of Gondor each of these sounds is denoted by a different symbol called a tehta (plural tehtar):
In the mode of Beleriand we write each vowel as a separate letter (like in English):
Write these Sindarin tengwar in Latin letters: mode of Gondor:
Sindarin Dictionary
mode of Beleriand:
Sindarin Lessons Weebly