Elves
Elves are a fictional race that has attracted conlangers ever since the days of J. R. R. Tolkien. However, there are about as many different ideas of Elves as there are people writing about them.
Elves in mythology and folklore
The origin of the concept lies in Germanic mythology, where Elves are a kind of middling race between humans and gods. The word elf has cognates in most Germanic languages, e.g. Old English ælf, Old Norse álfr, Old High German alb, and can be reconstructed for Common Germanic as *albiz. Its further etymological connections are unclear. The Germanic Elves are a race of demigods, living in a country remote from the world of mortal men, and often mentioned in conjunction with the gods (æsir og álfar) in Norse mythological texts. The Snorra Edda distinguishes between the good ljosálfar and the evil subterranean døkkálfar, who may be the same race as the Dwarves. In Anglo-Saxon England, the Elves were believed to co-exist with humans, and magical powers were attributed to them (see Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England).
Similar beings (called Tuatha Dé Danann or Daoine Sidhe in Irish, Tylwyth Teg in Welsh) also occur in Celtic mythology, where they inhabited the British Isles before the Celtic landtaking and function as cultural heroes. The Tuatha Dé Danann originally were human beings but later became gods, and receded into the Otherworld when the land was taken by the ancestors of the Irish people.
The elves survived Christianization in folktales. In the Middle Ages, the elves were demonized and identified with fallen angels; later, they were considered spirits of nature and more and more diminished. In Victorian fairy-tales, they are tiny (from mouse-sized to insect-sized), luminous, playful and often winged; another popular modern idea is that of the elves being a race of midgets making toys for Santa Claus and living with him at the North Pole.
Elves in modern fantasy fiction and games
Elves in Tolkien's legendarium
It is the merit of J. R. R. Tolkien to have reinstated the Elves into their old nobility. Tolkien's Elves are similar to humans but wiser, stronger, more beautiful etc. and immortal (or rather, extremely long-lived; Elves can be killed, and may die of grief); they closely resemble the Elves of Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology. Gone were defacing traits such as the minute size and the gossamer wings. Tolkien also invented languages spoken by the Elves, most notably Quenya and Sindarin - he liked to say that he rather invented the Elves to have speakers for his languages.
Tolkien's ideas about the Elves changed over time. In his youth, he wrote poems about the Victorian-style fairy-tale elves with which he had grown up, but soon he explored the mythological origins of these elves and developed a concept of the Elves based on Germanic mythology. In the Book of Lost Tales (1917-1925), the Elves are a heroic race; however, he still entertained the notion that these originally human-sized Elves later dwindled and became the tiny elves of the Victorian fairy tales - a notion he abandoned later.
In The Lord of the Rings, the Elves are portrayed as almost invariably good and wise, but The Silmarillion paints a richer and more morally ambiguous picture in which Elves could also act as villains.
The Elves (called Quendi in Quenya) are divided into several 'kindreds' or nations. They originate on the shores of Lake Cuiviénen in the east of Middle-earth and were invited to migrate to the Undying Lands beyond the sea in the west by the Valar. This led to the First Sundering between the Eldar who accepted the invitation and began to march westward, and the Avari who declined and stayed in Middle-earth. The Eldar consisted of three kindreds: the Valar, the Noldor and the Teleri. The Valar and the Noldor completed the march west and arrived in Aman; so did some of the Teleri, but two groups of Teleri remained behind in Middle-earth: the Nandor in the Vale of Anduin (probably the ancestors of the Wood-Elves in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) and the Sindar in Beleriand. The Elves who reached Aman were called the Calaquendi ('Elves of the Light'), while those who never came to Aman were called the Moriquendi ('Elves of the Dark'). Later, many Noldor returned to Middle-earth and settled in Beleriand, and thus the Noldor and the Sindar are the two Elven nations featuring most prominently in The Silmarillion.
The divisions of the Quendi are summed up in the chart below.
| Quendi | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eldar | Avari | ||||
| Vanyar | Noldor | Teleri | |||
| Amanye Teleri |
Sindar | Nandor | |||
| Calaquendi | Moriquendi | ||||
Each of these groups had their own language, though all these languages are related to each other and make up the Quendian language family. The languages of the Avari are almost completely unknown. Of the languages of the Vanyar, the Amanye Teleri and the Nandor, only limited information is available, while the languages of the Noldor (Quenya) and the Sindar (Sindarin) are well known (and counted among the finest conlangs ever made, influencing legions of later conlangers).
Post-Tolkienian Elves
Tolkien's Elves have been the main model for Elves in modern fantasy fiction, and Tolkien's example popularized the idea that these beings speak languages of their own. Since then, numerous authors have developed their own ideas of and stories about Elves, and many conlangers have made up their own Elvish languages.
In many fantasy worlds, there are, as in Middle-earth, several sub-races of Elves. They are usually an ancient race resembling beautiful human beings with pointed ears, very long lifespans and great artistic and magial talent, living in harmony with Nature; however, one often also finds Elven races that have turned to evil and perverted the stereotypical Elven ideals, such as the Drow in the Forgotten Realms or the Blood Elves in the world of the Earthdawn RPG.
In some fantasy worlds, the Elves are actually aliens, originating in a different world. (This notion of alien Elves is entirely foreign to Middle-earth, where the Noldor immigrated from Aman but are returnees - their ultimate origin lies in Middle-earth, and they are thus no more alien to that world than are Men.)
Non-Tolkienian Elves
Nevertheless, much fantasy fiction is still written in which pre-Tolkienian notions of elves are used. In the Harry Potter series of novels, for instance, the house-elves are gnome-like beings that are used as servants by wizards. Little fairy elves are also still very common, especially in children's literature.
Examples of contemporary Elvish conlangs
Andreas Johansson is the inventor of Meghean, a language spoken by Elves in a fantasy world of his own devising. Andreas's Elves are a separate species, not interfertile with humans.
Danny Wier has been working on and off for years on an Elvish language named Tech. Little is known about Tech, except that it is a very complex language with a huge phoneme inventory, based on the hypothetical Nostratic language family. Danny tries to avoid Tolkienian clichés, and his Elves are actually incarnate djinn.
Elliott Lash has developed Silindion, a highly developed language of Elf-like beings in his own fantasy world. There are also several languages related to Silindion.
The Grey Company, a guild of Ultima Online players, use Grey Company Elvish, a language with a vocabulary partly taken from Tolkien's languages but also from Dungeons & Dragons handbooks and other sources, and a simple grammar closely modelled on English.
Herman Miller has invented several languages for Elves from another planet, in a con-universe where most sapient beings are cute and furry.
Jashan A'al has developed the High Drow language, based on a less sophisticated conlang which is in turn based on a list of words published by TSR, Inc. The language is typologically similar to Quenya, and meant to be spoken by Elves in the Forgotten Realms who were exiled for worshipping an evil deity.
Jörg Rhiemeier has developed, or rather is still developing, the Albic languages, a family of languages spoken by the British Elves, a hypothetical human ethnic group in the League of Lost Languages that may have been the grain of truth within the Germanic and Celtic mythological traditions of Elves.
Toms Deimonds Barvidis has developed the Elvish language Longrimol.
External links
- Wikipedia:Elf
- Ardalambion - web site dedicated to Tolkien's languages
