Elvish language

[jjavier]

Elvish language

Does someone knows if the language speaked by elves at the games and/or books is Sindarin?
or Quenya?

Salutes, insults, names speaked by the elves have a full language behind them or are something that Sapkowski made out?

 

[Charza]

It's neither.
Sapkowski invented his own elven language which isn't related to sindarin or quenya, which were invented by Tolkien.
Sometimes it seems to borrow words from sindarin. (Like Lembas )

I think Sapkowski used a lot of old middle-english and saxon words, combined with some older goidelic (Celtic) grammar rules.
Next to English I also speak Dutch, and a lot of the elvish words are very similar in pronunciation and meaning to older Dutch and Middle English equivalents.

 

[jjavier]

It's neither.
Sapkowski invented his own elven language which isn't related to sindarin or quenya, which were invented by Tolkien.
Sometimes it seems to borrow words from sindarin. (Like Lembas )

I think Sapkowski used a lot of old middle-english and saxon words, combined with some older goidelic (Celtic) grammar rules.
Next to English I also speak Dutch, and a lot of the elvish words are very similar in pronunciation and meaning to older Dutch and Middle English equivalents.

Good to know.
I suspected that was something like that.

Thank you Charza.

 

[callumurdoch]

The easiest way to explain it is that Sapkowski's Elvish is largely based on Welsh with a bit of middle and old English thrown in. The reason that it often sounds similar to Sindarin is that Tolkien based that on Welsh too (while Quenya is based on Finnish), which is why Sapkowski Elvish often seems to use Sindarin words (and why it's so easy to make LOTR puns - it's a piece of lembas ;-) )

 

[norolim]

Hen llinge (PL: Starsza Mowa, EN: Older Speech) is based on English, Welsh, French, Spanish, Irish and Latin.

And here is a nice lullaby, you should know if you read Blood of Elves:

Elaine blath, Feainnewedd
Dearme aen a'caelme tedd
Eigean evelienn deireadh
Que'n esse, va en esseath
Feainnewedd, elaine blath!

 

[pomor]

I guess, at the time Sapkowski did not expect that many people that speak actual Welsh would even know about his stories...

 

[Adonai-]

I can't speak for the original Polish, but the English translation at the very least has a fair Gaelic influence in spelling and pronunciation.