_A Gateway to Sindarin_: a grammar of an Elvish language from J.R.R. Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings / David Salo. - Salt Lake City: The University of Utah
Press, 2004. - 24 cm: ill. cov., xvi-438 p.
Bibliogr. p. 416-435. - ISBN 0-87480-800-6


I received my copy of David Salo's book about Sindarin a bit more than a
week ago. This was a week of holiday for me, so I was able to browse though it
quite a lot (though naturally not in every detail). I think a review might be
of interest.

1. Presentation of the book

It is a very nice volume, well printed on alkaline paper, with a silvery
cover illustrated in blue with an arch inspired by the one on the Moria gate. It
bears a tengwar inscription in the mode of Beleriand, reading _Annon na
Edhellen_, i.e. of course a rendering of "A Gateway to Sindarin" in the
language
itself.

The plan is quite classical for a linguistic monograph. It begins with a
brief internal history of the language, before a description of the sounds and
the various writing systems used to transcribe it, and then a lengthy
phonological history, which reconstructs a list of all the sound changes that
occurred during the development from primitive Elvish to Sindarin. Then we have
a
morphophonology, presenting consonant mutation and vowel affection. An
analysis of the various parts of speech and their inflection follows: nouns,
adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs / prefixes / prepositions, conjunctions,
articles, interjections. Then we have a detailed analysis of the various
processes
of word creation - derivation, composition and borrowing from other languages -
and to end this grammar a syntax. There are also copious appendices: the
extant texts analysed, a double glossary accompanied with a classification of
words by roots (attested and deduced), an index of Sindarin proper names, an
account of the Sindarin names for the Valar and Maiar, a study of the numerals,
and a list of the names for months and days. Finally, there are more
peripheral tools: a linguistic glossary, a much annotated bibliography, and an
addendum following the publication of the second part of the "Addenda and
Corrigenda to the _Etymologies_" in VT46 last July (evidently the book had been
completed before).

2. Choice, treatment and presentation of the data

David Salo announces and justifies in a preface his options for the book. He
chose to treat together all the material from the _Etymologies_ onwards, which
includes the externally late stage of Noldorin as well as the whole of the
conceptually later Sindarin. He dates back the starting point of the stage he
studies to 1939. To explain this choice, he says "the change in name from
Noldorin to Sindarin did not coincide with a change in structure or vocabulary.
We will therefore call this language Sindarin, even though some of the words
and specimens referred to were called 'Noldorin' at the time of their
invention" (p. xiv). Taken literally, this is very questionable, and even quite
wrong. There are differences in the grammar: some plural patterns, the
infinitives in _-i_ and _-o_ which are not attested in Sindarin, some uses of
lenition,
the genitive construction with _na_ which is more specifically Noldorin
(though not completely given _Orod-na-Thôn in LR book III ch. 4). As for the
lexicon, comparison is not easy (as we know, we have much more Noldorin than
Sindarin because of the Etym), many a Sindarin word was already extant in
Noldorin but there are sometimes slight shifts in meaning, e.g. _iant_ "yoke" in
the
Etym (V:400) and "bridge" in the Silm. Appendix or _cû_ "arch, crescent" in
the Etym and "bow" in the Silm Appendix. It is true however that much of the
divergence lies in a series of well-established phonological differences,
which are regular enough to allow reliable revision, and to "update" Noldorin
into Sindarin if wanted (notably for composition). David Salo's statement is
much more acceptable if one understands that the two stages are in continuity,
that there is no abrupt break between the two. No doubt he wrote it in this
sense, but it is slightly misleading to newcomers I think.

This sense of continuity explains the treatment of Noldorin in the book.
David Salo chose a very internist point of view and regarded Noldorin as a
special dialect of Sindarin, possibly the one spoken by the population of
Gondolin
during the First Age. So he can reconcile contradictory facts: the specific
traits of Noldorin are just to be seen as dialectal. Since the Gondolindrim
were cut off from the other inhabitants of Beleriand, they were bound to
develop linguistic peculiarities; indeed in Tuor's story a mention is made of
their somewhat strange Sindarin (UT:44). If Noldorin and Sindarin did coexist in
our primary world, they would probably be seen as dialects of the same
language: at least on a phonetic basis, their differences would probably be
small
enough to allow them to be mutually comprehensible (they are not greater than
between BBC English and American AFAIK). So on an internal point of view this
interpretation can be sustained to reconcile our various data; as a matter of
fact it has been employed for a long time on Ardalambion's page about
Sindarin.

Nonetheless, there is a great disadvantage in this: it leads to viewing
everything through the prism of *one* interpretation, one very peculiar at
that, not sustained by Tolkien's texts. David Salo treats Sindarin like any
other ancient language, and is clearly successful; but he does not consider
another side, which is the personal dimension of Tolkien's languages, the fact
that they have an author and bear the mark of it. More generally, it can be said
that most of the external side is crushed in this approach. Only a facet of
Sindarin is therefore represented in the book. This is not a problem actually
as long as it is borne in mind, but I am afraid it could not be for beginners.
There are other problems in this lack of consideration for the external
point of view. It deprives the author of the possibility to explain some
discrepancies which can be understood only as different stages of external
development.
Sometimes one really gets the impression that David Salo wants to explain too
much and forces the facts into his theoretical frame. Some conclusions are
not expressed with enough caution, so the image of Sindarin the book gives is
in my opinion clearer than it really is. It is not said enough how dubious
some points are - e.g. the liquid mutation, the status of the Noldorin
infinitives in Sindarin, what _aen_ is. In some instances things really become
strongly objectionable: for instance, since the absence of mutation cannot be
accounted for in _bo Ceven_ "on Earth" in the Sindarin Lord's Prayer, the
author boldly asserts that it is a transcription error for _* bo Geven_ because
of Tolkien's famously difficult handwriting (pp. 230-1). This is too hasty an
explanation, and not corroborated by the source (VT44), but much worse is the
fact that this "corrected" form **_bo Geven_ is quoted everywhere else in the
book! Being very severe, one cannot help thinking that if facts do not match
the theory, well, facts are wrong.

Besides, as he wishes to keep Sindarin distinct as a study subject, he
strongly criticizes the search for analogies with primary world languages and
inspirations (p. 427). He is right to emphasize that Sindarin is not a
distortion of extant languages and has its own logic, but possibly goes too far.
Take
for instance the aforementioned _bo Ceven_: _Ceven_ is capitalised, lacks an
article, might be a proper noun. Now some of these are susceptible to resisting
mutation in some registers of Welsh; is it not possible that we have something
similar here? To be fair I must say that David Salo nonetheless uses a Greek
parallel at least once to explain the contrast _diheno / gohenam_ in the
Lord's Prayer in a very interesting manner.

The presentation is sometimes a bit annoying. For instance it is quite
difficult to get at the first glance what is attested and what is not. True,
the
asterisk is duly used in (internal) diachronic study to mark reconstructions.
Other signs are used in the glossaries to mark deduced and altered forms, but
unfortunately they are not used in the main text, so one constantly has to
search in the glossary to know. Certainly it can be done, but quickly becomes
tedious. I understand that the author did not want to clutter his text with
stars (it necessarily contains a large amount of reconstructions) but why did
he not choose another more pleasant sign, like putting all attested instances
in bold? This bit of additional rigour would have been really helpful to the
reader. The book also lacks an index (even if the list of contents is
detailed, it cannot be used in the same way); true, this tool is very long and
tiresome to finalize.

3. Interest of the content

Concerning the internal history, the major texts must have been published
now, so we cannot expect major surprises. Well-known elements are given again,
except that Noldorin is treated in a very special way, as I said above;
according to the general outline of the book, this is the reconstruction of a
possible history rather than a thorough analysis of the possibilities Tolkien
examined. It is based on the later scenario (after Sindarin became a native
tongue
of Beleriand and Thingol's ban was introduced), the old one from the time of
the _Etymologies_ is not a part of it.

No surprise either in the section about the sounds and the writing, it simply
summarizes our current knowledge. Tables would have been helpful for the
_tengwar_ and runes, a question of space perhaps - but as they can be found back
in
the appendices of LR, it is not a problem. The use of the IPA is welcome for
the description of the sounds, it helps much to make it clear.

The historical phonology is a very strong point of the book. We have been in
great need of a global reconstruction of how Sindarin evolved from
Primitive Quendian, and the forty pages of this chapter fulfill it very largely.
The
presentation is more or less chronological, quite abstract and synthetic. The
author uses a featural notation based on the Jakobsonian distinctive traits
of phonemes, happily completed by a paraphrase for the readers to which it
would be opaque, and accompanied with examples. An introduction discusses the
advantages and limits of the presentation. I have been especially engrossed in
that aspect of Sindarin for some time, and find this essay superb indeed. It
will be interesting to compare it with the etymologies propounded in Didier
Willis' Sindarin Dictionary.

The morphophonology discusses consonant mutation and vowel affection, both
as diachronic and synchronic processes. The account of mutations looks
quite like the one on Ardalambion, but with more details on the historical
processes involved. Some of its conclusions are rather tentative. There are more
new elements in the presentation of the various kinds of vowel affection.
There is finally a very original section on apophony (ablaut), its importance in
Common Eldarin and its inheritance in Sindarin - both Tolkien's and Salo's
interest in Indo-European linguistics clearly surface here.

The study of the various parts of speech is also reminiscent of Ardalambion,
but there are more details and it is intended for a readership more
familiar with grammar and linguistics. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of
reconstruction in some areas, especially the pronouns and the verbal system. The
latter
is much like the one already known from Ardalambion; it takes however the new
data of VT45 into account and treats the new forms revealed in it, notably
the past tenses formed by apophony or by the ending _-as_. Again, as there is
a fair deal of uncertainty in the domain of verbs, I would have liked to
see the actually attested forms marked in some manner.

The detailed study of word formation is a second brilliant part of the book.
Every aspect is treated: the inheritance of old Eldarin processes,
suffixion, prefixion, the various kinds of compounds with the phonological
alterations their elements undergo, in all their complexity. As far as I know
this
topic had never been treated so extensively till now, and it was much needed.
No doubt it will be very useful for the analysis of words (especially the
ones which will appear in the publications to come), and for their creation for
people who try to compose in Elvish. This part is completed by a brief
account of the lexical influences Sindarin underwent from foreign languages,
mostly
Quenya.

The syntax is small (twenty-five pages) if compared with the whole length of
the book, partly because the data are not many anyway - Tolkien himself
visibly worked much more on morphology and lexicology, following the
Neogrammarian trend of his time (though there is an noticeable inclination
towards
more syntax in later texts, especially _Quendi and Eldar_). The presentation is
traditional: a substantial part of the syntax is actually treated in the study
of the
parts of speech, which sometimes compels one to browse through to find the
information on one particular topic (the use of the articles for instance) - but
it
is also a matter of becoming familiar with the book. I would have expected a
more modern treatment, on the other hand people used to traditional grammars
will not be confused. There is a quite detailed account of noun phrases and
then a discussion of the various kinds of sentences. David Salo considers a
basic VS(O) structure for the verbal sentence with many possibilities of
topicalisation. I must say I was a bit disappointed not to find discussion of
much
debated points like the lenition in _guren bêd enni_ (VT41:11) or the famous
_i sennui Panthael estathar aen_ and its many interpretations (with
interesting possibilities to express modality or passive). On the other hand I
realise
that such points are perhaps not best placed in a book intended to stand as a
reference.

This is the end of the grammar, but there are many interesting elements in
the appendices. First we have a full analysis of the Sindarin corpus; it
interestingly includes examples found in the drafts of LR (though they are
difficult to interpret). Then we have a long Sindarin-English glossary, a
shorter
English-Sindarin back glossary, and between an etymological classification of
words by roots, naturally mostly based on the _Etymologies_ but more
compressed, and altered to fit Tolkien's later conceptions; for instance the
roots GAL
and GIL of the Etym are replaced by ÑAL and ÑIL found in later writings
(respectively XII:347 and X:388); a number of roots are reconstructed.
Especially
interesting is the list of Sindarin proper names that follows; it intends to
list all names from _The Lord of the Rings_ and afterwards, with the source
and an interpretation. This is again a welcome work that will be much used.
Of the other tools I will mention the annotated bibliography, in which primary
sources are given with a summary of their linguistic interest. The author
also lists two known secondary works, namely Jim Allan's _An Introduction to
Elvish_ and Ruth Noel's _The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth_, makes a
critique of them (not too gently) and corrects many of their errors, of which a
great deal come from their early date of publication, especially for the first.

4. Conclusion: which kind of public?

We have then a very complete book, a detailed analysis of Sindarin which
shows a long and in-depth work. The mass of information is very impressive;
nearly all points of the grammar are treated, in a way that will sum up our
current knowledge about the language. As the reader will have guessed, my chief
reservations are with the way data are presented. The book will be of no great
help for an external study of Tolkien's creation, indeed it is not made for
this.

I believe one of David Salo's problems was his readership. Books about
Tolkien's languages are not numerous and cannot be, so he knew he would have to
accommodate various categories of readers: people who want to discover one
great constructed language of Tolkien's and await a primer; people who want to
learn Elvish and use it in fan-fiction composition, and await a normalised
version of the language; people who are already familiar with the domain and are
eager to see theories dealing with Sindarin in all its complexity. (The same
person can of course be interested in several ways, but the thought processes
are quite distinct.) He implies this at the end of the preface: "I hope [this
book] will
furnish the necessary groundwork for future investigation into Sindarin. For
those who wish to learn Sindarin, such errors as there may be should not
affect their ability to read Sindarin texts or to construct their own" (p. xv).
Often he succeeds in fulfilling these various needs; sometimes he is at risk to
frustrate all his readers together.

Quite like Ardalambion on the Web, _A Gateway to Sindarin_ presents a
personal vision of Tolkien's creation. Its point of view matches David Salo's
contributions to Elvish linguistics as we have been able to see them: internist,
reconstructionist, very concerned with clarity and consistency, much less with
explaining Tolkien's role as a language maker. These are the limits of the
book; once they are taken into account it is enjoyable. You just need to be
aware of the author's point of view and to use this resource with discernment.
Anyway, David Salo makes it clear in the preface that "this volume is not and
cannot be the last or most accurate word on Sindarin" (p. xv). It is also the
responsibility of the reader to do his part of the work and keep his critical
sense.

Under that condition, will this book succeed in becoming a reference? I
believe it has the potential to do so; no doubt it will be much used, and if you
are interested in Sindarin it certainly deserves to stand on your bookshelf.

Bertrand Bellet

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Language has both strengthened imagination and been freed by it. Who shall
say whether the free adjective has created images bizarre and beautiful, or
the adjective been freed by strange and beautiful pictures in the mind ? -
J.R.R. Tolkien, A Secret Vice