Learn Elvish Newsletter 
Beginning Quenya (September 2002) 
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Dear (Subscriber), 
Welcome to the first Beginning Quenya newsletter 
course! You will be receiving this monthly (usually 
around the end/beginning of each month), for about 4 
installations. If, after that time, I receive enough 
positive feedback, I will most likely continue it. 
I've received a lot of input from people who have visited 
www.learnelvish.com who say I should write an actual 
buyable book on the subject of Quenya. I took that 
advice and pondered it... and decided it was a good 
idea. However, I can't start writing it until after I'm out 
of college this summer. For now, enjoy the newsletter 
and if you have any problems, please contact me! 
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in this issue 
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* Pronunciation 
* Prefixes and Suffixes 
* Designations 
* Continuing Quest... 
Pronunciation 
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You may all have read the Pronunciation Guides on the 
website, but some of you (I'm sure) have not. So I've 
included it in the newsletter. If you feel you have the 
letter sounds down pat, feel free to skip ahead. 
First off, for the most part, Quenyan letters sound the 
same as English, with a few exceptions. Those 
exceptions are c, h, j, q, r, and z. There is no record of 
j or z having ever been used in the Quenyan tongue, so 
try to think accordingly and not use close sounds. 
The letter c is always said hard, like a k. For example, in 
the word 'car' or 'cat'. It is never pronounced as an s. 
The letter h is pronounced the same, though it is 
usually combined with other letters to form diphthongs. 
Q is pronounced the same as c because sometimes it is 
not followed by a u. When it is, feel free to say it as 
normal, as in 'cue'. R is a tricky letter -- it can be 
tapped, trilled, or continuous. I tap/roll them slightly, 
but you native English speakers can just say them as 
normal if you find it easier. 
As for vowels, they are all pronounced the same as in 
English -- a is the same as in 'hat' or 'bad', e (whether 
at the end of a word or in the middle) is short as in 'pet' 
or 'wet'. When e is at the end of the word, you 
pronounce it (unlike in English where it influences other 
vowels. So, for example, the word "orne" would be 
pronounced ORneh (understand?). The letter i is 
pronounced as a long e as in 'fee' or 'me'. O is short as 
in 'hot' or pot', and u is pronounced like a double o as 
in 'goose' or 'lose'. 
Prefixes and Suffixes 
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If any of you are also receiving the Advanced Quenya 
newsletter, this is just repetition for you. But for those 
of you who don't, this is important! The Quenyan 
language deals a lot with prefixes ('words' that attach 
themselves to the beginning of other words) 
and suffixes ('words' that attach themselves to the 
end of other words). For the most part, 
prefixes and suffixes are not nouns (though there are 
always exceptions), and usually stick to pronouns and 
conjunctions, such as the words 'they', 'we', 'for', etc. 
Since suffixes are more common, let's start with those. 
The suffix -nya means 'my'. When using it, you would 
attach it to the end of whatever is 'mine'. For 
example, 'my heart' would be -(i)nya + indon. Since -(i) 
nya is a suffix, we would attach it to the end of indon 
to make indoninya, meaning 'my heart' to us, but 
literally translated would be 'heart my'. If you have 
studied European languages, many of them do the same 
thing. 
Now that you know how to attach them, here 
are some much-used suffixes to practise with: -lva (our 
[inclusive]); -lma (our [exclusive]); -mme (we 
[exclusive]); -(e)lye (thou/you); -lda (thine/your); -lle 
(thee/you); -re (he/it); -rya (her); -ren (they [f.]); - 
ron OR -lto (they). 
When conjugating verbs (example - I ran, you run, we 
are running), the Quenyan language also adds suffixes 
to the base word. So the suffix -uva implies future (I 
will run), so instead of adding a word as in 
English, we simply add a suffix. So the verb tyar (To 
Do), to say 'will do', I would use -uva + tyar = tyaruva. 
Feel free to practise saying "I will ..." with the verbs 
Avant (To Forgive), Hosta (To Collect), and Tup (To 
Cover). Once you've mastered putting suffixes on verbs 
to conjugate them, here are some other suffixes for 
tenses: Present (ex. I/you forgive) -a; Plural personal 
(ex. We collect) -(e)lme; Plural extra-personal (ex. 
They collect) -(a)lto; Past participle (ex. forgave) -(a) 
ina. Practise verb conjugation even a little bit and you'll 
find it helps with other languages you're learning as well! 
Designations 
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Okay, now you know how to say the words and make 
them, but you need to increase your vocabulary. Well, 
that's what this section is going to do. In this article, I'll 
simply give you a vocabulary list of everyday 
items/words that you can utilize and learn to say 
without having to look them up constantly. 
First of all, to help me remember the days of the week, 
the months, and numbers, I scratched out the English 
words on my calendar and wrote in the Quenyan words. 
This helped me immensely (even though I can only 
remember half of it all off-hand). So, the days of the 
week are: Monday-Elenya; Tuesday-Anarya; 
Wednesday-Isilya; Thursday-Aldea; Friday-Menelya; 
Saturday-Earenya; and Sunday-Valanya. Just like all our 
days of the week end in '-day', so the Quenyan 
equivalent ends in '-ya' which roughly means 'that' or is 
the base for the words 'when' and 'day'. 
The months do not have the same uniform ending like 
the days, but for the most part they have either the 
endings '-ime', '-sse', and '-ie' with a couple exceptions. 
The only confusion comes with the months October and 
February, which are called by the same name (though 
we have adapted to calling one by another name 
sometimes to avoid confusion). Here are all the months: 
January-Narvinya; February-Nenime; March-Sulime; 
April-Verisse; May-Lotesse; June-Narie; July-Cermie; 
August-Urime; September-Yavannie; October-Nenime; 
November-Hisime; December-Ringare. Be sure to read 
the pronunciation guides on the webpage, since none of 
the accent marks are written in and the guides will help 
you a lot. 
J.R.R. Tolkien only came up with a dozen numbers, plus 
the number for one hundred, so here I will only list the 
number 1 to 10. One-mine; Two-atta; Three-helde; 
Four-canta; Five-lempe; Six-enque; Seven-Otso (not to 
be confused with osto which means 'town'); 
Eight-tolto; Nine-nerte; Ten-cainen. The number for 
100 is agreed to be haran, which can also mean 'large 
number'. 
Continuing Quest... 
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Since this is the beginner class, I'll conclude for this 
month. I encourage you to put into practise what 
you've learned, because that's the only way it will stick 
with you so you'll remember. I'm not a teacher, I'm just 
imparting knowledge -- it's up to you to learn if you 
want. 
Keep visiting the Learn Elvish 
webpage to see updates and changes, and I hope you 
have fun with Quenya! Feel free to e-mail me with any 
problems and concerns at freedombelle@hotmail.com :)