Ardalambion
| Website | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Ardalambion |
| Owner/Maintainer: | Helge Kåre Fauskanger |
| Dates: | January 1999 - present |
| Type: | Language Resource |
| Fandom: | Tolkien |
| URL: | ardalambion.net, previously at folk.uib.no/hnohf/ |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Ardalambion is a website devoted to sharing information about Tolkien's invented languages. The site was created and managed by Helge Kåre Fauskanger in 1999 and remained active until 2022. Helge's biography on the site states that he holds a Master's degree in Nordic languages with a focus on Norwegian Biblical translations.[1]
Reasons for Starting the Site
Similar to Tolkien, Helge identifies an interest in languages, particularly when used as part of a secondary world:
I have also taught myself some Hebrew, partially to gain a wider linguistic perspective, but also for my own delight. From early childhood I was fascinated by ancient inscriptions and weird scripts, so I was easy prey for Tolkienian linguistics - all the more so when I am often willing to spend much time and energy on exploring a fictional universe, if it is carefully constructed, with an eye for details. Tolkien's world definitely is.[1]
Helge defines his purpose for creating Ardalambion as twofold. First, is an appreciation for Tolkien's invented languages as a key component of his fictional universe and an artistic achievement in their own right:
By studying the Eldarin languages, you try to get closer to - indeed into the heads of - the immortal Elves, fair and wise, the Firstborn of Eru Ilúvatar, teachers of mankind in its youth. Or, less romantically, you want to study the constructions of a talented linguist and the creative process of a genius engaged in his work of love. And many simply enjoy the Elvish languages as one might enjoy music, as elaborate and (according to the taste of many) gloriously successful experiments in euphony." The entire mood and flavour of Tolkien's world is somehow captured and contained in his languages.[2]
He also hoped to fill a need for accurate and accessible resources related to Tolkien's languages, a topic popular with fans:
But though people have been studying Tolkien's languages quite seriously for decades, I found that there was relatively little information about these languages on the net. What there was turned out to be mostly amateurish, incomplete, inaccurate and outdated, or in one case - namely Anthony Appleyard's work - very concentrated and technical, excellent for those who are already deep into these things, but probably difficult to absorb for beginners. This lack of good information on the net was all the more surprising considering that the Tolklang list has as much as seven hundred subscribers, more than the regular Tolkien list! So I set out to make a site devoted to Tolkienian linguistics. An attempt is here made to extract the purely linguistic information from the published writings and present it in a form that is hopefully easily accessible.[2]
Indeed, within the Tolkien fandom, Ardalambion was regarded as one of the (if not the) most valuable linguistic resources for Tolkien's languages.
Closure of Ardalambion
In 2022, the University of Bergen, which hosted the site, announced that the server on which Ardalambion was located would be shut down on 30 December 2022:
Nettstedene på Folk (folk.uib.no) / Org (org.uib.no) / Kurs (kurs.uib.no) blir stengt ned 30. desember 2022. (English translation provided: The Folk/Org and Kurs services will be discontinued on 30 December 2022. If you wish to keep the files, you must copy these before 30 December 2022.[3]
Reasons for shutting down the server include desire for consistency across university websites, consolidation of content onto the main university site, and the "outdated" appearance and features of sites on the server.[3] As of this writing, the author of Ardalambion had not posted any intention to move the site (despite having updated the site less than a month earlier). Some Tolkien fan groups (e.g., the Silmarillion Writers' Guild) have acted to preserve the site and its resources in anticipation of its closure.
On 28 December 2022, Ardalambion went offline, two days earlier than the closure date provided by the University of Bergen.[4] Fan reactions on the Tolkien Fandom History blog on Tumblr shows the importance of the site to the Tolkien fandom:
This website was so special to me as a teenager. It was one of only two places I really went (the other was Council of Elrond). I was such a lonely, traumatized kid but I taught myself Elvish (mostly Quenya) and drew maps. (jennelikejennay)
100% accurate #ardalambion was educative and often a life-saver when i needed to look up partitive plural quenya inflectional endings #as one does #i really hope helge is moving the site elsewhere #but if not #so long and thanks for all the fish (nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui/Lyra)
While I've never been able to make heads or tails of Tolkien’s linguistics (I tried; I even downloaded a Sindarin course), Ardalambion was always there if I wanted to look something up. I loved his treatment for a film trilogy of the Akallabêth, even though the third part never materialized.
I am well and truly sad we’ve lost yet another foundational Tolkien fandom website. (Independence1776)
oh. #this site was instrumental in my learning quenya when I was a teenager (juniperwick)
On 29 December 2022, in a comment on one of his posts in the Facebook group Quenya Chat, Helge stated that he was aware the site was down and was "looking for a solution."[5]
In early 2023, the site reopened at a new domain name, ardalambion.net. As of mid-February 2023, however, the folk.uib.no site is also back online. [This is something to keep an eye on. The root site continues to display the warning that the site will go offline in December 2022.]
Articles/Resources
The following articles and resources were listed on the index page of Ardalambion, with the author's notes/descriptions preserved.
Introduction
How many languages did Tolkien make?
What's New? - for those who drop in occasionally
The tongues of Arda
Quenya - the Ancient Tongue (see also Course)
Sindarin - the Noble Tongue (sorry, I have no Sindarin course to go with the Quenya course above!)
Adûnaic - the Vernacular of Númenor
Westron - the Common Speech
Telerin - the Language of the Sea-Elves
Doriathrin - the Mothertongue of Lúthien
Various Mannish Tongues - the Sadness of Mortal Men?
Nandorin - the Green-elven Tongue
Old Sindarin - between Primitive Elvish and Grey-elven
Ilkorin - a "Lost Tongue"?
Avarin - All Six Words
Khuzdul - the Secret Tongue of the Dwarves
Entish - Say Nothing That Isn't Worth Saying
Orkish and the Black Speech - Base Language for Base Purposes
Valarin - Like the Glitter of Swords
Primitive Elvish - Where It All Began
Invented languages from Tolkien's youth
Animalic - "crude in the extreme"
Nevbosh - new nonsense
Naffarin - at least we know that "vrú" means ever
Corpus Texts Analyzed
Namárië (Quenya)
The Markirya Poem (Quenya)
The Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary (Quenya) - available as an RTF download
Fíriel's Song (late "Qenya")
A Elbereth Gilthoniel (Sindarin)
The Quest for Standard Sindarin
This section includes the following author's note:
(Sindarin or Grey-elven, the Celtic-style language of Tolkien's mythos, was very often revised by the Professor: In the pre-LotR period, it wasn't even called Sindarin, but "Noldorin"! The articles below discuss various inconsistencies haunting the primary sources and suggest how the material can be edited to achieve a LotR-compatible "standard" form of the language: Writers should not mix various conceptual stages of Noldorin/Sindarin into a hybrid language that would not properly reflect Tolkien's intentions at any stage. WARNING: by necessity, these articles are often highly technical!)[6]
AE or OE? - Tolkien's Hard Choice
On LH and RH - not to mention HL and HR
The question of ND or NN - about the behaviour of the cluster nd in "Noldorin" vs. Sindarin
To SS or not to SS - a Gollumish problem
Tolkien's early "Qenya" language
The Qenya Lexicon Reviewed - comments on Tolkien's earliest Elvish wordlist, as published in Parma Eldalamberon #12
Index to the Qenya Lexicon by English glosses - what vocabulary does the QL really provide?
Index to the Qenya Lexicon by Elvish words - the corresponding Qenya-based guide
A Qenya Botany - compiled by David Salo
Other Resources
Quenya Course - downloadable lessons with exercises
The Evolution from Primitive Elvish to Quenya - A Comprehensive Survey. (This treatise, available as a PDF file, attempts to list the sound-changes that occurred as High-Elven was evolving from the earliest forms of Elvish. This is a revised, updated and expanded version, edited by Vicente Velasco and incorporating his extensive annotation on my original treatise (still available as an RTF file).
Index to the Etymologies by English glosses - where do you find the word you so desperately need
- Explanation
- Index
- Index in One File: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y
Index to the Etymologies by Elvish words - where do you find the word you can't understand?
- Explanation
- All Languages Together: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, 3, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V,
Probable Errors in the Etymologies - where Tolkien's handwriting proved too tough!
The Quenya Corpus - the central texts
Quenya Wordlists - English-Quenya and Quenya-English
Parviphith Edhellen - English-Sindarin wordlist
Suggested Conjugation of all known or inferred Sindarin verbs
Reconstructing the Sindarin Verb System - the reasoning underlying the Suggested Conjugation
A Taste of Elvish - selected Quenya and Sindarin vocabulary
Quenya Affixes - derivational elements in High-Elven. (Pityon Lastalon Mithrendir has made a PDF version of this article.)
Do you have trouble reading or printing some of the articles on this page?
The link above offered black-and-white versions of some of the articles: Khuzdul, Valarin, Doriathrin, Mannish languages, Orkish and the Black Speech, Primitive Elvish
Post-Tolkien Quenya Compositions
The New Testament in Neo-Quenya - the whole thing, completed in its first version on June 12, 2015
The Old Testament in Neo-Quenya - in progress
Ríanna - Quenya poem by Vicente Velasco
Hríweressë - Quenya poem by Vicente Velasco
Roccalassen - Quenya poem by Ales Bican
I Yessessë - Quenya translation of the first chapter of the Bible; by Helge Fauskanger
Genesis 2 - Quenya translation of the second chapter of the Bible, still by H.F.
Tengwar Version of the two Genesis chapters above, available as a PDF file (thanks to Javier Rojas for this one!)
Miscellaneous
Satanist (?) Uses the Black Speech - Sauron's Esperanto* isn't quite dead yet!
Now We Have All Got Elvish Names - or at least the readers of Tyalie Tyelelliéva do!
Artificial Languages - an essay by Robert Isenberg, focusing on Klingon and Quenya. Thanks to Robert for this one!
A Second Opinion on the Black Speech - an analysis by Craig Daniel. Thanks to Craig for letting me use it here!
A Commentary on Tolkien's Tengwar Translitteration of Namárië - by Vicente Velasco (again, thanks for letting me use it!) Available as a PDF file.
BLASPHEMY - "Auld Elvish" from Bored of the Rings!
References
- ^ a b Ardalambion: Helge Kåre Fauskanger (Who Am I?). (Wayback capture 5 December 2022.)
- ^ a b Ardalambion: By Way of Explanation .... (Wayback capture 26 November 2022.)
- ^ a b University of Bergen: Folk/Org and Kurs Server Closure Notice. (Wayback capture 27 December 2022.)
- ^ Tolkien Fandom History: Ardalambion Is Offline, 29 December 2022, accessed 14 January 2023.
- ^ Quenya Chat, comment on 29 December 2022, accessed 14 January 2023.
- ^ Ardalambion Index Page. (Wayback capture 26 December 2022.)