Conlang Critic: Quenya
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 чер 2024
- the final episode of Conlang Critic Season 3, my review of Tolkien's Elf Latin. thank you.
main sources:
folk.uib.no/hnohf/quenya.htm
folk.uib.no/hnohf/quen-eng.htm
en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Quenya
kulupu jan tenpo created in collaboration with / jules_skyster
00:00 - intro
01:29 - PHONOLOGY
04:30 - ORTHOGRAPHY
07:02 - GRAMMAR
08:49 - VOCABULARY
10:43 - SPOKEN SAMPLE
11:07 - RATING QUENYA
13:19 - credits
/ hbmmaster
conlangcritic.bandcamp.com
seximal.net
/ hbmmaster
/ janmisali
I was reading the appendices of Lord of the Rings yesterday, and in the part listing languages it said that Sauron invented the Black Speech, so Sauron is canonically a conlanguer which I find extremely amusing.
The Black Speech is a parody of IALs.
@@SamAronow okay
@@SamAronow okay
@@SamAronow what are you doing here lmao, love your channel btw
@@SamAronow okay
quenya's consonants are: /m/, DEAFENING ADVERTISEMENT
So not just me, then. 😂
I can relate to that. 🤣🤣🤣ϖϖϖ
same
AdBlock is your friend
@@NoHandleToSpeakOf desktops are for chumps mobile is the future (/s kinda)
9:30 I was not prepared to find out that the adjective form of Sauron's root translates his title to "Lord Smelly"
Imagine if this story being told as a twisted children’s fairytale and the languages were derivative of the parents’ secondary languages. Now Sauron makes sense, eggy-smelling eye and all.
Sauron is a derivaive of the word Sour.
It's the Elvish word for him, he doesn't like it
Fear... *Lord Smelly.*
If I didn't know anything about Sauron and just saw the name, I'd guess it had something to do with lizards. It's similar to saur, like dinosaur, sauropod etc.
"additional thanks: Hatsune Miku"
honestly yeah
She made Minecraft after all
@@mrelephant2283, True.
@@mrelephant2283 and wrote harry potter
idk about that. the worldbuilding in her books is kinda shabby. the spells aren't even real latin ffs
@@amandacapsicum686 well it's not SUPPOSED to be real latin 🙄🙄🙄 it's just supposed to sound like latin, and I think she does a great job for a Japanese robot singer
When your Toki Pona phonology turns into Ithkuil in matter of seconds
Ithkuil still had a smaller inventory than Drsk.
@@GoldenSandslash15 it only passes with 2 consonants (53 vs 55) but ithkuil has vowels sooooo...
Muhteşem Siyanür Fair enough. If you include vowels, tones, and stress, Ithkuil is larger.
Ithkuil is TP with sound quality issues.
@@lyricalcarpenter sounds legit
“Additional thanks to: Anthony McCarthy” oh my god...
Where would we be without him? Well, we wouldn't be cute frauds, that's for sure.
And Hatsune Miku.. nice
The most superficial commentator of con-langues since the idiotic B. Gilson
@@cheese6782 that’s actually Jan Misali’s Spotify bio
@@vanderkarl3927 Is that the official name for jan Misali fans? If not, it should be.
Me: Sees consonant inventory for the first time
“Wow! That’s small!”
Me less than a minute later:
“Ok. Never mind” 😳
The phonology section doesn't even start until a minute and a half in!
@@Supertimegamingify I corrected it
@@nzubechukwu lel
10:28 no, but also yes.
See, the dozenal system was invented in Valinor. The decimal system was used by the elves who remained in Middle Earth (who also developed their own script called “Cirth”). While a Quenya-speaking group of elves eventually returned to Middle Earth, their language and numerals were subsequently banned. Although the human nation of Numenor later resurrected the Quenya language as a courtly and ceremonial tongue: they did not use the dozenal numeral system, since their native tongue used a decimal system. Thus they invented a way of writing decimal numbers in Quenya.
The duodecimal numerical system goes all the way back to Primitive Quendian - according to the _Cuivienyarna_ the Elves developed a duodecimal numerical system because a total of 144 Elves awoke in Cuivienen, and each group awoke in multiples of 12.
In English we have eleven < anleven < one left over, twelve < twaleven < two left over, implying a preceding base 12 counting system that was superseded by a base 10 one. Tolkien must have known this as an Anglo-Saxonist and so it would not have seemed odd to him at all that such a change of counting base could happen in a culture.
I got surprisingly emotional at that ending. The transcription was fantastic.
ikrrr.... i luv the ending. i also laughed my butt off
GOD ME TOO
lol Jules , arent u the one joined in this collab song?
@@Nuhuhhehehe i sure am! i think that's why the ending affected me so much
What... are there transcriptions on ALL OF THEM???????
When I was a teenager familiarizing myself with Tolkien for the first times, I was somewhat disappointed on Quenya. Because of its role as the Elf Latin, it was supposed to be cooler than e.g. Sindarin, but to me it was more boring and uglier. Now I understand that was just because its aesthetics are based on my native tongue, so of course it didn't seem sufficiently exotic to me.
Tbh I feel like that is how Latin is irl. All of the Latin derived languages sound so much prettier when spoken, especially Italian and Spanish. And when I took Latin, as a Spanish speaker, it felt like the language was just a more bulkier and less mobile Spanish.
@@tlaloqq as a Portuguese speaker, that's definitely my experience with Latin as well haha
@@MutohMech 100%, I wish I included portuguese in my original post because I think its one of the most beautiful languages in the world. My family is from Colombia and when they moved to the US my aunt was best friends with the brazilians that she worked with cus our languages are so similar haha.
@Matthew Romero, funnily enough, I (being likely part of a small minority) am of the opposite opinion. I really like Latin but find all its descendants to be less interesting grammatically and less euphonic.
I think latin looks much prettier than other romance languages, specially spanish.
[involuntarily grinning as the credits pull a "Bring It In, Guys!" of all the languages from this season]
IKR!!! it's so beautiful
Is that an undertale reference?
@@CompactStar Indirectly, I guess? The Undertale track's title was actually a reference itself to an earlier thing, which is what I had in mind
@@MenloMarseilles What was that earlier thing?
@@danielle5160 a famous 2008 forum post by a gentleman named GamemasterAnthony. Screenshots are available if searched for.
I clicked confusing it with Sindarin
But then I saw "6 minutes ago"
This is the nif-th episode!
:))
"Special thanks to...
Anthony McCarthy"
Of course. Where would we be without him?
"Hatsune Miku"
Wait what
One aspect of Tolkien's work which I feel is important to note when talking about the real world influences on his fiction is that Middle Earth was never meant to be an entirely imaginary place, but rather an imaginary prehistory for north-western Europe. Although he never really explained how he envisioned Middle Earth would become Europe, the stories were meant to fill in the gaps he saw in Old English mythology, and a lot of the Silmarillion was meant to be the "real history" that inspired our myths and faerie tales.
Robert E. Howard created the Hyborian Age (and the age which preceded it) from that same idea.
Read his biography. WW1 had a huge influence as well on the milieu.
jack eisenmann to tolkien ratio: 3:2
i think
Yep
Priorities
That was a beautiful ending. I’ll miss Season 3 and also I love that the Viossa people have their names right next to Jason Momoa in the credits and the special thanks to Anthony McCarthy and Hatsune Miku
and me!
(im kate)
@@kate-os5ww hi kate
Seeing the lyrics of the closing song in the scripts of the conlangs you've reviewed was a very nice, unexpected treat!
YO THE ENDING SONG LET'S GO! :D
what is it from? it sounds extremely familiar
@@beachinwinter "Dreams of Our Generation" from Rhythm Heaven Fever, translated to toki pona.
Both NativLang and jan Misali upload on the same date? Are we having an early Christmas?
Curious, this happened at least once before.
NativLang’s up too?!
bro what is this
@@kaandx2731 bro what are you
@@xmvziron zenci
The lyrics of kulupu jan tenpo being in all the writing systems this season is such a great touch. Season 3 has been the best by far. Cannot wait to see what season 4 has in store!
When I'm conlanging, every so often I think to myself "What would jan Misali think of this?" It is actually surprisingly helpful in making the language more fleshed out, unique and just overall 'better'. Thanks!
Ah, a kind of language where it's pointless to say "show me the bibliography" and reasonable to ask for literally everything else.
The number changing names things is very common in natural languages. Ie, in french , 80 is usually pronounced four-twenty, because of changing number systems.
Ah yes but those numbers were largely used by illiterate speakers. Base-10 numerals are easily incorporated into a Base-20 language which developed from a Base-10 language---Latin. The Elves, the most advanced society, had a fully functioning Base-12 number system that just.... disappeared.
blaze it
@@jacksonp2397 not all the elves, just the elves of Valinor, and the Noldor that returned. the local Sindar and Silvan elves of middle earth used a base-10 system.
It is not common at all except for cases of colliding cultures. The French example came with a full change of the language, Celtic been replaced by Latin and only a few traits left. There's no example of a culture keeping its language untouched but suddenly changing its number system.
@@jacksonp2397
The duodecimal counting system also pretty much disappeared quite recently from the English language and it still has distinct non-composit words for numbers up to twelve. Nobody counts in dozens and grosses anymore. All that remained in somewhat common use with primarily older folks nowadays is "dozens of sth." as a synonym for "many". You could say it just … disappeared. ;)
I need a full kulupu jan tenpo ASAP, this song is unbelievable.
I also need 12 days of sona pi toki pona
And other dumb ugly mashups
And any unrelated stuff that happens to get published
God, I love this channel so much
I love your passion and enthusiasm!
The thing of note about the difference between the use of Tengwar between Sindarin and Quenya is _why_ the vowels are placed differently: since Quenya is based on Finnish, it has a lot of word-final vowels and thus placing vowels on top of the preceding consonant makes many Quenyan words shorter to write, as it reduces the need for vowel carriers at the end of words. You can actually see this in action in the writing comparison in this video, too. I think this adaptation of the writing system is another great example of how Tolkien made the Elvish languages feel natural.
As one of the Viewers that got introduced to you by the Hangman Video, seriously thank you for this series! I loved the insight in a topic otherwise completely unaccessible to me prior to this!
Excellent video and conlang, that outro was absolutely beautiful too!
never clicked so fast. i love Tolkien's languages. even though I've never read the books or watched the films😅
Mate you GOTTA see those and read the books. They are pure art
@@JoeyGirardin and the movies are probably the best adaptations ever
@@Lacie9 I disagree. The films are great as films but they aren't very faithful to the source matierial.
The aesthetics of the Tengwar alone, before I knew anything of linguistics, was enough to make me fall in love.
Cant wait for season 4! gotta say, never thought you’d get to a hundred thousand subs, but alas, here we are, and i cant wait to see what you have coming next! lets all keep being cute frauds together.
I'm just going to listen to the credits a few more times.
So when dat Khuzdul (Dwarvish language) episode comin out? Also this is a great video, just like all of your other stuff!
There's way too little documentation to say anything relevant about it I'm afraid
I wish... :')
Ah yes, Dwarf Hebrew, honestly probably the most blatant of Tolkien's... Influences. Still fascinating, what little there is of it.
Finally, Quenya! Im actually reading the Hobbit for English class right now, so this is perfect :)
I wish I got to read anything by Tolkien for school... All I got to read was Shakespeare or biographies...
@@mollyr2692 I'm lucky we get to pick most of our books ourselves, and Tolkien was one of the options. I wouldn't be surprised if we're gonna do Shakespeare in the future, though.
The number development went the other way around, according to Tolkien. A more basic decimal system was devised first, based on hands and finger-counting (ten etymologically means 'full, complete, all', i.e. 'all ten fingers'). Later a duodecimal system was developed, 'for general arithmetical reasons; and eventually beside the decimal numeration a complete duodecimal system was devised for calculations, some of which, such as the special words for 12 (dozen), 18, and 144 (gross), were in general use' (this is from the appendix 'The Eldarin numerals' to _The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor_, published in Vinyar Tengwar 42, p. 24). He goes on to emphasize that 'this appears to have been a relatively late development'. Of course, Tolkien being Tolkien, he had a hard time settling on the details, and a different version of this is published in a different note called _Neter, Kanat, Enek_ (section 4; Vinyar Tengwar 47, p. 16; also note 74, p. 42), but this agrees in the broad outlines of decimal first, duodecimal later.
I feel like this is a sign I need to get working on my second conlang showcase again...
In all seriousness, I love this series and I've learned a lot about conlanging just from watching you dissect other conlangs. Early Nuqrian thanks you!
I wish you made your videos longer and included all those things there ”isn’t enough time for”. Although, I mean, this video length has been very successful, I always find myself wishing you had gone into more detail.
maybe if he ever gets on nebula
You can usually look up the language yourself (exception: poliespo), and read sources he links.
Elvish languages being designed with aesthetic in mind makes sense, because the beings speaking them live forever, and I can totally imagine the elves in Valinor not having a care in the world spending the ages coming up with ways to make their language more beautiful.
That outro with the lyrics in the writing system of each language reviewed made me smile.
YEEEEES WEEEEEEEEEEEEE FINALYYYY AAAAAAAAAAAAAA I MISSED YOU THANKS FOR THIS
Tolkien is the saint of conlangers, thank you for this!
congrats on 100k!!
Ever since Hangman video I still have no idea what means what half the time, but you clearly have passion for it and its very contagious. I just want to stand in there back in a corner and listen to you rave about conlangs. :)
And sometimes you talk about stuff I never heard of and so unusual, but also so much easier to get, so it's a win-win for me.
Have a good New Year period.
I discovered this channel recently, but had been told to watch it for at least a year. The regular polyhedra video was what got me to watch a week or two ago, and since then, i'm hooked. Tom Scott's language files made me realize that linguistics are interesting, but conlang critic made me realize just how deep it goes and just how invested I can be. I'm going to college next year, and will be taking any linguistics courses I can because it's one of the few things that is interesting enough to study academically to me. Here's to season 4!
I am Feeling Something... thank you so much Jan Misali, this series has brought so much joy, and I’m so happy to have been here watching! Keep making your amazing content, and I’ll be here to support whatever projects you make in the future!
I hope one day that my languages will be reviewed on Conlang Critic. I'm building not just a language, not just a family of languages, but a world of families of languages, heavily inspired by the advice of DJP's videos, Conlang Critic, and various people and resources from the community.
This series especially has been a huge help for me to get a *sense*, a *feeling* of what's normal, what's strange, what's rare but really appreciated, what's common and annoying, etc. Often times it's just a throwaway comment about how "it's rare for a language to distinguish X and Y but not A and B" and those kinds of comments are the absolute lifeblood of my success. I hope you continue this series and that it is for you all that you want it to be, but know that it certainly is all that I could want it to be, and more.
Misali, you introduced me to the conlang community. I'm learning toki pona. I teared up at the ending. I'm so glad you just reached 100k. Here's to another 100k!
Really enjoyed this series, also really excited on what else you have planned. This channel isn't just good, it's so unabashedly playful and niche I keep going back to it no matter how long it's been or whether it's a CC or "w". Enjoy your break jan Misali, I'd say you've earned it.
The end bit makes my heart sing. Thanks you, Misali!
"it's hard for me to get excited about something quenya has in common with iqglic (with a q)"
just thought this might be worth pointing out
love your work man, all of it. found you after kaybop, and I have not once been disappointed by one of your videos
This is a really useful episode as a conlanger myself because it's one of the few conlangs you've really liked, and it's quite helpful to not just get a sense of what doesn't work and why, but of what works and why. Good stuff!
Best ending in the history of media, I got emotional there.
I always get super happy when I see you've made a new episode. Thank you so so much for this amazing show. Can't wait to see what'll come in between this and season 4, and I'm also looking forward to new songs by you (mainly for the laugh but (especially) this one, Dreams of our "conglang" Generation, and Could You Edit It are unironically good songs)
Really great work Jan Misali. Congrats on putting together so many interesting episodes. Best of luck with your next project :-)
Man, great as always. I can't wait for your future projects.
thank you for making 2020 a little less horrible
the ending of this video somehow feels like bringing together the greatest of everything done on this channel to date and it gave me goosebumps
omg I've been waiting for this for so long
18 views, 60 likes, and everything is right with the world
These videos are special in that instead of playing video games while watching videos at the same time, here I feel the need to pay attention the whole time
That thing at the end with all the different writing systems was so cool!
THIS IS THE QUALITY CONTENT I LIKE TO SEE
Yo Mitch, thanks a ton for your work. I'm excited to see what you're up to next.
I'll miss coming home after school and see a new conlang critic video on my feed, or at least I'll miss it for some months.
Some errata to note in the phonology section: while Quenya does have as /nʲ/, the letter ñ represents a velar nasal, not a palatalised alveolar nasal. /w/ does appear in places other than after liquids, such as in the words wilya and wilwarin. Initial represented /x/ in Old Quenya, but later on became /h/. As a corollary, is actually /ʍ/. isn't just /c/, but /cʲ/. is when following a, o, or u, and /çt/ when following i and e.
As for grammar, you forgot the perfect tense, the non-extended infinitive, and the imperative. For the verb "to go" (the stem is tul-), we have, respectively, utúlië, tulë (same as basic stem aorist, except they don't turn into an i with other endings), and tula (obviously barring certain exceptions, such as apantië, firië, á carë, etc.). The possessive case ending is "-wa" when added to words ending in a consonant. You can, of course, add an E between the core and the ending.
With Quenya vowels, the quality is not exactly known, but they are close to /ɑ ɛ i ɔ u/. Only e and o change quality when lengthened, to /e/ and /o/. Sure, Finnish doesn't change quality with gemination, but Italian and Spanish do iirc, and Quenya's vowels are meant to be more inspired by them.
The labialised consonants are definitely their own phonemes. I don't think /nʷ/ is, but /ŋʷ/ definitely is.
I've never seen Quenya described with ʎ before. Interesting.
Those credits were so cool! Love the different writing systems!
Yooo this is the one we've been waiting for!
This last episode of Season Three feels like kind of the end of an era maybe it’s jus Kulupu Jan tenpo at the end idk. Anyway I have an idea. Everyone could record themself singing kulupu jan tenpo, and put it up with like #kulupujantenpoCommunityEdition or something like that, and we could combine a lot of clips and have a community song.
Great episode! I had always thought that Tolkien drew inspiration for naming his Finnish-influenced conlang "Quenya" from Kven, a northern variant of Finnish with considerable Norwegian influence. Certainly sounds possible, but not sure if he himself ever admitted such a relation.
Those end credits were top notch. Also congrats on 100k
that toki pona at the end gets me emotional at the end thank you jan misali
Is it ok if I cried with the outro?
yes, yes it is...
J.R.R. Tolkien was a linguist and a scholar before he was a storyteller. He created The Lord of the Rings for Middle Earth and it's many languages, not the other way around. That's one of the reasons why his lore was so rich.
So I was semi-binging Conlang Critic a while back and slowed down with season three due to the longer episodes. After Lingwa de Planeta I unintentionally, just, sort of stopped. Then yesterday I came back and now I've finished and - request deadline for season four was *yesterday*? I honestly didn't realize you took requests from non-Patreons.
Well, it's still 23 February in Hawaii, so I guess this is worth a shot! Whether it counts as a conlang is perhaps an edge case, but I'd be really interested to see your thoughts on Natural Semantic Metalanguage. A quick Google suggests that it hasn't been mentioned on your subreddit or anywhere like that.
Thanks for a great channel!
This was just great, and the perfect way to end season three: a high note!
Tolkien is the far biggest reason I got into conlanging, and has been such an inspiration for me
I don’t know much grammar/linguistics, and didn’t know what a conlang was a few months ago, but this series was just really interesting. Look forward to what ya do next.
Now that's a season finale! Great music and great transcription. 10/10 Will hear it again!
how to get conlangers to *ring* the bell icon
Hi
Hey
hi
oh hey there
The ending gave me goosebumps, this is amazing! :)
Winner for best outro ever
Happy 100k!!!
Great finale to a season of a show about a topic which you make extremely interesting despite me knowing almost nothing about the study of linguistics
lets go (100k! congrats!)
Great episode, lovely send off, good job.
YAY! 100K SUBS! CONGRATS!
new conlang critic episode woop woop 🙌🏻
This is an absolutely astounding ending to a show I started watching while it was halfway through its third season. I'm glad you've put the effort into making this show, which I can definitively say is _the_ reason I got into conlanging. It feels even a little cheap to be making this conlang with the optional goal of submitting it to the Conlang Critic for review.
Even if its phonotactics look like Quenya's but more arbitrary and weird, and its consonant inventory looks like someone forgot voicing information is a thing, and the grammar feels like it's constantly working against its main goal of free word order, and oh god the vocabulary suuuuuuuuuucks, I hope at least the writing system is cool and worth looking at.
_Someone stop me from gushing about the writing system's origins-_
wow ok im emotional as hell that this is the end of season 3
It's kinda fun that you took a break from CC right at 100k subs ^^ HEY jAN MISALI, if you read this, thank you for empowering me to work on my own clang!!
quenya and sindarin
this is the dialectic
:D keep making amazing stuff! your videos are the best
2:46 But what about toki pona?
Edit: oh, SINCE Sindarin. nevermind
Looks like I'll just watch the vötgil episode over and over until season 4 starts
Also: congratulations to 100k subscribers!
i love the credits on this ep
I think Tolkien cultural relevance today is severely understated, whether it’s direct acknowledgement or otherwise
that was beautiful
every single part
Hooray! 100th episode!
Finally... best Conlang in my opinion.