Valarin is afictional language in the fantasy works ofJ. R. R. Tolkien. One of thelanguages of Arda in Tolkien'sMiddle-earthlegendarium, Valarin is the language spoken by theValar. As immortal spiritual beings, Tolkien described the Valar as having the ability to communicate through thought, with no need for a spoken language. He implied that it was adopted as part of their assumption of physical, humanlike forms.
Tolkien at first decided that Valarin, the tongue of the Valar as it is called in theElvish languageQuenya, would be theproto-language of the Elves, the language Oromë taught to the speechless Elves. He then developed the Valarin tongue and a grammar for it in the early 1930s.[T 1] In the 1940s, he decided to drop that idea, and the tongue he had developed becamePrimitive Quendian instead.[T 2] He then conceived an entirely new tongue for the Valar, still called Valarin in Quenya.[T 3]
The Valar, as spiritual immortal beings, have the ability to communicate through thought and have no need for a spoken language, but it appears that Valarin develops because of their assumption of physical, humanlike (or elf-like) forms. Valarin is unrelated to the otherlanguages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien. Only a few words (mainly proper names) of Valarin are recorded by the Elves.[1]
According to the earlier conception set forth in Tolkien's sociolinguistic text, theLhammas, the Valarin language family is subdivided intoOromëan, the Dwarves'Khuzdul (Aulëan), and Melkor'sBlack Speech. In this work, all Elvish languages are descended from the tongue of Oromë, while theDwarves speak the tongue devised by Aulë, and theBlack Speech of the Orcs is invented for them by Melkor.[T 4] Tolkien placed Valarin at the root of each version of his "Tree of Tongues", indicating that in his conception at the time of theLhammas, it was the original language from which developed all the languages ofMiddle-earth.[2] Tolkien attributed his "Descent of Tongues" to the Elvish linguistRúmil, in one ofhis frame stories. His biographerJohn Garth comments that while Rúmil's lack of omniscience might seem convenient, saving Tolkien from having to work on Valarin in any detail, "the unknown is essential to the legendarium, part of theillusion of depth so vital to its aura of authenticity."[3][T 5]
The structure of the root of the first "Tree of Tongues" in theLhammas is:[T 4]
| Valarin | |
Tolkien described Valarin as being strange to the ears of the Elves, sometimes to the point of genuine displeasure.[T 6] He wrote that few of them ever learn the language, only adopting some Valarin words into their own language, Quenya. The Valar know Quenya and use it to converse with the Elves, or with each other if Elves are present. Valarin contains sounds that the Elves find difficult to produce, and the words are mostly long;[T 6] for example, the Valarin word for Telperion, one of theTwo Trees of Valinor,Ibrîniðilpathânezel, has eight syllables. TheVanyar adopt more words into their Vanyarin Tarquesta dialect from Valarin than the Noldor, as they lived closer to the Valar. Some of the Elven names of the Valar, such as Manwë, Ulmo, and Oromë, are adaptedloanwords of their Valarin names.[1]
Almost nothing is known of the grammar of Valarin. A plural is formed with-um- as aninfix; so,Mâchanâz becomes in the pluralMâchanumâz, meaning "Authorities, Aratar".[1]
Verb endings are not explained. Tolkien givesakašân as "he says" (present tense);dušamanûðân is "marred" (passive participle) and amanaišal as "unmarred" (henceAman, the unmarred continent of the Valar), but he does not supply theroots of the associated verbs. The linguistHelge Fauskanger notes that the exact structure of the endings for these verb forms cannot be determined from this limited evidence.[1]
One other possibility relates to the wordayanûz, meaningAinu, one of the Valar orMaiar; Fauskanger notes that Tolkien states thatayanu- means "the name of the Spirits of Eru's first creation", perhaps suggesting that from that root,ayanûz might be thenominative singular form.[1]