The valarin is a built Langue imagined by the novelist and philologist J.R.R. Tolkien. In the universe of fiction in which proceed the accounts of the Ground of the Medium, the valarin (or lambe valarinwa ) is the language of the Valar, i.e. of those of the Ainur which decided “to take form” in Arda.

External history

The designs of Tolkien on this language changed several times during its life. In its first writings ( the Book of the Lost Tales ), it is initially presented like a secret language. Nevertheless, it reappears later in the Lhammas , a linguistic treaty written by Tolkien in the years 1930, this time like mother language of all the other languages of the Ground of the Medium. In the writings which followed this period, the language valarine is not mentioned any more, and Tolkien seemed to decide that Valar finally did not need such a language, as it affirmed it in a letter addressed to the one of its readers in 1958… But about 1959-1960, it reconsidered this decision again and approached the language valarine under a new angle in a long text, Quendi & Eldar . This rather technical test offers a pretext to Tolkien to express its ideas on the nature of the language and its relationship to the cognitive thought. It is learned there that Ainur, which has the appearance of “archangelic powers” in its universe of fiction, could practice the “communication by the thought” ( ósanwe ) and which they did not have consequently really need for an articulated language. Valar however created for themselves a language for them-even when they avoided visible forms, at the same time to try out their new physical appearance and for better including/understanding the way of thinking of the other gifted creatures of word.

All our essential information comes from this last text of Tolkien on the subject. It did not develop the language valarine in detail, but gave some only one brief description accompanied by a very short list of terms. In so far as one can judge some, the valarin does not resemble any other language invented by Tolkien. Certain apparent details of structure could let think that it freely took as a starting point real languages like the Akkadien (thus a supposed use of processes as the Mimation in the inflection of the names), but that remains an assumption.

Internal history

When they shaped in Arda, Valar thus obtained an articulated language, intended for their own use. However, they were addressed to the Elves who cotoyaient them in the own language of the latter, the Quenya. Consequently, the Elves were not often in contact with the language valarine.

The Elves of the family of the Vanyar, which were closer to Valar than the Ñoldor, adopted of them a little more words. However, its sonorities seemed to them often difficult to pronounce, if not unpleasant, and overall the valarin remained to them foreign. Also these loans remained very limited, and the Elves consigned in writing only very little information on this complex language. The rare still known elements, sometimes very dubious, come from the treaties of wise the Rúmil and, later, of the linguistic notes of the scholar Pengolodh. They are limited to lists of proper names whose interpretation is not always easy and with some isolated words, that the elfic linguists tried, with more or less success, to classify by categories.

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