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Common Telerin

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Common Telerin was an ancient dialect of the Common Eldarin, spoken by the Teleri or Lindar clan of the Elves.

It became the common ancestor of both Valinorean Telerin and the vernacular Elvish languages of the Westlands (the Sindarin dialects, and some of the Silvan Elvish like Nandorin).



It descended from Primitive Quendian, the original language of all Quendi, or Elves, but split off Common Eldarin early, at some time during the Great Journey, perhas because the Lindar were further off from both Minyar and Tatyar.

Since many Teleri teams abandoned the March, and stayed in Middle-earth, all the languages of Beleriand of the First Age, like Sindarin, and the various Nandorin languages in the East, are descendants of Common Telerin.

Telerin of Valinor as spoken by the Falmari we the branch of Common Telerin that reached the West.


One major Telerin change was that where Primitive Quendian used 'KW', Telerin had evolved it into 'P'.

Another significant change was the simplification of palatal 'J' into the vowel 'I'.

Another yet characteristic see in the Telerin languages was the loss of an unaccented pre-stress vowel, for example PQ turúmbê becomes t'rumbê and *berektâ becomes *b'rektâ.

Other versions of the legendarium

The model of Common Telerin belongs to a newer part of Tolkien's writings. In his personal early unpublished writings like The Etymologies, the only languages which possess the qualities of the Telerin languages are Telerin and Old Noldorin (and by extension, Noldorin).

The other languages of the Great Lands like Doriathrin, Ilkorin etc don't; for example, they had retained the Primitive 'KW' (cf. Ilkorin cwess and Doriathrin cwindor)

Fans who believe that those early languages are not obsolete in the later continuity, interpret them as dialects of Sindarin and/or Telerin languages in their minds. In that case those "anomalous" words that don't fit Telerin, are "updated" in Neo-Sindarin (for example *pess and *pindor)

See also