When I was a child my brother and I created our own "language", though it was really more of a cypher. We wrote the shaky hieroglyphics of our alphabet on an index card and taped it to the wall of our most secret place: the room under the stairs. I don’t remember actually using our alphabet to create covert messages, though that was undoubtedly the intent, but that index card remains nearly twenty years later.
Foreign languages always held a sort of magic for me, and I treasured what few words I could learn. I attempted to learn German via a multi-CD program, but lacked the discipline to learn much. My first trip to Europe in 2008 made me yearn to be multilingual, but high school French classes didn’t suffice. It wasn’t until after college, when I began learning Welsh via saysomethingin.com that I truly became excited about my bilingual capabilities.
I suppose it was around this time that I first became aware of the Proto-Indo-European language, and the historical theories that accompanied the rise and spread of the first European languages. This discovery coincided nicely with my first writings that lead to The Wind from Faerie. I had long ago decided that I wanted my writing to harken back to the earliest roots of Western stories, and if I were to create a language, I resolved that it should have a similar tenor. Being rather obsessed with elves, their language was naturally the first I wanted to create.
Elvish was intended to be a language both familiar and foreign, like the very concept of the elves themselves. I wanted their language to have a certain mystique, but to sound like something that could still be spoken in the untouched corners of Brocéliande or some other magical place. My own severe case of Celtomania and the aesthetic value of the Celtic languages led me to the decision that Elvish would be solidly placed within that language family. Elvish is intended to be a variation of Proto-Celtic, though a great many words were conjured ex nihilo. Speakers of a Celtic language may notice the similarities between Elvish and their own tongue, and no doubt a touch of the magic will be lost due to their familiarity with the tone and conventions of their language. I will say that my own grasp of Irish and Welsh have been weakened by my invention of Elvish. I’ve picked up the bad habit of not only mixing my Goidelic and Brythonic Celtic together, but am apt to intersperse a smattering of Elvish words which are sure to doom every listener to a state of hopeless confusion.
The spelling of Elvish words roughly follows the Welsh conventions because they are elegant and simple once learned. I could not use Irish spelling conventions because I have come to believe that there are none. Here are two of the most essential rules: “c” always makes a hard “k” sound, and “w” makes a “oo” sound when flanked by consonants. I have also elected to avoid using broad and slender vowels, so that the English speaker can more uniformly pronounce Elvish words.
The Elvish word of the week is “Sensiahd”, meaning “Elvish”. Literally it means “Old Speak”. Example sentence: Es siahd Sensiahd. I speak Elvish.