S. definite article grammar.
Like English, Sindarin has a definite article i “the”, but unlike English it has no indefinite article “a, an”. In Sindarin, an indefinite item is specified by the bare noun: “the man” = i adan but “a man” = adan. The definite article is effectively a proclitic, closely associated with the following word, and as a result causes soft mutation. The definite article also has a plural form in which causes nasal mutation. This proclitic nature and mutational features of the Sindarin article were described by Tolkien in various places for both Sindarin and its conceptual precursors such as Noldorin:
i, article “the”, indeclinable as a rule in Quenya. In Sindarin it shows inflexions, exhibited mainly in effect on initial consonants, as perian = “halfling”, i berian “the halfling"; i pheriain, pheriannath “the halflings” (from a draft for a 1955 letter to David Masson, PE17/66).
In pronominal words m was used often for the indication of plurality. In Noldorin this survived notably in ī̆m, the plural of the deictic particle or article. This became in, but the nasal was not lost since the article became proclitic and closely associated with the following word. Thus ON inatari, intali, iñkhoni (Common Eldarin: Noun Structure, early 1950s, PE21/77).
The historical origin of the definite article is described in The Etymologies of the 1930s:
I- “that” (deictic particle) in Q is indeclinable article “the”. N i- “the”. plural in or i- (Ety/I¹).
As a marker of its proclitic nature, Tolkien would sometimes (but not always) use a dash (-) or a dot (·) between the article and its noun, as in: ónen i-Estel Edain “I gave [the] Hope to the Dúnedain” (LotR/1061); i·Veleglind “*the Great Song” (VT50/5).
Some examples of the use of singular (i) and plural (in) articles include:
As shown by the examples above, the full plural article in is seen before vowels, but the n is lost before (most) consonants, with nasal mutation being the only sign of its nasal nature. The plural article is used for both regular plurals (sedryn) and class plurals (Ellath). The more complete rules for soft mutation and nasal mutation are discussed in their own entries.
Compared to English, Sindarin uses the definite article less frequently. Tolkien noted the less frequent use of the article in the Early Noldorin Grammar of the 1920s:
The definite article (sparingly used and never generically) is: i sg. causing soft mutation of initial consonant; i(n) pl. causing nasal mutation of initial consonant (PE13/120).
This lack of generic use was reiterated in notes from 1969:
General and gnomic expressions (of which the Eldar were fond) were actually in Eldarin usually expressed by the plural (without article) in cases where the singular was naturally employed for one example, and natural English would prefix the indefinite article: “a lion is a noble beast”, “a Dwarf is stubborn as stone” (PE23/133).
There is some indication that, like Quenya, a genitive or possessive expression defines the preceding noun, so that no article is required. Only rarely do such expressions have a preceding article in Sindarin, as in:
There are a number of exceptions, however:
One circumstance where Sindarin does use a definite article even though English does not is with possessive pronouns. Such pronouns are functionally adjectives and appear after the noun, which also has a preceding article, as in:
In English, the possessive pronoun precedes the noun and fills the “determiner slot”, but in Sindarin the pronoun follows the noun and so a definite article is still required. This is similar to how Welsh manages possessive pronouns. There are, however, attested exceptions to this as well: ionnath dîn “his sons” and sellath dîn “his daughters” appear without the definite article in the King’s Letter (SD/129); perhaps it is significant that these are class plurals, or that they follow a set of personal names.
The Definite Article from Common Eldarin Article (CEA): Towards the end of his life, Tolkien made a radical change to the singular definite article. In notes on the Common Eldarin Article (CEA) from 1969 (first published in 2024), he decide the singular article was (mostly) e rather than i, taking the form en before vowels (PE23/135). In CEA, the singular definite article was derived from an ancient emphatic article ✶inā, with a-affection resulting in e(n). In grammatical function it blended with the more ordinary ancient article ✶i, so that it induced soft mutation on a following consonant. The CEA system kept i(n) as the definite plural article, which continued to induce nasal mutation.
There was one case where singular definite i was retained, for words beginning with g lost from soft mutation (PE23/135). As examples, Tolkien gave i-êl “the weeping”, presumably from unmutated *gêl, as opposed to en-êl “the star” from unmutated êl (PE23/141). Unfortunately these examples conflict with i-Estel from The Lord of the Rings (LotR/1061), which would become en-Estel in the CEA system.
Although Tolkien did not explicitly say so, very likely the CEA system also discarded the genitive article e(n) “of the”, leaving only juxtapositional genitives with an ordinary (singular) article e(n). For a more detailed discussion, see my essay on Sindarin Articles and Mutations from Parma Eldalamberon #23.
Conceptual Development: The singular and plural forms of the definite article date all the way back to the Early Noldorin Grammar of the 1920s, where they caused soft and nasal mutations respectively (PE13/120). However, in the Gnomish of the 1910s, the form in was not specifically plural, but was rather the form used before vowels. The simple article i was both singular and plural in Gnomish, and caused soft mutation in all circumstances:
i- proclitic, causing softening of initial consonant. in- before vowel ... definite article “the” (Gnomish Lexicon, GL/50).
Nominative singular and plural i· followed by “interior changes”: i.e. c gave ·g, cr gave ·gr [etc.] (Gnomish Grammar, GG/7).
Hence G. i·winin na gwandron “[the] women (gwin-plural) are beautiful” (GG/9) had soft mutation instead of nasal mutation, and for this reason nasal mutation did not become a feature of the language until a later conceptual stage. Nasal mutation and plural in were introduced in the Early Noldorin Grammar of the 1920s (PE13/120-121).
Neo-Sindarin: As is often the case with newly published material, the 1969 CEA system of singular definite e(n) quickly became popular after its publication in 2024. In grammatical function it is very similar to the pre-1969 definite article, with a simple substitution of e for singular i before consonants (still inducing soft mutation) and en before vowels. There is the unfortunate matter of contradictory i-Estel from The Lord of the Rings (LotR/1061), but in CEA Tolkien somewhat cryptically wrote “i used orig[inally] only before e < ge” (PE23/135). This statement could be interpreted to mean that in singular i before the vowel e was generalized to other cases in modern Sindarin, make i-Estel compatible with the CEA system.
Personally, I recommend sticking to the pre-1969 system of definite articles, mostly because singular definite i is very well attested and abandoning it renders a fair amount of already published Sindarin material invalid: the King’s Letter, the Sindarin version of The Lord’s Prayer, the Túrin Wrapper, etc.
References ✧ PE21/77; PE23/135, 141