• Voiceless Stops (p, t, c)
• Voiced Stops (b, d, g)
• Nasals (m)
• Voiceless Sibilants and Spirants (s, h, wh)
• Voiceless Liquids (lh, rh)
• Ancient Nasalized Stops ([m]b, [n]d, [n]g)
• Summary
• Conceptual Development

Sindarin soft mutation (also called vocalic mutation by Tolkien) is pervasive in the language and serves numerous functions: marking the direct object of a verb, the modified form of a noun following an article, the modified form of an adjective following a noun, etc. The best description of Sindarin soft mutation appears in notes on the Common Eldarin Article (CEA) from 1969 (PE23/133-140), and the discussion below mostly follows the CEA system of mutations, but the examples differ because I still follow the pre-CEA system of using i (rather than e) for the singular definite article. For a more in depth discussion of soft mutations in CEA, see my essay on Sindarin Articles and Mutations from Parma Eldalamberon #23.

The soft mutations of Sindarin are very similar to those of Welsh. Historically, Sindarin soft mutation (also called lenition) arose from the phonetic development of consonants after vowels. This is most noticeable in modern Sindarin with the mutations of consonants after the definite article i “the”: i beth “the word (peth), i dhraug “the wolf (draug). It involves a “softening” of the sound from voiceless stops to voiced stops, voiced stops to voiced spirants, voiceless spirants (s, h) to “softer spirants” (h, ch).

In many cases, the vowel that conditioned the soft mutation was lost, and the mutational process was generalized to cases where no soft mutation would have occurred from a purely phonological perspective. This is the case, for example, with adjectives following nouns, since most nouns originally ended with vowels that were ultimately lost. After these losses, the soft mutation generalized to those rare cases where the noun did not originally end in a vowel. The soft mutations of Welsh have a similar historical origin.

Soft mutations modify the method of articulation of the consonant (voiceless stops become voiced) but not the place of articulation (labials remain labials, dentals remain dentals, etc.). Thus, it is easiest to discuss soft mutation in terms of method of articulation.

Voiceless Stops (p, t, c): The soft mutations of voiceless stops p, t, c are the voiced stops b, d, g. This is a result of the sound change whereby voiceless stops voiced after vowels. This mutation is extremely well attested, and applies even to consonant clusters beginning with voiceless stops, as in Drann the soft mutation of Trann “Shire” (SD/129). Welsh has the same mutation, and Tolkien established the soft mutation of voiceless stops all the way back in Gnomish of the 1910s (GG/7). Some examples from Sindarin:

• peth “word” → beth (LotR/953).
• tíriel “having watched” → díriel (LotR/729; PE17/25).
• calan “green” → galan (RC/349; UT/281).

The second example is of particular interest because the environment where it appears (palan-díriel) would produce -thíriel (nasal mutation) as a purely phonetic phenomenon. Thus it is an example of a mutation that is exclusively grammatical, as discussed by Tolkien in a 1958 letter to Rhona Beare (footnote, Let/278-9).

Voiced Stops (b, d, g): The soft mutations of voiced stops b, d, g are voiced spirants such as v, dh, except that g vanishes completely: i ’aladh “the tree (galadh)”. For clarity Tolkien sometimes marked the lost g with an apostrophe ’, but this is not required and has no affect on pronunciation. This mutation is a result of the sound change whereby voiced stops became spirants after vowels: v, dh, ʒ (IPA [v, ð, ɣ]); later on the voiced velar spirant ʒ (IPA [ɣ]) vanished. This mutation is extremely well attested, and applies even to consonant clusters beginning with voiced stops, as in ’laur the soft mutation of glaur “gold(en)” (UT/253). Welsh has the same mutation except [v] is spelled “f” and [ð] is spelled “dd”; Tolkien established the soft mutation of voiced stops all the way back in Gnomish of the 1910s (GG/7). Some examples from Sindarin:

• beleg “great” → veleg (RC/536).
• dínen “silent” → dhínen (WJ/333).
• gaear “sea” → aear (LotR/238; PE17/27).

The initial combination gw- is a somewhat special case. Like other initial clusters beginning with g, this sound was lost under soft mutation leaving only w-, as in i-wath “the shadow (gwath)” (PE17/41). The historical origin of this mutation is somewhat different, however. In Sindarin’s phonetic history, an initial [w] became [gw], but only at the beginning of the word, not after a vowel. Thus the clitic i- “the” didn’t cause the g in gw- to vanish, but rather prevented its development in the first place.

This is mainly a historical curiosity, however. In modern Sindarin, the soft mutation of initial gw-clusters behaves like other g-clusters: the g vanishes.

Nasals (m): The dental nasal n does not mutate, but the labial nasal m becomes v, just as it does in Welsh (except in Welsh the mutated form is spelled “f”). The net result is the same as the mutated form of b, which introduces some ambiguities into the language: “the queen (bereth)” and “the festival (mereth)” are both i vereth. The ultimate change of m to v was later than that of b to v, with m passing first through a nasalized spirant Tolkien sometimes represented as ṽ but more often as mh. This nasalized ṽ even survived in some dialects like North Sindarin and/or Doriathrin prior to the fall of Beleriand (PE17/131, 133; PE23/136).

This is another well-attested mutation for Sindarin, but unlike the soft mutation of voiceless and voiced stops, m-mutation did not appear in the mutation tables of either Gnomish of the 1910s (GG/7) or the Early Noldorin of the 1920s (PE13/120-121). It appeared in the mutation charts for Noldorin of the 1930s, however (PE19/18-19).

Despite being well-established, there are a few examples in The Lord of the Rings where this mutation does not occur, all with adjectives following nouns: Emyn Muil (LotR/373), Imloth Melui (LotR/866), Ered Mithrin (LotR/1064). In his notes on the Common Eldarin Article (CEA) from 1969, Tolkien indicated the grammatical mutation of m was optional, especially for adjectives:

... m phonetically > ṽ: so mellon, friend, e·ṽellon > e·vellon [in CEA the singular definite article was e rather than i as it was before 1969]. This mutation was preserved in early records (and is reported to have been maintained in Doriath, where however the ṽ remained nasal). But generally it was abandoned as a mutation (it occurred very frequently medially and also even at [the] beginning of second elements of compounds), because of the resulting confusion with mutation of b- (after denasalizing of ṽ) as in morn “black”, born “hot”, malt “gold”, balt “force”. The mutation was earliest given up in adjectives, cf. Imloth Melui (PE23/136).

It is hard to tell if this was always Tolkien’s intent, or if he introduced this rule in 1969 to explain inconsistencies in The Lord of the Rings.

Voiceless Sibilants and Spirants (s, h, wh): The voiceless fricatives f, th do not undergo soft mutation, but the sibilant s and the breath h do mutate, to h and ch respectively. These mutations are both well attested for Sindarin:

• sain “these” → hain (LotR/305; PE17/42).
• haered “remote(ness)” → chaered (LotR/238; PE17/25).

These mutations do not occur in Welsh, and are features unique to Sindarin. The mutation of s arises from the (Old) Sindarin sound change whereby intervocalic [s] became [h]. It seems this change occurred differently at morpheme boundaries than it did medially, since medial s > h ultimately vanished, whereas an initial h from soft mutation survived. On the other hand, h-mutation is the indirect result of the sound change whereby initial [x-] became [h-]. As with gw-mutations, the presence of a preceding vowel inhibited this phonetic development, so the soft mutation of h is the result of the prevention of an initial sound change rather than the replication of a medial sound change.

In notes on the Common Eldarin Article (CEA) from 1969, Tolkien also explored the mutation of initial wh, a relatively rare Sindarin sound that existed only as the result of ancient sw- (since ancient khw- became ph > f). In CEA Tolkien considered several options as for this mutation: {chw- >>} cw- or unmutated wh- (PE23/136 and note #10). He then launched into a lengthy exploration of the medial and final developments of -sw- with no clear conclustion (PE23/137 note #10; PE23/138-9).

Tolkien was much more confident of the nasal mutation of wh- → chw-, and I think this can be used guide for the soft mutation as well. Of the nasal mutation Tolkien said:

The normal form therefore of plural in + chw (< sw), and ch (< sy) was i; since ins > iss > is before the special development of sy, sw had occurred (PE23/139).

Since the nasal vanished long before any mutational effects on sw-, it makes sense that the soft and nasal mutation of wh- would be the same, making chw- the most likely outcome after Tolkien’s earlier vacillations (and consistent with Noldorin of the 1930s, see next).

The h-mutation appeared in the mutational tables of Gnomish from the 1910s (GG/7), but s-mutation did not. Somewhat strangely, h-mutation disappeared from the Early Noldorin tables of the 1920s (PE13/120-121), but both h- and s-mutation appeared in the Noldorin tables of the 1930s (PE19/18-19), while the mutation for ancient sw- was chw-, but the modern form was f- (PE19/21) rather than wh-/hw-. The h-mutation was deleted from the 1930s Noldorin chart (PE19/18, note #7), but there is solid evidence of it elsewhere, such as N. Aran Chithlum “King of Hithlum” (Ety/TĀ, PE22/33); loose genitives like this caused soft mutation in the Noldorin of the 1930s and 40s.

Voiceless Liquids (lh, rh): The best description of the Sindarin mutations of lh, rh appear in notes on the Common Eldarin Article (CEA) from 1969. In this document, Tolkien said the archaic mutation of these sounds (derived from ancient sl-, sr-) was thr-, thl- (which are the ordinary medial developments), but in modern Sindarin lh, rh become non-mutating:

lheweg “ear”, e·thleweg; lhinc “earthworm”, e·thlinc. The forms here given with thl-, thr- are archaic and seldom found; the independent initial forms being generally substituted later: e·lheweg, etc. (PE23/136).

Note that in CEA, e was the singular definite article, as opposed to i from before 1969. In the pre-1969 system, “the ear” would be archaic i·thleweg, modern i·lheweg, and so forth.

There also is evidence prior to 1969 of the non-mutation of lh, rh. For example, no mutation occurs in Talath Rhúnen “East Vale” (S/124). There is also a cryptic note from 1957 where Tolkien indicates the soft mutation and nasal mutation of lh, rh are identical:

na (< nā) “to, towards” of space/time. with vocalic mutation. before vowel n’ ... S na, before vowels nan (nasal mutation), means “with” in sense of possessing, provided with, especially of characteristic feature ... na “to” and na “with” are therefore distinct before vowels and b, d, g, p, t, c, m, s but same before h, f, þ, r (rh), l (lh). Late forms as nan-h as for vowels, archaic nath-r, nath-l for nan-rh, nan-lh. nan|sr > nassr > nathr (PE17/147).

This note is hard to parse, but Tolkien states that the nasal mutations of lh, rh were archaically nath-r, nath-l, and implies their modern forms were unmutated nan-rh, nan-lh. Since nasal and soft mutations for these sounds are identical, the same would be true of the soft mutation of lh, rh.

Tolkien did not describe the mutation of lh, rh in Gnomish of the 1910s, but that is not especially strange since initial voiceless lh, rh were not part of the phonetic inventory of Gnomish. Mutations for lh, rh likewise did not appear in the Early Noldorin mutation table from the 1920s (PE13/120-121), but these sounds did begin to appear in contemporaneous word lists, such as ᴱN. lhith “dust” (PE13/149) and rhód “course” (PE13/152), with deleted gloss “free from”. Given compounds like ᴱN. yrlhith “dustless” (PE13/156) and ᴱN. darhod “not free” (PE13/141), they may have been unchanged by mutation.

Voiceless initial liquids were well established by the Noldorin of the 1930s, however, having an origin and system of mutations essentially identical to that of Welsh. In particular, all ancient initial liquids l, r became unvoiced to lh, rh (PE19/19), and their soft mutations were the result of the inhibition of this phonetic development after vowels, much like gw- and h-mutations as described above. The same holds true for Welsh, except voiceless l is spelled “ll”. The clearest Noldorin example is:

• N. rhass “precipice” → i-rass (Ety/KHARÁS), an analogical soft mutation for older †i-chrass [< *i-khrassē].

While writing drafts of The Lord of the Rings in the 1940s, Tolkien gradually decided that ancient l, r were not unvoiced to lh, rh, and many Noldorin words beginning with voiceless liquids were switched back to regular liquids, as in: N. rham “wall” (Ety/RAMBĀ) >> rammas “great wall” (WR/288; RC/512) and N. lham(b) “tongue” (Ety/LAB) >> Lamben “Tongue” (TI/280) and later S. lam (PE17/46; WJ/394). This removed the basic historical foundation for voiceless liquid mutations in Sindarin.

Unlike Gnomish, voiceless initial liquids still appeared in Sindarin as the result of other sound changes: “LH represents this sound when voiceless (usually derived from initial sl-) ... RH represents a voiceless r (usually derived from older initial sr-)” (Appendix E, LotR/1114). Thus Tolkien devised his new mutational rule for Sindarin lh-, rh- (archaic thl-, thr-, modern non-mutation) as discussed above.

Ancient Nasalized Stops ([m]b, [n]d, [n]g): In Primitive Elvish, some ancient words began with nasalized stops, such as ✶mbar(ă) “home”, ✶ndorē “land”, ✶ñgolodō “Gnome”. In Sindarin’s phonetic history, these initial nasals vanished before stops, so that the Sindarin form of such words began with simple stops: bâr, dôr, golodh. However, in the conditions leading to soft mutation, these clusters would instead undergo their historic intervocalic developments, in which [mb], [nd] became [mm], [nn] and (normally) [ŋg] survived. It seems these soft mutations were not simply identical to the intervocalic forms, however. Tolkien represented these soft mutations in various ways throughout his life.

In the Gnomish Grammar of the 1910s, the soft mutations fully restored the ancient nasalized stops: i·mbar, i·ndor, i·Ngolda from G. Golda “Gnome” (GG/7); these voiced nasal-stop clusters appeared medially in Gnomish as well. However, in the Early Noldorin Grammar of the 1920s, the intervocalic forms further reduced to simple nasals, as in i·mâr, i·nôr, i·ngoloth from ᴱN. Goloth “Gnome” (PE13/120). In phonetic tables of the 1930s, Tolkien indicated the soft mutation of ancient [m]b was long mm, so that (hypothetical) mutated form would *i·mmâr, but the mutation of ancient [n]d was the full cluster nd- (PE19/20).

In one of the few clear examples of Sindarin soft mutations for an ancient nasalized stop, we see mb as in: imbas “the bread” in the Sindarin translation of the Lord’s Prayer from the 1950s (VT44/27). A possible counterexample is mutated vast in penim vast “we have no bread” (PE17/144). But in notes from the late 1960s Tolkien said:

In Sindarin in absolute initial position the nasal was lost: mb´ to b´, but if a proclitic word, such as the article i “the”, preceded, mb remained and developed, as medially, > mm > m (PE17/104).

Analysis of these mutations is further complicated by the fact that Tolkien seems to have used ng to represent both the velar nasal-stop cluster [ŋg] and the simple velar nasal [ŋ] initially. For example, in the 1920s when the labial and dental mutations were simple nasals m, n, the velar mutation was still represented as i·ngoloth. There are notes from the late 1950s or early 1960s indicating that Sindarin likewise possessed an isolated initial velar nasal:

[In Quenya] the change of initial [ŋ] to n ... With respect to pronunciation a curious situation arose. Quenya as it entered Beleriand was, as spoken, a language that did not possess the sounds þ, z, or “free” ñ (sc. not followed by k, g); but in Sindarin þ and ŋ were frequent and their distinction from s, n was essential. After their acquisition of Sindarin the Noldor were thus familiar with þ and ŋ and the more learned often reintroduced the ancient pronunciation of the Feanorian letters that represented these sounds (now pronounced s, n) (PE17/129).

The most likely candidate for this “free” initial [ŋ] is a mutated form, of which soft mutation is the best candidate since it is the most common consonant mutation. Since [ŋg] survived as a cluster medially, the change [ŋg] > [ŋ] must have been a special development at the beginning of a morpheme boundary. Likewise, the normal post-vocalic development of [mb] would be [mb] > [mm] > [m]. Although there are no attested examples, many Neo-Sindarin writers assume that the soft mutation of ancient [nd] is likewise a simple dental nasal [n], though this would again need to be a special initial development, since medially it shifted to [nn] but did not shorten. In Common Eldarin Article (CEA) from 1969, Tolkien specified that double-consonants reduced initially:

This simplification of long (“double”) consonants was not actually confined to final position. In the spoken language they were reduced initially and medially after an unstressed vowel followed by the main word-stress (PE23/140).

The mutations of ancient nasalized stops were not directly addressed CEA. However, there are examples in that document of the nasal mutations of such words: bâr [< √MBAR] “dwelling” → plural i·mair; dôr [< √NDOR] “land” → plural i·nuir (PE23/139). If the nasal mutation of ancient mb-, nd- reduced to simple nasals, very likely soft mutations did as well. Tolkien introduced a further complication, however, indicating that the occasional appearance of mb-, nd- was just an orthographic variation:

For i·mair, i·nuir written forms were sometimes i·mbair, i·nduir to distinguish such cases from those with original initial m, n; they were not needed in the case of nouns beginning with g-, since no words had radical initial ñ in Sindarin, but nonetheless [gôn →] i·ñuin “the stones”, was sometimes spelt i·ñguin (PE23/139).

The most common (Neo) Sindarin rule is that ancient nasalized stops mutated to simple nasals. I believe this system was first proposed by David Salo (GS/76), but it is now widely accepted. In the case of ancient [n]g, many Neo-Sindarin writers (myself included) represent the isolated velar nasal as ñ- rather than using Tolkien’s (ambiguous) representation ng-. Thus these soft mutations would be:

• bâr [mb-] “home” → *mâr.
• dôr [nd-] “land” → *nôr.
• Golodh [ng-] “Gnome” → *ñolodh (vs. more Tolkienic ngolodh).

Summary: To summarize the above discussion, here are my recommendations for Neo-Sindarin:

• Initial voiceless stops (p, t, c) become voiced stops (b, d, g).
• Voiced stops (b, d, g) become voiced spirants (v, dh, ’).
• Nasal m becomes v.
• Sibilants and spirants (s, h, wh) become “softer spirants” (h, ch, chw).
• Voiceless liquids lh, rh resist soft mutation in modern Sindarin, but became thl, thr in archaic speech.
• Ancient nasalized stops ([m]b, [n]d, [n]g) become nasals (m, n, ñ).

The developments for ancient nasalized stops should be considered speculative since it is not well attested. The mutation of wh (or hw) is something Tolkien himself was uncertain of (PE23/136 note #10), but mutation to chw- is the most commonly agreed on (Neo) Sindarin soft mutation, for example as suggested by David Salo (GS/74).

Conceptual Development: There are several tables showing soft mutations at various developmental stages for Sindarin’s conceptual precursors, and these can be used to trace Tolkien’s changing thoughts on soft mutation. The earliest appears in the Gnomish Grammar of the 1910s, which followed the above system of soft mutations except (1) s and m do not mutate, (2) ancient nasalized stops are fully restored (mb, nd, ng) and (3) mutations of initial voiceless lh, rh do not appear because they are not part of Gnomish’s phonetic inventory (GG/7-8). A similar table appears in the Early Noldorin Grammar of the 1920s, identical to Gnomish except that ancient nasalized stops mutated to simple nasals m, n, ñ (represented as ng) as described above and for some reason h does not mutate (apparently a transient idea).

The soft mutations for Noldorin of the 1930s can be found in the Comparative Tables of phonetic development, where Tolkien said “Alternatives thus c/g indicate the special initial variations or mutations in Noldorin” (PE19/18-21). In these tables Tolkien introduced the soft mutations of m, s and voiceless lh, rh, though as noted above the phonetic foundation for the mutation of voiceless liquids was different in Noldorin (more Welsh-like) than later Sindarin.