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Version History

v0.8.10.23

• Basic data entry for PE23. This release does not revise the Eldamo grammar and phonological analysis to reflect the new information. Further analysis will come in future releases, and there are various XXX markers in this release that are placeholders indicating where things need to be revised.

v0.8.10.1 (September 22, 2024)

• Finished Dictionary entries for semantic category 10 = Motion and Transportation.

v0.8.10 (August 4, 2024)

• Dictionary entries for first half of semantic category 10 = Motion and Transportation.

v0.8.9.2 (May 12, 2024)

• Finished dictionary entries for semantic category 9 = Physical Acts and Materials.

v0.8.9.1 (March 17, 2024)

• Caught up on the backlog of neologisms missing from v0.8.9.

Version History

v0.8.9 (February 17, 2024)

• First pass at dictionary entries for semantic category 9 = Physical Acts and Materials.

v0.8.8 (August 12, 2023)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 8 = Agriculture and Vegetation.
• Rewrote the “Getting Started With Elvish” document to reflect the current state of the lexicon.

v0.8.7 (June 30, 2023)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 7 = Dwelling and Furniture.

v0.8.6 (May 26, 2023)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 6 = Clothing and Adornment.
• More entries from PE17/139-142 with the help of Gilruin.
• Beta “Advanced Reference Search”.

v0.8.5 (April 28, 2023)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 5 = Food and Drink.
• Finalized the Eldamo Introductory Quenya course as version 1.0.
• Updated Quenya w- words to v- [w] words for consistency with the course.

v0.8.4.3 (March 9, 2023)

• Finished Eldamo Introductory Quenya Chapters 7-15.

v0.8.4.2 (Dec 11, 2022)

• Minor release as I worked on Eldamo Introductory Quenya Chapters 1-6.
• Updated grammar entries to reflect my new preference for assimilative partitive plurals: atanéli >> atalli.
• Upgraded to Glaemscribe 1.3.1.

v0.8.4.1 (October 14, 2022)

• Minor release to fix a build issue.
• Introduced spelling convention öa to make pronunciation clearer.

v0.8.4 (September 14, 2022)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 4 = Body Parts and Functions.

v0.8.3 (May 15, 2022)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 3 = Animals.

v0.8.2 (March 13, 2022)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 2 = Mankind.

v0.8.1 (January 24, 2022)

• Dictionary entries for semantic category 1 = Physical World.

v0.8.0 (October 20, 2021)

• Added information from The Nature of Middle-earth.
• Finished dictionary entries for Primitive Elvish roots: √N - √YUR.
• Add semantic category link to word pages.
• Finished semantic categorization of Sindarin/Noldorin/Gnomish.
• Edited and reviewed Quenya semantic categories.

v0.7.9 (April 16, 2021)

• Started dictionary entries for Primitive Elvish roots: √A - √MUY.
• Continued semantic categorization of Sindarin/Noldorin/Gnomish.

v0.7.8 (November 28, 2020)

• First stab at Sindarin grammar analysis.
• Continued semantic categorization of Sindarin/Noldorin/Gnomish.

v0.7.7 (May 29, 2020)

• Tweaked search help text so that it remains visible if the “?” button is clicked.
• Added Narqelion poem based on Christopher Gilson’s analysis from VT40.
• Finished Quenya grammar analysis.
• Continued semantic categorization of Sindarin/Noldorin/Gnomish.

v0.7.6 (March 23, 2020)

• Changed search so that help text is displayed by default, then hidden when search starts.
• More Quenya grammar analysis (pronouns and verbs).
• Continued semantic categorization of Sindarin/Noldorin/Gnomish.

v0.7.5 (January 17, 2020)

• Began Quenya grammar analysis (general information and noun cases).
• Data entry from VT28 and V36 (Bodleian Declension and Entu, Ensi, Enta Declension).
• More data entry from PE14 (Valmaric script section).
• Began semantic categorization of Sindarin/Noldorin/Gnomish.

v0.7.4 (October 25, 2019)

• Finished analysis of Quenya phonetics.

v0.7.3 (July 27, 2019)

• Began analysis of Quenya phonetics: mostly basic research.
• Added the Middle Ancient Quenya (ᴹAQ.) language.
• Began collecting very minor sources: Auct-Let for Tolkien’s letters sold at auction.

v0.7.2 (April 5, 2019)

• Analyzed Sindarin phonetics.

v0.7.1 (December 28, 2018)

• Analyzed Ancient Telerin and Old Sindarin phonetics.

v0.7.0 (November 10, 2018)

• Second pass at including neologisms from other sources (GS, FGNS, AESED, NQNT).
• Better separation of Neo-Eldarin and Academic modes, masking Neo-Eldarin relationships unless in Neo-mode.
• First pass at semantic mapping for Quenya words.

v0.6.9 (September 29, 2018)

• First pass at including neologisms from other sources (1000W, ABNW, FJNQ, FJNS, NQW, PPQ, PPW, TFC, VLDS, VQP).

v0.6.8 (September 5, 2018)

• Finished evaluating roots for exclusion and inclusion in Neo-Eldarin.
• Cleaned up rules for Sindarin i-affection using the work of Elaran (Ekin Gören).
• Restored Gentium as the font used for the Eldamo site.

v0.6.7 (August 3, 2018)

• More evaluating roots for exclusion and inclusion in Neo-Eldarin (M-Q).

v0.6.6 (June 6, 2018)

• More evaluating roots for exclusion and inclusion in Neo-Eldarin (I-M).
• Removed “⏳” and “⛔️” symbols for neologisms since they weren’t very helpful.
• Broke neologisms down by release, starting with v0.6.5.
• First pass at internationalized search: Russian and Polish, with help of Dmytro Yakymets (Дмитрий Якимец) and Przemek Chorobiński.
• Modified page-ids so they are permanent identifiers and don’t change when the language or word is updated.

v0.6.5 (June 2, 2018)

• More evaluating roots for exclusion and inclusion in Neo-Eldarin (G-I).

v0.6.4 (May 4, 2018)

• Miscellaneous search fixes.
• First cut at classify Quenya verbs.
• More evaluating roots for exclusion and inclusion in Neo-Eldarin (E-G).

v0.6.3 (April 6, 2018)

• Multi-match searches using “,” (OR) and “+” (AND).
• Began work on Neo-Eldarin vocabulary pages.
• Began evaluating roots for exclusion and inclusion in Neo-Eldarin (A - E).
• Updated the “Motivations and Methodology” page to better reflect Eldamo’s current mission.

v0.6.2 (March 10, 2018)

• More tweaks for better mobile support.
• Wildcard searches (e.g. “si*f”).
• Better validations on <notes> elements.
• More linked (<see>) entries for earlier languages (Early Qenya, Gnomish).
• Changed treatment of early words (1910-1930: Early Quenya, Early Noldorin and Gnomish) in Neo-Quenya/Neo-Sindarin word lists. They are now marked ⚠️ by default, or by ⛔️ when there is a later replacement. Any “rescued” early words are treated as Neo-Quenya or Neo-Sindarin, even if the form itself is unchanged.

v0.6.1 (February 9, 2018)

• See below: Breaking Changes in v0.6.1.
• Various usability enhancements to better support mobile.
• Cleanup usage of word reliability markers.
• Introduced Neo-Quenya (ᴺQ), Neo-Sindarin (ᴺS), and Neo-Primitive (ᴺ✶) languages.
• Changed North Sindarin code/abbreviation from “ns/NS.” to “norths/North S.” to better distinguish it from Neo-Sindarin.
• Reorganized Quenya and Sindarin entries to fit new “Neo” language structures.
• Alternate “neo” navigation for walking through Neo-languages.
• Added linked (<see>) entries for many variant forms so they show up in search.

v0.6.0 (December 29, 2017)

• Clean up old and out-dated phonetic artifacts.
• Most of the remaining data entry for PE19.
• First beta release!

v0.5.9 (December 9, 2017)

• Data entry for PE18.

v0.5.8 (November 11, 2017)

• Data entry for PE21.
• More Early Quenya phonetic analysis.

v0.5.7 (August 20, 2017)

• More schema cleanup.
• Finished data entry for Monsters and the Critics.
• Finished data entry for PE16.
• More Early Quenya phonetic analysis.

v0.5.6 (June 23, 2017)

• Finished data entry for PE15.
• Began Early Quenya phonetic analysis.
• Reviewed Early Quenya name descriptions.

v0.5.5 (April 15, 2017)

• Changed marker for words in a deleted section to {{double braces}}.
• Added a “Parts of Speech” filter to Search page, as suggested by Tamas Ferencz. This replaced the old “No Names” checkbox.
• Cleaned up schema validations for inflections.
• Finished data entry for PE14.
• Finished Early Quenya name analysis.

v0.5.4 (February 20, 2017)

• Updated to the latest version of Glǽmscribe.
• Finished data entry for PE12 (raw data only still needs to be compiled into phonetic rules).
• Resumed data entry for PE14.
• More Early Quenya name analysis.
• Various corrections as suggested by Severin Zahler

v0.5.3 (January 15, 2017)

• Began Early Quenya name analysis.
• Reviewed Middle Quenya name descriptions.
• Finished data entry for PE22.
• Clean up of XSD schema definitions
• Fixed several proper names as suggested by Ostesor
• Fixed lungo and par- as suggested by JPRidgeway
• Fixed to preposition as suggested by Tamas Ferencz
• Fixed various data validation issues as suggested by Severin Zahler

v0.5.2 (April 1, 2016)

• Tengwar transcriptions using Benjamin Babut’s Glǽmscribe library.
• Corrected Karnigul >> Karningul as suggested by Tyelpion.
• More data entry for PE22.

v0.5.1 (March 19, 2016)

• Finished Middle Quenya name analysis.
• Reviewed Noldorin name descriptions.
• Organized Quenya grammatical entries.
• More data entry for PE22.

v0.5.0 (September 19, 2015)

• The first code release of Eldamo: the system used to generate the Eldamo site.
• Quenya cleanup on individual entries.
• Finished Noldorin name analysis.
• More data entry for PE22.

v0.4.9 (August 29, 2015)

• Began incorporating Elvish Fonts, starting with Måns Björkman’s Tengwar Eldamar font, using the web font version produced by Benjamin Babut and Bertrand Bellet (used with permission).
• Cleaned up Quenya word list by comparing it to Helge Fauskanger’s Quettaparma Quenyallo.
• Began data entry for PE22 (suspending work on PE14 for now).

v0.4.8 (July 24, 2015)

• First release on Github.
• Formal schema specifications for Eldamo data model, based on the work of G. Hussain Chinoy.
• Began data entry for Early Qenya Phonology (PE12/3-28).
• Began data entry for PE14.
• More Noldorin name analysis.
• More analysis of Gnomish phonology.

v0.4.7 (June 5, 2015)

• Minor functional additions to Search feature (match restrictions).
• Finished data entry for VT50.
• Data entry for Nebrachar poem (MC/217).
• Finished analysis of Danian phonology.
• More Noldorin name analysis.
• Began analysis of Gnomish phonology.

v0.4.6 (May 16, 2015)

• Cleaned up Sindarin word list by comparing it to Hiswelókë’s Sindarin Dictionary.
• Clearly identified words in the Sindarin and Quenya wordlists that are adapted from earlier versions of the languages: [N.] and [ᴹQ.]
• Changed the language code of Solosimpi/Eary Telerin from Sol. to ᴱT. in keeping with the majority of the examples.
• Split Early Noldorin (ᴱN) into its own language for more accurate analysis.
• Reviewed Ilkorin word descriptions and grammar.
• Finished data entry for PE13.
• More Noldorin name analysis.
• Began analysis of Danian phonology.

v0.4.5 (April 5, 2015)

• Finished Ilkorin analysis.
• Finished review of Sindarin name descriptions.
• Finished review of Ilkorin name descriptions.
• Minor search fixes.
• Better distinguished Early Noldorin (ᴱN) from Gnomish (G) and Late Noldorin (ᴸN) from Sindarin (S).
• Added distinctions for Early Telerin (ᴱT) and Early Ilkorin (ᴱIlk).
• More data entry for PE13.
• Began Noldorin name analysis.

v0.4.4 (February 28, 2015)

• Added Search link to page header for word entries.
• Incorporated Vinyar Tengwar Errata.
• Finished data entry for Gnomish Grammar.
• More review of Sindarin name descriptions.
• More data entry for PE13.
• Began Ilkorin word analysis.

v0.4.3 (February 21, 2015)

• Added experimental search at the suggestion of Tamas Ferencz.
• Changed language labels of Ilkorin/Doriathrin and Danian/Ossriandic to reflect their inclusion of both the main language and its dialects, following the suggestions of Fiona Jallings; I also corrected the name of her course to Your Sindarin Textbook.
• Corrected tharantîn as suggested in a Google+ conversation by someone whose name I cannot render in English characters.
• Finished Ilkorin name analysis.
• More review of Sindarin name descriptions.
• Began data entry for PE13.

v0.4.2 (February 14, 2015)

• First publicly announced version.
• Bumped minor version to 0.4.x to better reflect level of completeness.
• Finished language summaries.
• Finished Sindarin name analysis.
• Finished Gnomish Lexicon entries.
• Finished review of Quenya name descriptions.
• Began review of Sindarin name descriptions.

v0.1.1 (February 1, 2015)

• Finished Ilkorin phonology.
• More Sindarin name analysis.
• More Gnomish Lexicon entries.
• More language summaries.
• Cleaned up broken links.
• Cleaned up XML data.
• Fixed characters not visible in iOS.

v0.1.0 (January 25, 2015)

• Initial release to Sourceforge.
• Major structural definitions of XML data model established, but not yet formalized.
• Data from The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth series.
• Data from The Road Goes Ever On, Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings: a Reader’s Companion.
• Most original linguistic data from Vinyar Tengwar issues, excluding VT27 and VT50.
• Vocabulary from “Words, Phrases and Passages from The Lord of the Rings” (PE17), Qenya Lexicon (PE12) and Gnomish Lexicon (the last A - S only).
• Analysis of Quenya names (all) and Sindarin names (A - R) from the above sources, Late Period only.
• A comprehensive description of the Adûnaic language, as a proof of concept.
• Partial analysis of Noldorin and Ilkorin phonetic histories, as a proof of concept.

Breaking Changes in v0.6.1

In v0.6.1, the Eldamo data model went through a major reorganization. Eldamo has always had two missions: (1) describing what Tolkien wrote about his languages and (2) suggesting which words might be used for new Elvish writing. In v0.6.1, the data was reorganized to better reflect this dual mission.

In particular, prior to v0.6.1, Eldamo had many empty “Sindarin” and “Quenya” entries (with no page references) that were simply placeholders that indicated which Noldorin and (Middle) Qenya words from the 1930s and 1940s might be reasonably used in Neo-Sindarin and Neo-Quenya composition. Most of these entries were removed, leaving only the corresponding Noldorin and Middle Quenya entries. The Sindarin and Quenya languages are now reserved almost exclusively for words that Tolkien himself used for those languages in his later writings (1950s and beyond).

In some cases, previous “Sindarin” and (more rarely) “Quenya” entries were reformations of earlier words to fit the phonetic and conceptual structures of Tolkien’s later languages from the 1950s and beyond. These reformations are now indicated by the “^” marker. Such reformations have been correctly recategorized as Neo-Sindarin (l="ns" or ᴺS.) and Neo-Quenya (l="nq" or ᴺQ.). Since v0.6.1, I started including more neologism, reformations or otherwise, with these ᴺS. and ᴺQ. designations.

The Neo-Quenya and Neo-Sindarin language lists now serve as a suggested list of words to use in new Elvish composition. The Neo-Quenya list includes all published Quenya words created by Tolkien from the 1910s to the 1970s, including “Early Qenya”. Similarly, the Neo-Sindarin list also includes Noldorin and Gnomish words. Words are clearly labeled by language (S., N., G.; Q., ᴹQ., ᴱQ.) so that authors can exclude earlier words if they wish. To help those who want to use only later words, the search page now has a “Later Quenya” and “Sindarin/Noldorin” search option that includes only words from 1930-1973.

Words that remained essentially the same across multiple periods are collapsed into a single entry in the Neo-Eldarin word lists. For example, the Quenya word aha appeared in both the 1940s and 1950s, and is listed as: Q., ᴹQ. aha “rage”. Similarly, the Sindarin word adar appears as: S., N. adar “father”. In the data model these combinations are indicated by the <combine> elements in child <word> elements.

Gloss attributes were also modified in v0.6.1 to include only glosses from the specific time period of the word. Thus, the gloss for Q. mól is “slave”, while ᴹQ. mól has the glosses “slave, thrall”. There is a new @ngloss attribute (neo-gloss) for the Neo-Eldarin entries that has gloss across multiple time periods. Where a specific gloss appears only in an older version of the language, this is also indicated in the @ngloss, as in: Q., ᴹQ. mól “slave, [ᴹQ.] thrall”.

The Neo-Quenya and Neo-Sindarin word lists use the ⚠️ and ⛔️ symbols [⛔️ was removed in v0.6.6 ] to indicate that some words are not recommended for new Elvish compositions, with alternate suggestions if they are available. In the data model, these recommendations are indicated by the <deprecated> element, with a @strong attribute to distinguish ⚠️ (weak) from ⛔️ (strong) recommendations. These “unrecommended words” are only my opinion, and can be ignored if desired. The ⚠️ symbol also appears in glosses for recommendation against using words with certain meanings. Even if there is no <deprecated> element, deleted and unglossed words are still marked ⚠️. Early words (1910-1930) are also marked ⚠️ by default; any “rescued” early words are treated as Neo-Quenya or Neo-Sindarin, even if the form remains unchanged.

People using Eldamo data to populate their own dictionaries will need to make some decisions on how to incorporate these markers. If you want to ignore my deprecation suggestions, simply ignore the <deprecated> element and strip out the ⚠️ symbol from glosses (Unicode Emoji U+26A0 U+FE0F, or XML encoding &#9888;&#65039;). You may also want to pre-process the glosses to combine or strip out older meanings. You may need to make decisions about whether you want to treat Noldorin words as Sindarin, and Middle Qenya words as Quenya. I can’t tell you exactly how you should use the data, but am happy to make suggestions.