The Elves preferred to translate the meaning of every name. Some of the Elven names used around are translations of actual names. There is Quenya Lapseparma, a site that provides translations of real names into Quenya. A typical example from that site is this: If a name is not there, try to find the roots of your name (the site http://www.behindthename.com/ is highly recommended), then find an Elvish dictionary and try to make an educated guess.

The first place to check is Now We Have All Got Elvish Names, by Helge Fauskanger. More recently, there is Quenya Lapseparma, the Quenya Babybook, which took inspiration from Helge's work and numerous baby name books, then ran with it. The CONLANG mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/list/conlang) deals with constructed languages. Other useful sites include Mark Rosenfelder’s Language Construction Kit, at http://www.zompist.com/kit.html, and the Langmaker site (http://www.langmaker.

This is a very vague question... first of all, since you are talking for 'translation', it seems you are unaware of the term 'transcription/transliteration'. Translation concerns the rendering of a meaning from one language to another, while transcription refers to the sound of a word, from one writing system to another.

In Quenya, 1-12: minë atta neldë canta lempë enquë otso tolto nertë cainen minquë rasta. (ls) Yes, surely this is the basic system. But since the Elves wrote numbers “backwards” (61 for sixteen), I guess they would also pronounce the elements in the same order, “six (and) ten", or in the duodecimal system “four (and) twelve".

No translation program or dictionary can accurately translate things into Quenya or Sindarin for you. You can post requests in the Translation Desk thread in the forum, and perhaps someone who studies the language will be able to help you.

WE TRANSLATE from practically any electronic or printed format, including the following: Word®, PowerPoint®, Excel®, Publisher®, QuarkXpress®, Illustrator®, PageMaker®, TXT, HTML, PHP, ASP, etc.

Confucius once said "If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone". Somebody might say: You just look up the words in the dictionary and replace those written in language X with their equivalents in language Y. Well, not quite. Aside from the differences in grammar, syntax, word order, and idioms, relatively few words have one-to-one equivalents in two different languages.

The complexity of the texts we handle ranges from simple texts written with basic or colloquial vocabulary, to technical or scientific manuals and texts with specialized terminology. In the latter case, we may use our own or the client's glossaries, or we may create a new glossary for the job or series of jobs. We also have the technical expertise to handle Website and database translations.

Elvish words or phrases occuring in English text are often enclosed in '_' signs, _like this_. To ensure that all non-English letters are represented correctly, try to use ISO-8859-1 or Western Europe encoding. People who for whatever reason cannot use this encoding write with English letters only, doubling long vowels and skipping diaereses (or using a colon after the letter with the diaeresis). (kz, ln)

This forum is for discussing Tolkien's invented languages, not for discussing Real Life languages such as Spanish and French, nor for discussing creating one's own invented language. Before opening a topic, browse through the first two pages of topics to see if a similar one already exists. Please also look at the Language Help Desk which has links and simple questions, and the Translation Desk, where you can ask for help with translations. There is no one language called "Elvish.

Elvish among us, is the collective name of the Elven languages that were invented by Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and are exemplified as placenames, personal names and short texts in his major works. The Elven linguists are interested in Elvish made by Tolkien, and usually in the other languages (Dwarvish, Adunaic, Orkish etc) of Middle-earth. Some persons must have in mind that this stuff has nothing to do with the Elves of the later RPG worlds.

We have bad news... You can't, and perhaps you never will! Although Tolkien tried to create languages with real vocabulary, grammar, etymology and writing, he never completed them in the manner of Klingon or Eperanto. He never actually intented them to be spoken by others, not even by himself, more than just satisfying his need of creation.

The common point of reference is of course Helge Fauskanger's Ardalambion website which contains tutorials and analyses of all Tolkien's languages. This site also hosts a Quenya course, which will shed light to any beginner (from pronounciation and stressing, till complex etymology). Sindarin lessons exist also, one in French at Hisweloke and one teaching "Gannelian" dialect Sindarin in Tol Gannel.

The Tengwar (or Feanorian characters) were devised by Feanor in Valinor originally for writing Quenya, and they were influenced by the Sarati of Rumil. When the Noldor came to Middle-earth in the beginning of the First Age, they brought this alphabet with them, and adapted it for Sindarin. One example of this is the Mode of Beleriand.

If you don't know about Elvish scripts, a very good starting document on Tengwar and Certhas (elvish runes) can be found on The letters of Middle-earth explaining briefly their nature, usage and differences (PDF format). Amanye Tenceli is a very good site about Tengwar and Sarati and their history. It also contains guides on calligraphy, the Tengwar Parmaite font and TengScribe, a program that wirtes Tengwar automatically to download.

This answer concerns only the TTF fonts... I hope I will incorporate information about Mac and Unix fonts also] You can download the famous Dan Smith's Tengwar and Rune fonts along with some documentary on their usage and their various modes. Mans Bjorkman has made two Elvish fonts, Tengwar Parmaite and Tirion Sarati which can be downloaded from here. And Harri Perala has made the Tengwar Cursive font, based on the hand of the One Ring.

There are various mailing lists. I am a member of Elfling where some of the most famous Elven Linguistics celebrities are found :-). There is also Quenya in which all the messages are supposed to be written in that language but it is quite dead and not of the same high level as Elfling's. There is also Elvishlinguistics. For live chat, we have opened the channel #elfling on Undernet server. You can visit us with any IRC client such as mirc.