This is the last chapter of the trilogy (Quendi & Eldar / Pin & Edhil) and for sure the first post with a title in Telerin! If Sindarin is the grey cousin of Quenya, Telerin perhaps is the little nephew. Sometimes it’s mistakenly taken as a dialect, but don’t be hasty to judge this way. A Teler would fiercely defend its “language” status, even though to be honest….the Teleri cared very little about linguistics! That’s a work they left for the Noldor.
So, as before, the source of the material exposed here is the Volume XI of The History of 
Middle-Earth – The War of the Jewels pages 372 ff. Below, you’ll find the Telerin words that specified their own identity and the elves’ as a race among others. When compared with the equivalents in Quenya and Sindarin, one may grasp how deep Tolkien went when creating his languages and the culture that surrounded them! Outstanding, huh?
Telerin
Pendi = the singular form is Pen. Pendi corresponds to the Quenya word “Quendi”. In Telerin the kw sound was shifted to p. Bottom line is: the singular form resembles the Sindarin singular and the plural form resembles the Quenya plural. It’s all in the family! The word “pendi” (meaning simply “elves”) was rarely used by the Telerin, since they felt themselves to be a complete separate people from the others (i.e. Vanyar & Noldor). The feeling arise since the Separation and increased on the March in Beleriand, therefore, they didn’t feel the need for a general word such as pendi to embrace all Elves UNTIL they came in contact with non-Elvish incarnates. Pendi survived as a learned word of the historians in reference to the days before the Separation.
Calapendi = the singular form is Calapen. Calapendi is the Telerin form for Calaquendi in Quenya. Once again, this word survived only in historical use, but as the Teleri of Aman were more aware of their origin and kinship to the other elves, “calapendi” had the same meaning as its Quenya counterpart, referring to all the elves of Aman who saw the light of Valinor.
Moripendi = the singular form is Moripen. Moripendi, as the form suggest, is strongly related to Moriquendi in Quenya, but the Teleri of Aman used the term to refer only to the other elves who didn’t see the light of Valinor. Elves of Telerin origin were never referred as Moripendi, even though they lived in Beleriand and had not reached Aman.
Elloi = the singular form is Ello. Ello corresponds to the Quenya “Elda”. In Telerin there was also a concurrent form Ella but the -o suffix was preferred and used generally. Ella remained in quasi-adjectival functions such as Ellālie (Q. Eldalië). Ello was applied to all Elves who started the March from Cuiviénen (and their descendants too), independently if they reached Aman or not. The Teleri of Aman were called by themselves Audelli (sing. Audel) meaning “the ones who departed Beleriand) while the Teleri of Beleriand were called Hecelloi (sing. Hecello) meaning “the ones left in Beleriand”.
This is it! We finished our trilogy and insight of the elvish culture, how they saw themselves as a race, a group, a family and a clan.
As you can see now…it’s WAY deeper than purely “Elvish” as people naïvely think. Tolkien is NOT that kind of simplistic author! I guarantee you that!
By
Plain, simple, easy to see, easy to get, here is a basic table with 24 Quenya verbs (just a small amount) showing you all we had discussed in the last 2 previous posts. This may look a little daunting, mainly if you only speak English, but with practice, practice and practice, you’ll get used with it pretty quickly. (unless you don’t like languages or have little skill with them)
). Read below and you’ll see that there is more in Quenya than meets the eye!
= ynys (island).
= urddas (dignity).
