These are all websites that I recommend. To see a list of websites that are often mistaken for good sources of Tolkien’s languages visit the Untrustworthy Websites list.
- Dictionaries
- About Tolkien’s Languages
- Tolkien Language Communities
- Elvish Compositions
- About Writing Systems
- Fonts and Lists of Fonts
- About Arda
- About and Hosting Fanliterature
- Other Useful, Trustworthy Websites
Dictionaries
- This has ALL of the Arda-languages in it.
- Organized according to when Tolkien made the words as well as what language they belong to.
- It shows the etymology of the words – which ancient roots they come from.
- It’s downloadable.
- This is a Neo-Elvish translator’s dream come true.
- It’s an attempt to gather all of the Elvish words that Tolkien made in an easy to search way. It mainly draws upon Ardalambion’s wordlists, Hiswelókë, and Eldamo, but it includes other smaller sources too. Users can also submit words or reconstructions of their own, though all entries are carefully inspected before being included.
Sindict: A Sindarin and Noldorin Dictionary
- It’s in English and French.
- This was the Hiswelókë Sindarin dictionary, but it has moved and is updating to include publications after 2005.
- It still is one of the most thorough Sindarin and Noldorin dictionaries on the web!
Ardalambion – Quenya Wordlists
- The best, most thorough Quenya wordlists out there.
- A Neo-Sindarin and Neo-Quenya Wiki-dictionary.
- The design makes certain that the coined words have their histories explained, as well as any irregular forms that the words might have.
- I’m one of the editors!
- An excellent list of compound names in Sindarin. It only includes ones whose meanings were known at the time, so it’s a little out of date, but it’s aged very well.
About Tolkien’s Languages
- Summaries of Sindarin, Quenya, Adûnaic, Westron, Telerin, Doriathrin, Mannish Tongues, Nandorin, Old Sindarin, Ilkorin, Avarin, Khusdul, Entish, Black Speech, Valarin, Primitive Elvish, and Tolkien’s other languages that don’t have anything to do with Eä.
- A Quenya Textbook
- Quenya Wordlists
- And many useful articles about Sindarin and Quenya.
- It’s been translated into many different languages of ours.
Parma Tyelpelassiva-The Book of Silver Leaves
- A Sindarin Textbook
- A Quenya Textbook
- Many useful articles about reconstructing words
- Some poetry in Sindarin and Quenya.
- The textbooks are translated into many of our languages.
- Linguistic essays about Quenya, Goldogrin, Sindarin, and Telerin.
- It has some compositions and a section on Glossopoeia (constructed langauges).
- Tons of great articles about Sindarin!
Lalaith’s Middle-earth Science Pages
- Articles on etymologies of Mannish languages
- Research into the often neglected history of Man
- Articles about astronomy and geography
- A few articles just for comedic relief.
- Several of the articles have been turned into published books, which you can buy through the website.
- It’s in German as well.
- A extensive breakdown of everything known about Dwarvish!
- Extensive pronunciation guides for Quenya.
Glǽmscrafu – Tolkien’s Linguistic Cellar
- All of the Tolkien’s compositions in his languages, as well as a few of our own.
- It’s in French too!
- This is David Salo’s blog. He’s the linguist who worked on the Elvish, Dwarvish, and Orcish translations for the movies.
- One of the best fan-made versions of Neo-Khuzdul. Definitely not canon, but still good conlang work, heavily inspired by Semitic languages.
Tolkien Language Communities
- Many specialized wordlists
- A phrasebook
- Various Sindarin and Quenya compositions, as well as Tengwar calligraphy.
Gwaith-i-Phethdain – Fellowship of the Wordsmiths and G-i-P Report
- A list of articles and resources.
- The storefront for Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon
- Home of Tengwestië
- Many linguistic articles.
- An Excellent French website collectiong resources, essays, articles, a forum, and it’s in French!
- Another excellent collection of articles in French, and a forum connected to it.
- A german website with fantastic articles about Sindarin, a great forum, and it’s in German!
- Home and store front of Parma Eldalamberon.
The Tolkien Language List (TolkLang)
- The archieves for a mailing list devoted to Tolkien’s languages.
- Home of pronunciation guides you can listen to.
- Lots of useful reasorces and information.
- A place for discussing Tolkien’s languages and publishing Elven compositions.
Elvish Compositions
- A place where people post compositions in Elvish.
- Collected original poetry composed in Tolkien’s various languages by all sorts of authors!
- Home of the Quenya Baby Book.
- Quenya compositions by V. Barouch.
About Writing Systems
- Articles about writing in Tengwar and Sarati, some fonts, and the Tengwar Scribe, a useful tool that transcribes text into Dan Smith’s fonts.
Mellonath Daeron : Guides for Tengwar and Runes
- A bunch of PDF guides on how to use Tengwar and Runes in various modes.
- If you don’t want to learn how to write in Tengwar, just use this!
- Another tengwar transcriber. Follow the directions closely!
Fonts and Lists of Fonts:
- Home of 3 Tengwar fonts.
- Uses Unicode, and adds a Tengwar Keyboard to your English keyboard options.
- Uses keymapping based on the US QWERTY keyboard, which is the standard for fonts based on the same system.
Dan Smith’s Fantasy Fonts
- One of the older websites, its content is no longer available. During its run though, it set up a prohilific keymap for Tengwar, and many fonts you will find still use Dan Smith’s keymapping.
- The fonts that Dan Smith made are available here.
- Has several fonts, some using Dan Smith’s keymapping, and others using the newer Unicode system.
- Only place you can find a Sarati font.
Tengwar Annatar
- One of the older fonts, its website is no longer available. This font is available here.
- Uses Dan Smith’s keymapping.
- In italics, it looks like the writing on the One Ring.
- A blog about making Tengwar fonts.
- Has lots of links to other fonts.
- A rescued old Geocities website, it has some lovely fonts with Dan Smith’s keymapping.
Tenceldil :: Tencelë Telperinquaro
- This is a very unique font. It doesn’t follow anyone elses keymapping, and is a lot of fun to play around with.
- It’s in Polish!
- It’s a list of where you can find a lot of cool fonts.
- Uses Dan Smith’s keymapping.
- It holds the distinction of being my favorite Tengwar font!
About Arda
- Tons of information about Middle-earth!
- A wonderful, well researched website that rivals The Encyclopedia of Arda. It’s not very fancy, but the information on it is sound.
- It has an encyclopedia, articles comparing the movies and the books, and a fun community for a Tolkien fan.
- It also has a large Elvish section, but it’s a bit out of date.
- A Tolkien Wiki!
- All of the family tree info you could ever want on all of the characters in LotR!
J.R.R. Tolkien, The History of Middle-Earth, 12 volumes
- This is a list of abstracts of the 12 Histories of Middle-earth. It’s always best to just read the books, but if you only need a quick reminder or reference about what was in the books, this is a useful read.
About and Hosting Fanliterature
- The largest database of fanfiction there is, with the least quality control.
- While younger than FanFiction.net, it’s quickly becoming the largest fanfiction website on the web.
- Typically older writers, an excellent tagging system, this is a great place to be.
The Silmarillion Writers’ Guild
- A high quality archive that encourages scholarly inquiry.
- A great archive of LotR Gen-fic. It’s got lots of fanfiction-related things to do on it, like contests and challenges.
- If slashfic is your thing, here is the perfect fanfiction archive for you!
Henneth Annûn Fanfiction Archive
- An exclusive LotR fanfiction archive where only high quality fanfiction is published.
- I’m sorry to say this, but most of the writers in the Lord of the Ring Fandom should take this test. Take it if you have a The Lord of the Rings fan fiction, please.
- Many very good essays about writing fantasy.
Other Useful, Trustworthy Websites
- These are the copyright holders of Tolkien’s work. Respect them.
- This is the Tolkien Estate. Respect them.
Official Lord of the Rings Website
- Want to know more about the movie? Here you go!
- If you are having a hard time using Elvish without symbols, look no further! Omniglot has a page devoted to the codes of these symbols.
Hi Dreamingfifi!
Thank you for mentioning Parf Edhellen (elfdict.com) as a trustworthy source. It’s been a long process getting it where it is today, and all forms of recognition is thoroughly appreciated!
Reading the way you describe of my site, I believe it’s been a while since you visited last? We’re importing from many other dictionaries nowadays, including Eldamo. In fact, I spoke to Paul S. during the early development of his amazing dictionary, and I gave feedback on the XML format so it would be easier to integrate with Parf Edhellen. I’ve also enabled the community to contribute with missing words, and in some cases their own reconstructions. This function is however heavily moderated.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions.
Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Leonard “Aldaleon” W.
Mellonath Daeron
Hi
Thank you for mentioning Hiswelókë as a trustworthy source. :)
As an update, you may want to note that as of 2021,
It’s in English and French only (the German version was abandoned)
It was updated (with more to come soon), so as not to lack words from recent publications. The effort is ongoing, but a lot has already been done.
It’s no longer call “Hiswelókë’s Sindarin Dictionary” (as the Hiswelókë web site “closed” and articles transferred), but simply “A Sindarin and Noldorin dictionary”. It has a new website (I’m including in the information), besides still having a “mirror” on the legacy JRRVF host.