The Inadvertent Influence of Quenya on Elefen

As young George Boeree developed his ideas for Elefen, he was naturally influenced (as a lad of 15) by the literature of the era (of various vintages): Kurt Vonnegut Jr, George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, Anthony Burgess, Star Trek, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Clearly, Tolkien would have the greatest influence on an amateur linguist! Boeree was also, like Tolkien, enamored of Finnish (even though he never got far beyond yksi, kaksi, kolme…).¹

The most obvious (and unimportant) similarity is the use of C for K. Elefen, like Quenya, has a limited number of consonants: P B, T, D, K, G, M, N, NG, F, V, S, H, R, W, J, L. Elefen does not have /x/, although H is used for the sound in words adopted from languages that do (e.g. Hanate), and Quenya does not have Z, /ʃ/, or /ʒ/. In Elefen, U and I do double duty for W and Y. As in Quenya, Elefen allows for KW, GW, NY, and LY.

In Quenya, the permitted consonantal finals to a syllable are N, R, L, S, T, NT. In Elefen, they are M, N, NG, R, L, S, and X. The next syllable after a vowel, or one of these sounds following a vowel, can begin with any of the sounds permitted as initial.

According to Boeree, he regrets that initial clusters, such as KR, KL, GR, GL, PR, PL, BR, BL, TR, DR, as well as SP, ST, SK, SPR, SPL, SKL, SKR, STL, STR, are simply too common in the source language not to retain.

Vowels in both languages tend to simplicity: A, E, I, O, U. Quenya extends that with short /ɛ/ and /ɔ/, which Elefen allows as alternatives to /e/ and /o/. The two languages have the same diphthongs: AI, AU, OI, EU.

Both languages deemphasize stress – it is not phonemic. But what there is depends more on syllable weight than anything else. Typically, a heavy syllable – i.e. stressed – is found in CVV syllables, i.e. ending in a diphthong. A light syllable – unstressed – is found in CV or CVC syllables. In more common terms, if a word ends in a consonant or a single vowel, the stress is on the penultimate; if it ends in a diphthong, the stress on the ultimate, e.g. “TO-ta”, “ca-CAU”. Things get a little difficult with words ending in two vowels yet not a diphthong, such as “i-DE-a”, and “BA-ia”. In “baia”, the I is actually a consonant, and the E in “idea” is treated as if it were pronounced i-DEY-a. (But Tolkien does not discuss the details of stress because, as in Elefen, stress is not very important!)

So both languages have a rather light, musical sound, most resembling Italian as spoken a little north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line in Lombardy. This certainly makes sense for Elefen, since the vocabulary is based not only on Italian, but also on the western Romance languages. As for Quenya, it was specifically designed by J. R. R. Tolkien to suit his tastes, which apparently were quite similar.

Please note that Boeree never consciously sought to imitate Quenya or any other language by Tolkien or for that matter anyone else! And it is totally coincidental that “Lingua Franca Nova” can be abbreviated to “Elfen”… I mean “Elefen”!