Doriathrin Sindarin

What is Doriathrin?
The Sindarin language has a rather complicated history, but Doriathrin Sindarin is one of the most original, pure forms. It stems from the First Age and was the language of the people of Doriath, the Sindar, who were led by Thingol and Melian the Maia.

You have been taught to use the pronouns Le, Len, Lîn and the verb endings -ol/-odh in this course for the formal second person. This is the 'modern' Sindarin usage, and correct for most speakers from the Second Age onwards. Doriathrin uses a slightly different set of pronouns and endings.

Doriathrin Sindarin would also have been spoken into the Third Age by the Elves of Mithlond (the Grey Havens)

Pronouns

Nominative	Object	Possessive
De = You are (formal)	Den = You (formal)	i ... dhîn = Your (formal)

Pronominal suffixes

Singular	Meaning	Plural	Meaning
-en	My	-em	Our
-eg	Your (informal)	-egir	All of your (informal)
-edh	Your (formal)	-edhir	All of your (formal)
-ed	His/her/its	-ent	Their

The infinitive form of the verb was formed with an -i, e.g. Ceni 'to see'
In Doriathrin Sindarin only I-stem verbs have this change to the conjugation of the infinitive.

Some verbs have changed their endings over time to become more regular. These are the past tenses of Soga- and Thora- that an older speaker of Sindarin would use and as you can see, they're irregular. A younger speaker would use the regular A-stem past tense endings (Thorannen = I fenced in, Sogannen = I drank, etc.)

Soga- to drink

I drank	Sungen	We drank	Sungem
He/she/it drank	Sunc	They drank	Sunger
Having been drunk (passive participle)	Sungen	Plural	Syngin

Thora- to fence (in)

I fenced	Thoren	We fenced	Thorem
He/she/it fenced	Thaur	They fenced	Thorer
Having been fenced (passive participle)	Thoren	Plural	Therin

Negation

Tolkien tells us that in archaic Sindarin and verse, the Elves used an alternative form of the negative ú = no, not where it acted as a verb, ú-. The second verb takes the bare stem, e.g. ped from Ped- or losta from Losta- and is mutated with soft mutation.
Instead of the modern ú-gerin = I cannot do, the Elves of the First Age would say Uin gar = I do not do.

I do not	Uin	We do not	Uim
You do not (formal)	Uidh	You all do not (formal)	Uidhir
You do not (informal)	Uig	You all do not (informal)	Uigir
He/she/it does not	Û	They do not	Uir

Examples:
Uin deitha = I do not write
Uidh ven = You do not go
Uim linna = We do not sing