Can I learn to speak or write Elvish?”
There are parts of the languages worked out quite thoroughly, but not a complete grammar. Tolkien himself said that he did not have the urge to converse in Elvish, which was just as well because he did not make enough to converse in, except perhaps about stars, trees and death. However, he wrote poems in various Elvish languages, and recited them for his pleasure, and also some phrases like the Elvish greeting that Frodo greets Gildor with, elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo (a star shines on the hour of our meeting), which is written out in Tengwar at the top of these pages. Some language enthusiasts write short poems in elvish for much the same reason. He made many different dialects of Elvish, and kept changing them (this is what he liked doing). There is less of the other languages, although there is quite a bit of Adûnaic (Númenórean) grammar in History IX (Sauron Defeated). To give you some idea what ordinary users are up against, when our Pat wanted a name for a local smial, the Concr
