Elvish
lesson eight : lention I
I gerthas deli nin! (The alphabet hates me!)
Okay, we're here. Finally. The lesson you've all been waiting for. Lenition. The hinge-pin of a majority of successful translations. So... what the heck is lenition, anyway?
Lenition is the most common form of consonant mutation in Sindarin. (Yes, there are others -- we'll cover those over the next few lessons.) Consonants mutate mainly because of articles and prepositions, although there are other cases where mutations occur that we will cover as we go. The reason behind mutation is to cancel out the "conflict" of differing sounds of adjacent words. While this is not a concept that is explicit in English, dialectal changes can shift certain sounds closer together when speaking quickly. Think of the sort of change that shifts "you all" into "y'all" in certain places or "you guys" into "youse guys" in other places.
Lenition means "softening" and that's exactly what it does. Lenition is a process that softens harsh sounds so that they flow together more naturally. In general terms, lenition causes initial consonants of words to change to 'voiced' counterparts. (Remember voiced and unvoiced from the pronunciation lesson?) Look at the chart below to see what consonants change and what they change to. (Note that vowels never undergo any form of mutation.)
| Initial | Mutated | Initial | Mutated | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B | V | L | L | |
| BL | VL | LH | THL | |
| BR | VR | M | V | |
| C | G | N | N | |
| CL | GL | P | B | |
| CR | GR | PR | BR | |
| D | DH | R | R | |
| DR | DHR | RH | THR | |
| F | F | S | H | |
| G | ' | T | D | |
| GL | 'L | TH | TH | |
| GR | 'R | TR | DR | |
| GW | 'W | B | M | |
| H | CH | D | N | |
| HW | CHW | G | NG |
Notice that F, L, N, R, and TH do not undergo lenition. These are already voiced consonants and do not require softening.
Those that are listed in red are special cases caused because of the evolution of words from the primitive stems MB, ND, and NG, respectively. The list of words that this applies to can be found here. Unfortunately, it's just something that you'll have to memorize (or at least keep the list handy), because there isn't any pattern to which words this rule applies.
Now, let's look at some examples. We'll look at all the occasions where lenition occurs in the next lesson, but for now, we'll deal with only the definite article 'i'. Nouns following the definite article, as you may remember from the 'Articles and Genitives' lesson, always undergo lenition. So, for example:
lover: melethron --> the lover: i velethron
affliction: caul --> the affliction: i gaul
metal: tinc --> the metal: i dinc
fist: paur --> the fist: i baur
snake: lhûg --> the snake: i thlûg
conclusion
- Lenition is the most common consonant mutation.
- Lenition occurs in order to soften harsh opposing sounds that occur in adjacent words.
- Lenition does not occur for F, L, N, R, TH, or vowels.
- Some words from primitive Elvish undergo lenition differently; refer to the chart for which words.
