Appointment to the High Elvish Academy is for life, which has historically limited new blood as elves are functionally immortal, and a current member must voluntarily resign or be killed in an accident or battle for anew one to be appointed. To say that the current group of Academicians is linguistically conservative would be an understatement–or, as one of them might correct you, a vaatlyawe.

The academy has been particularly defensive about loanwords from human tongues creeping in. Given the recent explosion of advanced digital technology, the High Elvish Academy has been struggling to create appropriate words to describe concepts that postdate the Sundering of the World Trees. For most young elves under 100, for instance, they call an electronic message an eamyl–an email. But in the official High Elvish dictionary, and in online translators, the word taikviest is used instead, a combination of the High Elvish root taik, for magic or sorcery, and the root vie for a message written in an impersonal hand.

Needless to say, despite taikviest being officially preferred, the number of elves under the age of 500 that use it conversationally is approximately zero. Indeed, there was even dissent from among the elvish linguistics community, which had suggested kipviest–“spark message”–instead in a formal proposal from the Elvish Studies department at Oxbridge, only to be ignored. The description of modern technology as “magic” or “sorcery” in many of the Academy’s neologisms has done little to push back against the idea that they are stodgy elitists.

More controversial still has been the assigning of names from the Elvish legendarium to concepts and inventions that they had no part in creating. For instance, the great hero Miekwë is famous for running 5,000 Elvish leagues to announce the death of the dread lord Vihol before dying from the strain. As a result, the Academy ordained that running shoes or sneakers be called Miekwëken, or “Miekwë’s shoes.” This despite Miekwë living in the First Age and never having seen smelted bronze, let alone modern plastics

This far, Elvish traditionalists in the Academy and more progressive voices have found themselves at an impasse. But as the Elvish language in dictionaries continues to drift further and further from what is spoken on the street, it is expected that things will eventually come to a head, with the Academy forced to adapt or see its speakers lose their proficiency.

  • Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!