The Sindarin dictionary project

The Sindarin dictionary project represents more than 800 hours of work, and it would have been made possible without the help, advices and encouragements of many other people.

Lisa Star (editor of Tyalië Tyelelliéva) and Helge Kåre Fauskanger (webmaster of Ardalambion) gave me precious advices and encouragments at the very beginning of the project. David Salo sent me his own lexicons, and kindly accepted that I use his reconstructed etymologies in this dictionary. My friend Cédric Fockeu (webmaster of J.R.R. Tolkien en Version Française) offered his technical skill in scripting languages, as well as disk space to host the original on-line search engine.

My thanks are also addressed to Ryszard Derdzinski, Dorothea Salo, B. Philip Jonsson, Sébastien Mallet and the members of the ELFLING mailing-list, for their support during the early phases of this long project; and later to Jim Allan (editor and co-author of Introduction to Elvish), Bertrand Bellet, Carl Hostetter (editor of Vinyar Tengwar), Per Lindberg (from Mellonath Daeron), Elena Liria, Emanuele Vicentini and all the other members of the Sindarin dictionary discussion group for their contributions and continual feedback, with a special mention for Javier Lorenzo for all the corrections he sent to the mailing-list.

The Dragon Flame application would not have existed without Benjamin Babut.

The Dragon Flame application would not have existed without Benjamin Babut. Likewise, this revised edition of the dictionary would not have seen the light without Benjamin's work and enthousiasm for Dragon Flame and its set of related tools. I am also indebt to Sylvain Veyrié and Thomas Deniau for having ported Dragon Flame to other operating systems.

The German translation of this dictionary is based on the work of Florian Dombach and his fellows from Das Sindarin Lexikon. Benjamin Babut and David Giraudeau contributed to the French translation.

Last but not least, this work is dedicated to Christopher Tolkien and to the Vinyar Tengwar & Parma Eldalamberon editorial staffs, whose efforts to publish J.R.R. Tolkien’s linguistic papers have made such a dictionary possible.

Technical support

Cédric Fockeu helped a lot with the CGI scripts for the search engine, and accepted to host them on his own Tolkienian web site (JRRVF). Yes, this is the guy who pays for this server space.

The phonetic web font was designed by Don Blaheta, and is used here with his permission.

Benjamin Babut is the chief developer for the Dragon Flame application. Recent improvements of the dictionary would not have seen the light without Benjamin’s work and enthousiasm for Dragon Flame and its set of related tools.

Sylvain Veyrié ported Dragon Flame on Linux, and Thomas Deniau developed the Hesperides application for MacOS X.

Press quotes

Hiswelókë présente en particulier des articles pointus et fouillés, ainsi qu’un très bon dictionnaire de sindarin.	Vincent Ferré, author of Tolkien: Sur les rivages de la Terre du Milieu.
Didier Willis, a known Tolkienian linguist from France, and his friends from Hiswelókë website have recently announced their newest Sindarin tool which name is Dragon Flame (1.0). [...] Gwaith-i-Phethdain strongly recommends Dragon Flame as one of the most comprehensive and useful linguistic tools for students of Tolkien's languages.	Ryszard Derdzinski, webmaster of Gwaith-i-Phethdain and editor of another Sindarin dictionary in Polish, Gobeth e Lam Edhellen.
I quite agree that it is possible to create a dictionary of Tolkien's languages that will be useful to scholar and student alike, through full and thorough source citation, cross-reference among entries, and by very careful consideration in writing the entries. But the fact is that the dictionaries I've seen thus far fall short of the mark. Didier's dictionary (what I've seen of it -- I do wish Didier would get the Tolkien Estate's blessing/permission and publish it) does look like the best effort I've seen to date.	Carl F. Hostetter, editor of Vinyar Tengwar, on the Lambengolmor mailing-list.
The best available English-Sindarin glossary that I know.	David Salo, linguistic consultant for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, in an interview for the unofficial Muse Fan Page
I would like to commend all the commentators who keep providing detailed feedback to Didier regarding his Sindarin dictionary, so that a work that was very good to begin with can be further refined.	Helge K. Fauskanger, webmaster of Ardalambion, on the Sindict mailing-list.
Your Sindarin dictionary website [... is] a treasure for Tolkien fans, and we have greatly missed its presence on the internet. [...] It is a wonderful tool for Tolkien fans and students of Elvish languages.	A reader, From an e-mail.
Dragon Flame is a wonderful electronic pocket reference. [...] Cuio mae mellon!.	A Dragon Flame user, From an e-mail.
Une quarantaine de sites Internet proposent des initiations aux langues tolkieniennes [...]. Didier Willis, un ingénieur informaticien qui parle couramment [sic!] le sindarin, a ainsi mis en ligne un dictionnaire sindarin/anglais qu'il s'apprête à doter d'une version française.	Article dans Le Point n°1578 du 13 décembre 2002.

---