Council of the Wise · Seat 1

The Seat of Sindarin

Daeron of Doriath

Sindarin was the tongue of the Grey-elves, who stayed in Beleriand when their kin sailed West, and its greatest home was Doriath, the hidden kingdom of King Thingol. When the Noldor came back from Valinor speaking Quenya, Thingol learned that they had slain his kin at Alqualondë. His answer changed the history of language in Middle-earth: "Never again in my ears shall be heard the tongue of those who slew my kin in Alqualondë! Nor in all my realm shall it be openly spoken." From then on the exiles used Sindarin in daily life, and it became the common speech of all the Elves of Beleriand. Thousands of years later it is still the Elvish of Middle-earth: the tongue of Aragorn's Elvish, of the Doors of Durin and of "A Elbereth Gilthoniel". Thingol's loremaster was Daeron, his minstrel, who devised the runes called the Cirth. This seat guards Sindarin as Daeron did: every word in a Lammath lesson should be one Tolkien really gave it.

Sources: The Silmarillion, Of the Sindar; Of the Noldor in Beleriand; The Lord of the Rings, Appendix F.