The War of the Jewels by J. R. R. Tolkien

times of great change, not only because of the labours and troubles of those years, but because in the first years of the Sun and the second Spring of Arda the growth and change of all living things was sudden and swift. Far other at the end of the Wars were [both the Sindarin and Noldorin tongues later >] the tongues of Beleriand (11) than they were at the landing of Feanor, and only the High Speech being learned anew from letters remained unaltered. But these histories were made after the Last Battle and the end of the Elder Days, and therefore they were made in the tongue of the remnant of the Elves as it then was, ere it passed again into the West, and the names of those that they record and of the places that are remembered have for the most part that form which they had in the spoken speech at the last.

    Here ends that part which was drawn mainly from the Grey Annals, and there follows matter drawn in brief from the Quenta Noldorinwa, and mingled with the traditions of Doriath.(12)

    In this revised version, nothing is said about Sindarin and Noldorin
    'drawing together' again, and there is no suggestion that the later tongue of the Noldor came to be regarded as 'debased'; spoken Noldorin endured (as the passage was originally written) in the wholly Noldorin city of Gondolin until its fall. The whole conception becomes in fact far simpler: the Noldor retained their own tongue as a High Speech, but Sindarin became their language of daily use (and this was because of the numerical inferiority of the Noldor and the mingling of the peoples outside Doriath, the difficulty that the Sindar found in acquiring the High Speech, and the ban imposed by Thingol).
    Sindarin received .'loanwords' from Noldorin, but not in Doriath, where the language remained somewhat archaic. By later changes to the text (see notes 8-11) the idea that Noldorin remained in daily use in Gondolin was abandoned.
    It is interesting to read, at the end of this last version, that 'these histories' were made 'after the Last Battle and the end of the Elder Days, and therefore they were made in the tongue of the remnant of the Elves as it then was, ere it passed again into the West.'
    NOTES.

    1. 365 years of the Valar: 1132-1497 (see GA $11).
    2. On the awakening of Beleriand from the Sleep of Yavanna see $$6, 17, and the commentary on $ $6, 10.
    3. A rough draft of this passage is extant, and this has here: Therefore whereas the tongue of the Noldor had changed for the most part only in the making of new words (for things new and old), and in the wilful altering of the ancient tongue of the Quendi to forms and patterns that seemed to the Eldar more beautiful - in which Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri differed and drew apart - the tongue of the Sindar had changed as living things change by growth - yet only so as in the later world might pass in 400 years.
    4. Earlier in GA 1 the form is Nauglath: see the commentary on 519.
    5. On this passage concerning the Runes of Dairon see $31 and commentary.
    6. Dagor Aglareb, the Glorious Battle, was formerly the Second Battle (see commentary on $$36 ff.).
    7. Dagor Arnediad: the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (Nirnaith Arnediad).
    8. This represents my father's original view that there were no Grey-elves among the people of Gondolin; see note 9.
    9. The removal of the words 'and Gondolin' shows the entry of the later conception (see note 8) that many Sindar dwelling in Nivrost at the coming of the Noldor took Turgon to be their lord, and that there were in fact more Elves of Sindarin origin than of Noldorin in the people of Gondolin; see $$107, 113 and commentary.
    10. This passage was removed at the same time and for the same reason as the words 'and Gondolin' earlier in this revised text (note 9).
    11. The change of 'both the Sindarin and Noldorin tongues' to 'the tongues of Beleriand' was made later than the changes referred to in notes 9 and 10, but presumably for the same reason, since the reference was to the spoken