Reddit reviews A Gateway to Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish Language from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

There's a way, sort of, J.R.R.Tolkien has left all his linguistic writings on the Elvish Languages in 7 big boxes, (thousands of pages per box) and Christopher Tolkien has later referred to them naming as Quenya A, B, up to Quenya G, for they can be specifically identified. Yes, not a couple of boxes, but even 7, my mellyn (PE: 22, p. 141).

Be aware, though, that if you do not have a particular background, these pages will be likely not understandable, sadly...

Regarding what you can hear/read online:

In real life it is simple. If you do not follow the rules of English grammar you are not writing or speaking in English. If you don't follow Tolkien's rules you are not writing his elf! Anyone who visits the websites dedicated to Elvish languages (Eldalie, Quenya.101, Ardalambion, etc.) or reads the books dedicated to them (those of David Salo, Ruth S. Noel, Pesch, Comastri, etc.) trying to learn Quenya or Sindarin, will be baffled by the array of many different and conflicting grammar rules. These sites and books never agree with each other. Why?

Because every author has invented his own rules.

We read from many writers (Drout, Pesch) and on the net that there are many “neo-elvish” languages: the neo-quenya and neo-sindarin. But it is not correct, neo-elvish languages do not exist or rather are not languages. Writing: Something wure mi expectatione [sic] does not mean that whoever wrote it is the creator of a neo-english language, the same with: Alaghioru saranno alboro dormirenene [sic] won’t make you the creator of a new neo-italian language. To create a neo-language one must first of all be a linguist, know the rules of a Tolkien elven language well and from there build a new elven language. What a job! Those who build what they call neo-Sindarin and neo-quenya only rarely mention Tolkien's grammars and almost never explain what they do (for example, I change this thing written by Tolkien, because I invented a certain new rule). What they build are not languages. They distort the little of what they understand about Tolkien's logopoeia at will.

Unfortunately, there's not really one standard way to learn Tolkien's languages, so some courses disagree with each other, and it's important to watch out for what the author of any given course decided vs. what Tolkien intended.

That being said, I'm a huge fan of Ardalambion – the Quenya courses they have are fantastic, though a bit dense with linguistic concepts (but he teaches terminology as he goes, and the ideas are worth knowing).

For Sindarin, I've had some good experiences with Your Sindarin Textbook but it's not nearly as detailed or as easy to follow. You may also hear about David Salo's Gateway to Sindarin. Salo's the linguist who worked on the Jackson movies – his work is good if you're looking for movie Sindarin, but it's pretty non-standard regarding the Sindarin of the books.

Of course, there's also /r/Quenya and /r/Sindarin, both of which have excellent resource lists.

If you have not already done so, I would strongly urge you to read A Secret Vice, the book not just the essay. The book was published only a few years ago, I think. It serves as an insight into Professor Tolkien’s views on languages, both real and invented.

I would also recommend reading the Professor’s essay English and Welsh, published in the book The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays.

Another recommendation is David Salo’s A Gateway to Sindarin, though it is primarily a grammar of his Neo-Sindarin for the LOTR movies, he does explore Tolkien’s methods for inventing languages and his inspirations.

A good general resource is this site (particularly the 'links of interest' section if you're looking at the real world history). It should be more than enough if you're writing a typical high school paper or low level college paper. You'll probably need more for a hardcore research paper though.

I'm assuming your prior knowledge is pretty limited if you even think you can write much about Dwarvish or Black speech. Dwarvish has the most vague of grammar outlines less than a page of vocab, and Black Speech has less than that. You could talk about Elvish all day though.

If you're able to get your hands on A Gateway to Sindarin then half your paper is finished already. (Disclaimer, David Salo seems like a decent author and linguist to my amateur eyes, but he has a nasty habit of making educated guesses and treating them as fact. But as a general introduction to a complete beginner it's an amazing book.)

Other than that it's hard to recommend any singular sources that can help much beyond having complete familiarity with Tolkien's world and published books. Stay the hell away from lotr.wikia and related sites, but honestly Wikipedia itself gives a decent overview here. Just be sure to only get ideas from there and back them up yourself from the source material.

Lojban:

Grammar: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Lojban-Language-John-Cowan/dp/0966028325

Course: https://www.amazon.com/Lojban-For-Beginners/dp/1257372874

Dictionary: http://www.lulu.com/shop/llg/lojban-english-dictionary/paperback/product-14709640.html

Ithkuil:

Grammar: https://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Ithkuil-Language-John-Quijada/dp/B071G1XDKT

Vulcan:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-r-gardner-and-the-vulcan-language-institute/the-vulcan-language/paperback/product-54300.html

Siwa:

Course: http://www.lulu.com/shop/%C3%A9tienne-l-poisson/a-beginners-course-in-modern-siwa/paperback/product-22931582.html

Grammar: http://www.lulu.com/shop/%C3%A9tienne-l-poisson/siwa-a-descriptive-grammar-2nd-edition/paperback/product-22931574.html

Na'vi:

http://eanaeltu.learnnavi.org/dicts/NaviDictionary.pdf

Dothraki:

https://docs.dothraki.org/Dothraki.pdf

Valarian:

http://wiki.dothraki.org/High_Valyrian_Vocabulary

Sindarin:

http://sindarinlessons.weebly.com/uploads/8/0/1/0/8010213/sindarin-english_dictionary_-_3rd_edition.pdf

http://www.ambar-eldaron.com/english/downloads/sindarin-english.pdf

Gateway to Sindarin: https://www.amazon.com/Gateway-Sindarin-Grammar-Language-Tolkiens/dp/0874809126

A Fan's Guide to Neo-Sindarin: A Textbook for the Elvish of Middle-earth https://www.amazon.com/Fans-Guide-Neo-Sindarin-Textbook-Middle-earth/dp/1546961259

Elvish Dictionary: https://www.amazon.com/Elbisches-Wörterbuch/dp/3608939199

Quenya:

http://www.ambar-eldaron.com/telechargements/quenya-engl-A4.pdf

Potentially helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Gateway-Sindarin-Grammar-Language-Tolkiens/dp/0874809126

This guy is the one that handled most of the elvish in the LoTR movies:

https://www.amazon.com/Gateway-Sindarin-Grammar-Language-Tolkiens/dp/0874809126

In case you're up to getting a book, I highly recommend David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin. It's about $25 on Amazon.