The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship (E.L.F.) is an organization devoted to the scholarly study of the invented languages of J.R.R. Tolkien, headed by Carl F. Hostetter. It was founded in 1988 as a Special Interest Group of the Mythopoeic Society. The E.L.F. publishes two print journals, Vinyar Tengwar, edited by Hostetter, and Parma Eldalamberon, edited by Christopher Gilson; an online journal, Tengwestië, edited by Hostetter and Patrick H. Wynne, also sponsoring the Lambengolmor mailing list.

HistoryEdit

In 1992, Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. appointed an editorial group consisting of the chief editors and scholars of the E.L.F. to order, edit, and then publish his father's writings concerning his invented languages, working from photocopies of the materials sent to them over the course of the next decade and from notes taken by the group's members in Tolkien manuscript archives. It was agreed by all parties that the best way to do this was chronologically, as Tolkien's writings are often enough fully explicable only in light of his earlier writings, and often enough are dependent on those earlier writings for their context (both in internal and external terms). This main course of publication is being carried out in the journal Parma Eldalamberon. There are, however, some writings that are largely independent, and/or whose context has been sufficiently established by Christopher Tolkien's own chronological publication efforts in The History of Middle-earth, and so do not have to be presented in the normal chronological flow of the larger project. These materials are now, being published in the journal Vinyar Tengwar.

External linksEdit

• E. L. F. website
• Parma Eldalamberon
• The Vinyar Tengwar site
• The Tengwestië site
• The Lambengolmor list
• Concise explanation of the editorial team's makeup and policies by Bill Welden