Forum

I'm not sure Tolkien was entirely consistent here with the published legendarium. The Silvan language does continue to dominate in Lothlórien. However, by the end of the Third Age Sindarin becomes the dominant language of the Mirkwood Elves with little remaining of Silvan except some place names and perhaps personal names.

"... at the end of the Third Age there were prob. more people (Men) that knew Q. (Quenya), or spoke S. (Sindarin), than there were Elves who did either! Though dwindling, the population of Minas Tirith and its fiefs must have been much greater than that of Lindon, Rivendell, and Lorien.*
*The Silvan Elves of Thranduil's realm did not speak S.(Sindarin) but a related language or dialect"
-The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 347, p. 425

"... but they still remembered that they were in origin Eldar, members of the Third Clan, and they welcomes those of the Noldor and especially the Sindar who did not pass over the Sea but migrated eastward [i.e. at the beginning of the Second Age]. Under the leadership of these they became again ordered folk and increased in wisdom. Thranduil father of Legolas of the Nine Walkers was Sindarin, and that tongue was used in his house, though not by all his folk."

"In Lorien, where many of the people were Sindar in origin, or Noldor, survivors from Eregion, Sindarin had become the language of all the people. In what way their Sindarin differed from the forms of Beleriand -- see FR II 6, where Frodo reports that the speech of the Silvan folk that they used among themselves was unlike that of the West -- is not of course now known. It probably differed in little more than what would now be popularly called 'accent': mainly differences of vowel-sounds and intonation sufficient to mislead one who, as Frodo, was not well acquainted with purer Sindarin. There may of course also have been some local words and other features ultimately due to the influence of the former Silvan tongue ..."

"By the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring: Lorien and the realm of Thranduil in northern Mirkwood."
-Unfinished Tales, "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn", "Appendix A: The Silvan Elves and their Speech", pp. 256-7

Nowhere (I believe) is it made clear how the adoption of the Silvan speech by the Sindarin rulers of the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood, as described (in my previous post, as quoted by Otaku), is to be related to the statement cited (above) that by the end of the Third Age Silvan Elvish had ceased to be spoken in Thranduil's realm.
-Unfinished Tales, "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn", "Appendix B: The Sindarin Princes of the Silvan Elves", pp. 259-60

Hi Smog,
I found your entire essay on the subject of elven cultures in the regions of Lindon very interesting and well thought out. However, I would disagree with you on one point concerning the mixing of cultures. Even though the time span of 6000 years described above in your post (see quote) may be a long time, I do not find the comparison of the triple time span between us and Christ very helpful for the idea of the mixing of the elven cultures. Elves reproduce, if you go by some prominent examples, quite differently from humans, for whom there would probably be no differences after 6000 years. Elrond, for example, has only 3 children in a period of 6000 years and these have, as far as known, no descendants until the ring war. Also, the question is whether there is something like a dominant culture in terms of descendants, since Elrond, if I am not mistaken, is considered a Noldor, although he is descended from a wide variety of cultures.
Thank you for your detailed post

Hi Kajarotte, I'm glad you found the post insightful. I should clarify, however, that you are asserting this mixture of cultures to be generational and the result of those peoples taking spouses and having children across clan lines, but that was not my premise. Indeed, Elves had been doing such a thing as far back as the Years of the Trees, whether it be Finarfin and Earwen (the parents of Felagund and Galadriel) or even Finwe and Indis (for which it would be difficult to find an earlier example).

The huge divide in years was merely to give context to the reader for how long of a span had passed between the end of the First and Third Ages. This was only meant to be considered alongside textual examples that Tolkien provided us about some of the Sindar's integration with their Silvan cousins, such as the following:

"Oropher had come among (the Silvan Elves) with only a handful of Sindar, and they were soon merged with the Silvan Elves, adopting their language and taking names of Silvan form and style. This they did deliberately; for they ... came from Doriath after its ruin, and had no desire to leave Middle-earth, nor to be merged with the other Sindar of Beleriand, dominated by the Noldorin Exiles for whom the folk of Doriath had no great love. They wished indeed to become Silvan folk and to return, as they said, to the simple life natural to the Elves before the invitation of the Valar had disturbed it".
-Unfinished Tales, "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn", "Appendix B: The Sindarin Princes of the Silvan Elves", p. 259

So in this passage, we learn a couple things, the most important of which is that cultural appropriation was something that occurred between different Elven peoples. Tolkien states outright that some of the Sindar chose to adapt to more rustic Silvan lifestyles. He also insinuates that some Sindar living among the Noldor had been "dominated" by them, which to me says integrated in a culturally one-sided manner. Another interesting takeaway is that Oropher had a reduced following of Sindar when compared to Amdir and Amroth in Lorinand (Lothlorien), and Celeborn and Galadriel in Ost-in-Edhil prior to their (eventual) further migration to Lorien.

To address your questions concerning Elven marriage and child-rearing frequency, we have far more examples of Elves having children (relatively) early in life rather than late, which was indeed their custom! For numerous examples of this, I would urge you to reference the family trees of the Noldor of the Y.T. and the First Age, but the following passage on the life cycle of Elves will likely also be of interest to you:

"The Eldar brought forth few children; and also that their time of generation was in their youth or earlier life, unless strange and hard fates befell them. But at whatever age they married, their children were born within a short space of years after their wedding."
-Morgoth's Ring, "Part Three. The Later Quenta Silmarillion: (II) The Second Phase: Laws and Customs among the Eldar", p. 212

So as the Professor has stated, it was far more common for Elves to begin bearing children early in life (though early is rather relative, obviously) and shortly after being wed. Of key importance to your specific example is the line "unless strange and hard fates befell them" for which there is hardly a better example than Elrond who was confronted with war and strife for nearly the entirety of the first two ages of the world. However, even that being the case, citing Elrond as only have 3 children in 6000 years is misleading within the greater context of his life. As was the stated Elvish custom, once Elrond finally took Celebrian as his wife in TA 109, they had their first children (Elladan and Elrohir) only 21 years later in TA 130 and Arwen "shortly" after in 241. In summary, it was not the number of years that it took Elrond to have children that was odd, but rather the length of time it took him to marry (in fact, he and Celebrian had met nearly 2000 years prior!). But again, this can largely be attributed to the extremely difficult life he had through the First and Second Ages.

For more information on this topic, I would strongly encourage you to read "Laws and Customs among the Eldar" from Morgoth's Ring. It provides fantastically deep insight into the lives and manners of the Elves that is not matched anywhere else in the Legendarium. For a (regretfully, in my opinion) much reduced summary, you can also read the Tolkien Gateway article on the topic here.

Cheers!

thank you very much for the recommendation. Actually I even own the book, but I haven't read it all yet, because the history of Middleearth is not available in the German translation except for the first two volumes. This unfortunately makes it even less accessible to me than if it were my mother tongue. I think that reading it is anyway not very accessible, as you hear.

With the family trees from the Silmarillion I still didn't have the impression that the elves get married and have children so early compared to a human life. I may be wrong there and try to read Morgoths ring as soon as possible.