Elvish

                                               Early Elvish
                                                    |
                                    ________________|______________
                                    |                             |
                                 Quenya                        Avarish
                                    |
                     _______________|
                     |              |___________________
              Quenya of Aman        |                  |
                     |             Sindarin            |
                  Telerin                            Nandorin

Usually the term 'Elvish' is in reference to Quenya, since it is the most modern and most derived from of the Elven dialects. If you look at the tree of the different 'races' of Elves, it looks (not surprisingly) very similar to the this tree. The most common language spoken in Middle-Earth was Sindarin, as it was the native language of the Grey-Elves of Beleriand. The king of these Elves (Thingol) even went so far as to forbid the use of Quenya, or High-Elven, in his realm. Quenya was the language of the Elves that remained in Valinor after the Oath of Fëanor.

If you're wondering why Avarish is all alone over there, it's because the Avari were the Elves that never went to Valinor, and thus were separated from all the other races of Elves. Once again, a parallel to the race tree.

After about the Third Age, most Elven dialects evolved from Sindarin.

elvish n.

1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms resembling the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the "Book of Kells". Invented and described by J. R. R. Tolkien in "The Lord of The Rings" as an orthography for his fictional `elvish' languages, this system (which is both visually and phonetically elegant) has long fascinated hackers (who tend to be intrigued by artificial languages in general). It is traditional for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and the like to support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo items. See also elder days. 2. By extension, any odd or unreadable typeface produced by a graphics device. 3. The typeface mundanely called `Böcklin', an art-Noveau display font.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Elv"ish (?), a.

1.

Pertaining to elves; implike; mischievous; weird; also, vacant; absent in demeanor. See Elfish.

He seemeth elvish by his countenance. Chaucer.

2.

Mysterious; also, foolish.

© Webster 1913.