Did Tolkien think about language evolution when the speakers are immortal?

Question

Tolkien, being a linguist, designed his fictional languages rather carefully. Quenya and Sindarin were closely related, having both descended from the primordial speech of the elves. Tolkien, of course, knew about how languages change and split in the real world, but there is a key difference between humans and elves: Elves are immortal.

This got me thinking about how elvish language would change if many of the first generation of speakers is still around. In the real world, the speech of individuals changes of their lifetimes, somewhat following the changes in the language around them, but immortality would probably suppress linguistic evolution to a significant extent. Thingol banned the speech of the Noldor in Doriath, but what language did Thingol himself speak? Modern Sindarin? The Proto-Elf of the first generation that awoke in the East?

What I'm wondering is whether there's any evidence that Tolkien thought about this, or whether he assumed that linguistic evolution for elves would be just like that in the real world.

Answer 1

Tolkien wrote an essay on this subject in 1960, called "Dangweth Pengolod." The essay is rather long, so I'm not going to quote the whole thing, but the highlight for me is this passage:

[T]o the changefulness of Ea, to weariness of the unchanged, to the renewing of the union: to these three, which are one, the Eldar also are subject in their degree. In this, however, they differ from Men, that they are ever more aware of the words that they speak.

[...]

A man may indeed change his spoon or his cup at his will, and need ask none to advise him or to follow his choice. It is other indeed with words or the modes and devices of speech. Let him bethink him of a new word, be it to his heart howsoever fresh and fair, it will avail him little in converse, until other men are of like mind or will receive his invention. But among the Eldar there are many quick ears and subtle minds to hear and appraise such inventions, and though many be the patterns and devices so made that prove in the end only pleasing to a few, or to one alone, many others are welcomed and pass swiftly from mouth to mouth, with laughter or delight or with solemn thought - as maybe a new jest or new-found saying of wisdom will pass among men of brighter wit. For to the Eldar the making of speech is the oldest of the arts and the most beloved.

^{History of Middle-earth XII The Peoples of Middle-earth PArt 3: "The Teachings of Pengolod" Chapter 14: "Dangweth Pengolod"}

Thus, the Elvish languages evolve similarly to how mortal languages do, but in a more deliberate, guided way.

There's also evidence that Quenya borrowed from Valarin, the language of the Valar and Maiar:

The Eldar took few words from the Valar, for they were rich in words and ready in invention at need.

^{History of Middle-earth XI The War of the Jewels Part 4: "Quendi and Eldar" Appendix D: "*Kwen, Quenya, and the Elvish (especially Noldorin) words for 'Language'"}

What effect that would have had on Sindarin is unknown, especially since Thingol banned its use, but it is evidence that the Elves were willing to borrow from other languages, when it suited them.

There's further discussion on this subject in The Peoples of Middle-earth, where Tolkien remarks that the Elvish tongues in Middle-earth did indeed diverge from those in the Undying Lands:

All things changed in Arda, even in the Blessed Realm of the Valar; but there the change was so slow that it could not be observed (save maybe by the Valar) in great ages of time. The change in the language of the Eldar would thus have been halted in Valinor; but in their early days the Eldar continued to enlarge and refine their language, and to change it, even in structure and sounds. Such change, however, to remain uniform required that the speakers should remain in communication. Thus it came about that the languages of the Eldar that remained in Middle-earth diverged from the language of the High Eldar of Valinor so greatly that neither could be understood by speakers of the other; for they had been separated for a great age of time, during which even the Sindarin, the best preserved of those in Middle-earth, had been subject to the heedless changes of passing years, changes which the Teleri were far less concerned to restrain or to direct by design than the Noldor.

^{History of Middle-earth XII The Peoples of Middle-earth Chapter X: "Of Dwarves and men" Relations of the Longbeard Dwarves and Men}

Answer 2

I'd say their languages did not evolve at all.

Think about it. You are immortal, about the only thing that is going to save you from going batshit insane is the dependability of the things you have named and created -- to stay the same. I think that's where the prejudice against elves in their high halls comes from. They are aloof, because to become mired in the changing world is to loose who and what they are. That is the arrogance you see, in their actions.