There is a lot of word that will change the first letter of the word following it. This is call Mutations. In Sindarin this is really essential to know them. You might have already tried to translate or find a Sindarin word and put it into English to know the meaning of it, you might as well had find it really hard to find. Most time it is because the word isn’t in is original forms. The first time I realised that there was an grammar in Sindarin, is when I tried to translate the Sindarin Lament for Gandalf (Fellowship pf the Ring Movie) into English to know what was said since Legolas have not the heart to tell us! It was almost impossible to find the words, and when I was looking from English into Sindarin, I thought there was error since the words wasn’t the same then in the song. This is because of the mutations who change the word from is original form. We have more then one kind of mutations, the most seen is the Soft mutations following by the Nasal Mutations that is seen in 2 different kinds. There is more kind of mutations that is called mixed, but we will not see that one on this documents it is rarely seen and hard to understand.

The Soft Mutations

1) Most of the soft mutations will occur when the article i is used.

        Pân = I Bân
        Tâl = I Dâl

2) The soft mutations can be seen as well with particles ending by a vowel, so the following word will be soft mutated.

We know or deduce that soft mutation occurs after the following particles and prefixes:

Prepositions:

        ab (after, behind, following, later)
        adel(behind, in the rear (of))
        Am (up, above, over)
        Be(according to, as like)
        di (under, beneath)
        Na (to, Towards, at, of, with, by)
        Nu (no)(under)
        Trî (through)

Prefix:

        ab (after, behind, following, later)
        am (up, above, over)
        ath- (on both sides, across)
        athra- (across)
        Dad- (down)
        go- gwa- (together)
        Tre- (Through)

*The negative element ú-, u- "not" or "without", used as a prefix,

Adverbs:

        dad = down

The negative adverb avo, which is used with an imperative to express a negative command, causes soft mutation of following verb: caro! "do (it)!", but avo garo! "don't do (it)!" Avo may also be reduced to a prefix av-, still

3) Most of the time, the second element of a compound will do a soft mutations. Gil-Galad

        Gil=star
        Calad=light

So when calad is fix to Gil it go under a soft mutations that change it into Galad, so Gil-Galad not Gil-Calad

4) When a verb immediately follow its subject he will be soft mutated. This is not the case if the verb comes before the subject,

5) In Sindarin, adjectives (including participles) following the noun they describe are usually mutated.

In Sindarin an adjective normally does follow the noun it describes; you say "isle green", Tol Galen, instead of "green isle". Galen is here the mutated form of calen "green".

There is the list of the mutations following the article (I)

b = i v
bl = i vl
br = i vr
c = i g
cl = i gl
cr = i gr
d = i dh
dr = i dhr
f = i f
g = i ‘
gl = i ‘l
gr = i ‘r
gw = i ‘w
h = i ch
hw = i chw
l = i l
lh = i thl
m = i v
n = i n
p = i b
pr = i br
r = i r
rh = i thr
s = i h
t = i d
th = i th
tr = i dr

Exercices

Rem (net) ----> i _________

pân (plank) ----> i _________

daw (gloom) ----> i _________

lhûg (dragon) ----> i _________

blabed (flapping) ----> i _________

fend (threshold) ----> i _________

crist (cleaver, sword) -->i _________

gloss (snow) ----> i _________

grond (club) ----> i _________

nath (web) ----> i _________

bess (woman) ----> i _________

hwest (breeze) ----> i _________

rhaw (flesh) ----> i _________

lam (tongue) ----> i _________