Sound changes in Vanyarin Quenya?

Hey, I'm hyperfocusing on Vanyarin rn, and kinda tripping out over one contradiction I can't find much information on. Some sources I found online say that the Vanyar pronounced <f> very softly, almost like <hw>, and possibly ended up pronouncing them the same, and other sources say the opposite, that the Vanyar just pronounced <hw> as <f>. I can't get to their sources. Am I misunderstanding something? Is one side right and the other wrong? Did Tolkien change his mind? Has anyone else run into this problem or am I just a dunce? I know Vanyarin isn't really on this site, so I understand if this is not the right place, but knowing language nerds, I expect to be thoroughly humiliated by the answer already being completely obvious to y'all. Thanks in advance

I don't recall whether Tolkien ever explicitly said this about Vanyarin, but it seems like that f and hw in Vanyarin were pronounced as a voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ] (whereas the Ñoldorin f is labiodental).

I remember Quenya "r" often stays "z" in Quendya.

So e.g. I had a name "Rainâro" in Quenya ("Raenor" in Sindarin) which ended as "Rayâze" in Quendya. But where do you have the "f" Info from?

Rainâro is not a valid name in Quenya, if only because Quenya does not employ circumflexes. What is the intended meaning of this name?

My best guess of the intended meaning is "smiling-one" or "netted-one" (unrelated but homophonous meanings). But if so, then it should be Rainaro instead. This, however, would remain the same in Vanyarin. Not all R's in Quenya are Z's in Vanyarin, it depends on the etymology.

Regarding the hw > f merger in Vanyarin, Tolkien mentioned in in PE19:

• "In later Vanyarin pronunciation hw became f, but remained distinct from f in Noldorin and in the Exilic TQ." [PE19/75]

• "In Vanyarin hw from sw became f together with hw of other origin; while hy became [š]" [PE19/79]

As I said, such a merger likely implies that the /f/ sound remained as [ɸ] in Vanyarin, facilitating a merger with [ʍ]. But this is simply my interpretation (though I wouldn't be surprised if others suggested it before me).

By the way, the exact same merger happens in North Sindarin too, though there it is my impression that the merger happened relatively early and the pronunciation later developed into [f] regardless.

"Smile of sunlight" with "ázë"/árë, in Quenya with Genetive, in Quendya simple. Was formed some years ago, before some of the word forms here in the dictionary were deleted, so might not be up to date with the newest stand of research, but still it has quite a striking difference between Quenya/Quendya forms, so I gave it as an example.

Raináre < raina + áre would rather mean "smiling/gracious sunlight". There is no attested noun for "smile" in late conceptual periods, but the neologism reo has been proposed, and it seems like a good option to me. With this, "smile of sunlight" can be rendered in Ñoldorin Quenya as Árireo if it is a late compound and Ásireo if it is ancient. In Vanyarin it would be Ázireo regardless.

I think there was no single word for smile in Quenya yet before, so I used the PE root. Also there as nothing there about genitive's usage in Quendya, so I let that be. I build it akin to Fëanáro - Spirit of Fire / Rainâro - Smile of Sunlight. If I kept that structure would it be "Rëáro" (N)/ "Rëoázë" (V) then?

Still I remembered the "ázë"/"árë" distinction as striking between Quendya and Quenya, so I mentioned it here.

Thanks a lot for bringing me up-to-date!

P.S. Would "rëo" be expected to have the same from in Vanyarin as in Ñoldorin Quenya?

There should be no genitive morpheme inside the compound, it's unnecessary. There isn't one in Feanáro either, the final -o there is likely just a nominal ending. We have no compounds with a genitive morpheme inside the compound as far as I know.

The neologism I offered for "smile", reo, is derived from the PE root RAY "smile", so no issues there.

You should pay attention to the order of the elements in the compound: the first element is the modifier, and the second element is the head (=the main part). In "smile of sunlight" the head is "smile" (because a smile of sunlight is a kind of smile, not a kind of sunlight), so in a compound it would be sunlight-smile (in Quenya and English both). Hence my suggestion of *Árireo / Ásireo**.

Note also that the element áre becomes ári- in a compound.

And no, reo would be the same in Ñoldorin and Vanyarin Quenya.

The r~z difference between the two dialects arises only in words that had a /s/ consonant in PE. For example, áre "sunlight" comes from ✶āse or ✶āsi. The s was voiced to z between vowels, which is retained without further change in Vanyarin. In Ñoldorin, however, this z underwent rhotacism and became an r. However this development was sometimes inhibited, especially when in proximity to another r - hence why as an old name we can expect Ásireo rather than Árireo.

RE"You should pay attention to the order of the elements in the compound: the first element is the modifier, and the second element is the head (=the main part). In "smile of sunlight" the head is "smile" (because a smile of sunlight is a kind of smile, not a kind of sunlight), so in a compound it would be sunlight-smile (in Quenya and English both). Hence my suggestion of *Árireo / Ásireo**."

But is this not reversed in "Feanáro" which means "Spirit of Fire" and not "Fire of Spirit"?

While that is true, it is not the usual order in Quenya (based on both examples and direct statements by Tolkien), so it should not really be taken as the model - especially when combining elements that don't mesh well in the reverse order.

Note also that the name Feanáro was at an earlier conceptual period glossed by Tolkien as "Radiant Sun" (at a point where the root PʰAY meant "radiate" rather than "spirit"), with the head being the second element as usual. He later reconceptualised the meaning of the name whilst retaining its form - something he did on occasion with names he liked, with varying degrees of success in terms of keeping the name in line with the evolving languages.