Quenya is the invented Elvish language associated with Tolkien’s mythology and influenced partly by Finnish.
Tolkien began developing Quenya before publishing The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. He built it as a language with its own sounds, grammar, vocabulary, and historical development. Finnish provided an important inspiration, while other influences included Latin and Welsh, though Quenya is not simply a version of any real-world language.
In Tolkien’s internal history, Quenya was associated especially with the High Elves and with the Eldar who had lived in Valinor. Sindarin, another major Elvish language, became more widely spoken among Elves in Middle-earth. These two names are often mixed up because both appear prominently in Tolkien’s legendarium.
Quenya appears in personal names, poems, formal speech, and expressions such as “Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo.” Tolkien’s approach to language construction was central to his world-building: peoples, migrations, and historical changes helped explain why related languages sounded different.