J.R.R. Tolkien based Quenya partly on Finnish.
Quenya is one of Tolkien’s constructed languages and is associated especially with the High Elves. Tolkien began developing it during the 1910s, drawing on his knowledge of languages including Finnish, Greek, and Latin.
Finnish particularly influenced Quenya’s sound and grammatical structure. Tolkien admired the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, and its language helped inspire the linguistic atmosphere of his early mythology.
Quenya is distinct from Sindarin, another major Elvish language in Tolkien’s fiction. Sindarin was influenced largely by Welsh, while Quenya served as a more ancient and formal language among the Elves. The two names are sometimes treated as interchangeable by casual readers, but they represent different languages with different histories and uses.