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therefore, ere long (by treachery and ill will, as later is told) the full tale of the deeds in Valinor became known in Beleriand, there was rather enmity than alliance between Doriath and the House of Feanor; and this bitterness Morgoth eagerly inflamed by all means that he could find. But that evil lay as yet in the days to come, and the first meeting of the Sindar and the Noldor was eager and glad, though parley was at first not easy between them, for in their long severance the tongue of the Kalaquendi in Valinor and the Moriquendi in Beleriand had drawn far apart.

    Excursus on the languages of Beleriand.
    I interrupt the text here since the complex variant material that follows in the two manuscripts cannot well be accommodated in the commentary.
    In place of GA 2 $48 just given, GA 1 (making no reference to the active hostility that developed between Thingol and the Feanorians) has only the following (after the words 'eager for new realms'): Moreover in their long severance the tongues of the Sindar and the Noldor had drawn apart, and at first parley was not easy between them.
    This is followed by a long 'excursus' (marked on the manuscript as an intrusion into the main text) on the development and relations of Noldorin and Sindarin in Beleriand, the end of which is also the end of GA 1. This discussion reappears, rewritten, in GA 2, and then this revised form was itself substantially altered. It seems desirable to give all the versions of this passage, of central importance in the linguistic history of Middle-earth. The numbered notes to this section are found on p. 28.
    The original version in GA 1 reads as follows.

    It was indeed at the landing of Feanor three hundred and sixty-five long years of the Valar (1) since the Noldor had passed over the Sea and left the Teleri behind them. Now that time was in length well nigh as three thousand and five hundred years of the Sun. In such an age the tongues of mortal Men that were far sundered would indeed change out of knowledge, unless it were as written records of song and wisdom. But in Valinor in the days of the Trees change was little to be perceived, save that which came of will and design, while in Middle-earth under the Sleep of Yavanna it was slow also, though before the Rising of the Moon all things had been stirred from slumber in Beleriand, as has before been told. (2) Therefore, whereas the tongue of the Noldor had altered little from the ancient tongue of the Eldar upon the march - and its altering had for the most part come in the making of new words (for things old and new) and in the softening and harmonizing of the sounds and patterns of the Quendian tongue to forms that seemed to the Noldor more beautiful - the language of the Sindar had changed much, even in unheeded growth as a tree may imperceptibly change its shape: as much maybe as an unwritten mortal tongue might change in five hundred years or more.(3) It was already ere the Rising of the Sun a speech greatly different to the ear from the Noldorin, and after that Rising all change was swift, for a while in the second Spring of Arda very swift indeed. To the ear, we say, because though Dairon the minstrel and loremaster of Menegroth had devised his Runes already by V.Y. 1300 (and after greatly bettered them), it was not the custom of the Sindar to write down their songs or records, and the Runes of Dairon (save in Menegroth) were used chiefly for names and brief inscriptions cut upon wood, stone, or metal.(The Naugrim (4) learned the Runes of Dairon from Menegroth, being well-pleased with the device and esteeming Dairon higher than [did]
    his own folk; and by the Naugrim they were brought east over the Mountains.)(5)
    Soon, however, it came to pass that the Noldor in daily use took on the Sindarin tongue, and this tongue enriched by words and devices from Noldorin became the tongue of all the Eldar in Beleriand (save in the country of the Green[-elves]) and the language of all the Eldar, either in