Lhammas is the name of a work of fiction that was published in The Lost Road and Other Writings, volume five of The History of Middle-earth. The Lhammas represents an old linguistic view of the languages of Middle-earth which was later dropped, in which all languages belonged to either the Valarin, Oromëan, Aulëan or Melkian phylums.
- The Valarin phylum is the origin of all other phylums, and led to Valarin (the language of the Valar).
- Oromëan is named after the Vala Oromë, and is used for all languages of the Elves, because Oromë taught the Elves language. Most languages of Men also belong to this phylum.
- Aulëan is named after the Vala Aulë, father of the Dwarves, and is the origin of the Khuzdûl language. It has had some influences on the tongues of Men.
- Melkian is named after the fallen Vala Melkor or Morgoth, and is the origin of the Black Speech of the Orcs and other evil beings.
This entire etymology was dropped as Tolkien further revised the linguistic history of his world, and cannot be applied to the later languages of Middle-earth. However, Tolkien even in later writings held to that Rúmil wrote Lhammas, but himself never wrote an 'updated' form that would be coherent with his later mythology. Before that point, Lhammas had been attributed to the Loremaster Pengolodh of Gondolin.
Translations[]
| Foreign Language | Translated name |
| Georgian | ლჰამები |
| Russian | Ламмас |
| Ukrainian Cyrillic | Ламмас |