The Englishphilologist and authorJ. R. R. Tolkien created severalconstructed languages, mostly related to his fictional world ofMiddle-earth. Inventing languages, something that he calledglossopoeia (paralleling his idea ofmythopoeia or myth-making), was a lifelong occupation for Tolkien, starting in his teens.
Tolkien's glossopoeia has two temporal dimensions: the internal (fictional) timeline of events inMiddle-earth described inThe Silmarillion and other writings, and the external timeline of Tolkien's own life during which he often revised and refined his languages and their fictional history.Tolkien scholars have published a substantial volume of Tolkien's linguistic material in theHistory of Middle-earth books, and theVinyar Tengwar andParma Eldalamberon journals. Scholars such asCarl F. Hostetter,David Salo andElizabeth Solopova have published grammars and studies of the languages.
He created a large family ofElvish languages, the best-known and most developed beingQuenya andSindarin. In addition, he sketched in theMannish languages ofAdûnaic and Rohirric; the Dwarvish language ofKhuzdul; theEntish language; and theBlack Speech, in the fiction a constructed language enforced on theOrcs by the Dark LordSauron. Tolkien supplemented his languages withseveral scripts.
Tolkien was a professionalphilologist of ancientGermanic languages, specialising inOld English. Glossopoeia, the construction of languages, was Tolkien's hobby for most of his life.[1][2] At a little over 13, he helped construct a sound substitution cypher known asNevbosh,[T 1] 'new nonsense', which grew to include some elements of actual invented language. Tolkien stated that this was not his first effort in invented languages.[T 2] Shortly thereafter, he developed a true invented language called Naffarin.[T 3] One of his early projects was the reconstruction of an unrecorded earlyGermanic language which might have been spoken by the people ofBeowulf in theGermanic Heroic Age.[3]
In 1931, Tolkien gave a lecture about his passion for constructed languages, titledA Secret Vice. Here he contrasts his project ofartistic languages constructed for aesthetic pleasure with the pragmatism ofinternational auxiliary languages. The lecture also discusses Tolkien's views onphonaesthetics, citing Greek,Finnish, andWelsh as examples of "languages which have a very characteristic and in their different ways beautiful word-form".[T 4] Part of the lecture was published inThe Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays; in the part that was not, Tolkien gave the example of "Fonwegian", a language with "no connection whatever with any other known language".[4][a]
Being a skilledcalligrapher,Tolkien invented scripts for his languages.[5] The scripts includedSarati,Cirth, andTengwar.[6]
Tolkien was of the opinion that the invention of anartistic language in order to be convincing and pleasing must include not only the language'shistorical development, but also the history of its speakers, and especially the mythology associated with both the language and the speakers. It was this idea that an "Elvish language" must be associated with a complex history and mythology of theElves that was at the core of the development ofTolkien's legendarium.
Tolkien wrote in one of his letters:
what I think is a primary 'fact' about my work, that it is all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. ... It is not a 'hobby', in the sense of something quite different from one's work, taken up as a relief-outlet. The invention of languages is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows. I should have preferred to write in 'Elvish'. But, of course, such a work asThe Lord of the Rings has been edited and only as much 'language' has been left in as I thought would be stomached by readers. (I now find that many would have liked more.) ... It is to me, anyway, largely an essay in 'linguistic aesthetic', as I sometimes say to people who ask me 'what is it all about'.[T 5]
The Tolkien scholar and folkloristDimitra Fimi questions this claim. In particular, his September 1914The Voyage of Earendel the Evening Star, based on theOld English poemCrist 1, shows that he was starting to think about a mythology before he started to sketch his first invented Middle-earth language, Qenya, in March 1915. Further, the steps that led to his first attempt at the mythology,[b] the 1917 draft ofThe Book of Lost Tales, involving the character ofEarendel in its first story, did not involve his invented languages.[7] Tolkien was, rather, in Fimi's view, emphasizing that language and myth "began to flow together when I was an undergraduate [at Oxford, 1911–1915]" (as Tolkien wrote in 1954),[T 6] and stayed that way for the rest of his life.[7]
In 1937, Tolkien wrote theLhammas, a linguistic treatise addressing the relationships of the languages spoken inMiddle-earth during theFirst Age, principally the Elvish languages. The text purports to bea translation of an Elvish work, written by one Pengolodh, whose historical works are presented as beingthe main source of the narratives inThe Silmarillion concerning the First Age.[8]
TheLhammas exists in three versions, the shortest one being called theLammasathen.[c] The main linguistic thesis in this text is that the languages of Middle-earth are all descended from the language of theValar (the "gods"),Valarin, and divided into three branches:[8]
Internally, in the fiction, theElvish language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language.[10]
Externally, in Tolkien's life, he constructed the family from around 1910, working on it up to his death in 1973. He constructed the grammar and vocabulary of at least fifteen languages and dialects in roughly three periods:[10]
Tolkien worked out much of theetymological background of his Elvish languages during the 1930s, resulting inThe Etymologies.[T 7]
Tolkien based Quenya pronunciation more onLatin than onFinnish, though it has elements derived from both languages. Thus, Quenya lacks thevowel harmony andconsonant gradation present in Finnish, andaccent is not always on the first syllable of a word. Typical Finnish elements like the front vowelsö,ä andy are lacking in Quenya, but phonological similarities include the absence of aspirated unvoiced stops or the development of the syllablesti >si in both languages.[11] The combination of a Latin basis with Finnish phonological rules resulted in a product that resembles Italian in many respects, which was Tolkien's favourite modern Romance language.[T 9]
Quenya grammar isagglutinative and mostlysuffixing, i.e. different word particles are joined by appending them. It has basic word classes ofverbs,nouns andpronouns/determiners,adjectives andprepositions. Nouns areinflected for case and number. Verbs are inflected for tense and aspect, and for agreement with subject and object. In early Quenya, adjectives agree with the noun they modify in case and number; in later Quenya, this agreement disappears. The basic word order issubject–verb–object.[11]
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A Elbereth Gilthoniel |
| Start of the Sindarin poem "A Elbereth Gilthoniel" |
Tolkien wrote that he gave Sindarin "a linguistic character very like (though not identical with)British-Welsh ... because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers".[T 10]
Unlike Quenya, Sindarin is mainly afusional language with someanalytic tendencies. It can be distinguished from Quenya by the rarity of vowel endings, and the use ofvoiced plosivesb d g, rare in Quenya found only afternasals andliquids. Early Sindarin formed plurals by the addition of-ī, which vanished butaffected the preceding vowels (as in Welsh andOld English): S.Adan, pl.Edain, S.Orch, pl.Yrch.[12] Sindarin forms plurals in multiple ways.[13]
Tolkien devisedAdûnaic (or Númenórean), the language spoken inNúmenor, shortly after World War II, and thus at about the time he completedThe Lord of the Rings, but before he wrote the linguistic background of the Appendices. Adûnaic is intended as the language from whichWestron (also calledAdûni) is derived; Westron became thelingua franca for all the peoples ofMiddle-earth:[14] This added a depth of historical development to the Mannish languages. Adûnaic was intended to have a "faintly Semitic flavour".[15] Its development began withThe Notion Club Papers (written in 1945). It is there that the most extensive sample of the language is found, revealed to one of the (modern-day) protagonists, Lowdham, of that story in a visionary dream ofAtlantis. Its grammar is sketched in the unfinished "Lowdham's Report on the Adunaic Language".[T 11]
Tolkien remained undecided whether the language of theMen of Númenor should be derived from the original Mannish language (as in Adûnaic), or if it should be derived from "the Elvish Noldorin" (i.e.Quenya) instead.[T 12] InThe Lost Road and Other Writings, it is implied that theNúmenóreans spoke Quenya, and thatSauron, hating all things Elvish, taught the Númenóreans the old Mannish tongue they themselves had forgotten.[T 13]
Tolkien called the language of Rohan "Rohanese".[T 14] He only gave a few actual Rohirric words:[16]
| Language | Word | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Rohirric | lô- | e.g.Lôgrad, "Horse-mark" |
| Hungarian | ló | Homonym of the Rohirric |
| Old English | éoh | "war-horse", henceÉothéod, "Horse-people" |
| Quenya | rocco | "horse" |
| Sindarin | roch | hence, Rohirrim, "Horse-people" |
Only one proper name is given,Tûrac, an old word for King, the Rohirric forThéoden.[16] That in turn is theOld English wordþéoden,[17] meaning "leader of a people", "king" or "prince".[d] As with other descriptive names in his legendarium, Tolkien uses this name tocreate the impression that the text is "'historical', 'real' or 'archaic'".[18]
Some samples ofKhuzdul, the language of theDwarves, are given inThe Lord of the Rings. The explanation here is a little different from the "Mannish" languages: asKhuzdul was supposedly kept secret by the Dwarves and never used in the presence of outsiders (not even Dwarvish given names), it was not "translated" by any real-life historical language, and such limited examples as there are in the text are given in the "original". Khuzdul was designed to resemble aSemitic language, with a system oftriconsonantal roots and other parallels especially toHebrew, just as some resemblances between the Dwarves and theJews are intentional.[T 15][19]
The language of theEnts is briefly described inThe Lord of the Rings. As the Ents were first taught to speak by Elves, Entish appears related to the Elvish languages. However, the Ents continued to develop their language. It is described as long and sonorous, atonal language somewhat like a woodwind instrument. Only the Ents spoke Entish as no others could master it. Even the Elves, masterlinguists, could not learn Entish, nor did they attempt to record it because of its complex sound structure:[T 16]
... slow, sonorous, agglomerated, repetitive, indeed long-winded; formed of a multiplicity of vowel-shades and distinctions of tone and quantity which even the loremasters of theEldar had not attempted to represent in writing[T 16]
To illustrate these properties, Tolkien provides the worda-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lindor-burúme, meaninghill. He described it as a "probably very inaccurate" sampling of the language.[T 16]
Tolkien devised little of the Black Speech beyond theRhyme of the Rings. He intentionally made it sound harsh but with a proper grammar. He stated that it was anagglutinative language;[T 17] it has been likened to the extinctHurrian language of northernMesopotamia.[20]
In the fiction, the Black Speech was created by the Dark LordSauron to be the official language of all the lands and peoples under his control: it was thus both in reality and in the fiction a constructed language.[21] The Orcs are said never to have accepted it willingly; the language mutated into many mutually unintelligible Orkish dialects, so that Orcs communicated with each other mainly in a debased Westron.[10]
Tolkien developed a particular love for theFinnish language. He described the finding of a Finnish grammar book as "like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before".[T 18] Finnish morphology, particularly its rich system ofinflection, in part gave rise to Quenya.[T 18] Another of Tolkien's favourites wasWelsh, and features of Welsh phonology found their way into Sindarin.[22]
When writingThe Lord of the Rings (1954–55), a sequel toThe Hobbit (1937), Tolkien came up with the literary device of using real languages to "translate" fictional languages. He pretended to have translated the original language Westron (namedAdûni in Westron) or Common Speech (Sôval Phârë, in Westron) into English. This device of rendering animaginary language with areal one was carried further by rendering:[23]
Furthermore, to parallel theCelticsubstratum in England, he usedOld Welsh names to render theDunlendish names ofBuckland Hobbits (e.g.,Meriadoc forKalimac).[T 16] The whole device of linguistic mapping was essentially a fix for the problems Tolkien had created for himself by using real Norse names for the Dwarves inThe Hobbit, rather than inventing new names in Khuzdul. This seemed a clever solution, as it allowed him to explain the book's use of Modern English as representing Westron.[24] Because of this, Tolkien did not need to work out the details of Westron grammar or vocabulary in any detail. He does give some examples of Westron words in Appendix F toThe Lord of the Rings, where he summarizes Westron's origin and role aslingua franca in Middle-earth:[T 16][25]
The language represented in this history by English was the Westron or 'Common Speech' of the West-lands of Middle-earth in the Third Age. In the course of that age it had become the native language of nearly all the speaking-peoples (save the Elves) who dwelt within the bounds of the old kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor ... At the time of the War of the Ring at the end of the age these were still its bounds as a native tongue. (Appendix F)[T 16]
Rohirric is represented inThe Lord of the Rings by Old English because Tolkien chose to make the relationship between Rohirric and the Common Speech similar to that of Old English andModern English.[T 14]
Tolkien stated inThe Two Towers that the nameOrthanc had "by design or chance" two meanings. In Sindarin it meant "Mount Fang", while in the language of Rohan he said it meant "Cunning Mind". The authorRobert Foster notes thatorþanc genuinely does mean "cunning" in Old English, so that thehomonym Tolkien had in mind was between Sindarin and Old English, that is, translated or represented Rohirric. Foster comments that since it would be unlikely for a homonym also to exist between these two languages and actual Rohirric, and for the Old English and the Rohirric to be synonyms as well, Tolkien had made an error.[27]
The first published monograph dedicated to the Elvish languages wasAn Introduction to Elvish (1978) edited by Jim Allan (published by Bran's Head Books). It is composed of articles written before the publication ofThe Silmarillion. Ruth Noel wrote a book on Middle-earth's languages in 1980.[28]
With the publication of much linguistic material during the 1990s, especially in theHistory of Middle-earth series, and theVinyar Tengwar andParma Eldalamberon material published during the early 2000s from among the 3000 pages of linguistic material held by theteam of editors includingCarl F. Hostetter,[29][30] Tolkien's constructed languages have become much more accessible.[31]
David Salo's 2007A Gateway to Sindarin presents Sindarin's grammar concisely.[32]Elizabeth Solopova's 2009Languages, Myth and History gives an overview of the linguistic traits of the various languages invented by Tolkien and the history of their creation.[33]
A few fanzines were dedicated to the subject, likeTyalië Tyelelliéva published by Lisa Star,[34] andQuettar, the Bulletin of the Linguistic Fellowship ofThe Tolkien Society, published by Julian C. Bradfield.[35]Tengwestië is an online publication of theElvish Linguistic Fellowship.[36]Internet mailing lists and forums that have been dedicated to Tolkien's constructed languages include Tolklang, Elfling and Lambengolmor.[37][38][39] Since 2005, there has been an International Conference on J.R.R. Tolkien's Invented Languages.[40]
'thechief of a :þeod (a nation, people)'.
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