The Lord of the rings, a fantasy novel created by J.R.R Tolkien was published completely in 1955. The book was broken up into three parts and each part was published individually. The Lord of The Rings was filled with many mythical creatures that are now common knowledge for many due to the popularity of the films, video games, and books. These mythical races each had a culture of their own. Tolkien put an extreme amount of detail to create this world.
Tolkien had a purpose for creating such diverse and interesting races. In a response to an early review of The Lord of The Rings, Tolkien stated, “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 as The Lord of The Rings has been edited and only as much “language” has been left in as I thought would be stomached by the reader” (Letters From J.R.R Tolkien 219).
In this website, I have dedicated my study to these languages that Tolkien created. I am focusing primarily on Elvish as it is Tolkien’s most complete language. I think that studying these fictional languages has a lot of linguistic value, because they reflect how real languages develop. I will briefly discuss the other languages of middle earth and the creatures that speak them, but I will not have much to cover due to the lack of material. The languages that Tolkien truly cared about were spoken and written by the Elves. Tolkien thought that they were perfect in every way, and for that reason I am giving them my focus.
Two Notes Regarding my Study
No language created by Tolkien was ever complete. Even for Sindarin and Quenya, the Elvish languages, Tolkien never released a complete lexicon or grammar for scholars to study, to the dismay of many linguist. Also, I would like to state that the languages I cover in this website are the languages in the third age of middle earth. There are languages that have influenced the common language from the second age, including the language ADÛNIAC, which was the common language of the Dûnedain (a race of men). I will not be covering these because it would take far too much time.
Tolkien had a purpose for creating such diverse and interesting races. In a response to an early review of The Lord of The Rings, Tolkien stated, “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 as The Lord of The Rings has been edited and only as much “language” has been left in as I thought would be stomached by the reader” (Letters From J.R.R Tolkien 219).
In this website, I have dedicated my study to these languages that Tolkien created. I am focusing primarily on Elvish as it is Tolkien’s most complete language. I think that studying these fictional languages has a lot of linguistic value, because they reflect how real languages develop. I will briefly discuss the other languages of middle earth and the creatures that speak them, but I will not have much to cover due to the lack of material. The languages that Tolkien truly cared about were spoken and written by the Elves. Tolkien thought that they were perfect in every way, and for that reason I am giving them my focus.
Two Notes Regarding my Study
No language created by Tolkien was ever complete. Even for Sindarin and Quenya, the Elvish languages, Tolkien never released a complete lexicon or grammar for scholars to study, to the dismay of many linguist. Also, I would like to state that the languages I cover in this website are the languages in the third age of middle earth. There are languages that have influenced the common language from the second age, including the language ADÛNIAC, which was the common language of the Dûnedain (a race of men). I will not be covering these because it would take far too much time.