Languages used in the Lord of the Rings

by: Afua Agyin

1. The author and his masterpiece

2. Languages used in the Lord of the Rings

2.1 Elvish languages
2.2 Other languages

3. Derivation

3.1 Quenya and Sindarin
3.2 Other languages

4. Purpose/Conclusion

1. The author and his masterpiece

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892 and raised in England. Throughout his life, Tolkien developed a deep love of ancient languages. He even majored in middle English philology and literature at the Oxford University where he discovered Icelandic, Norse and Gothic mythology where he drew diverse names for places and characters of Middle-Earth. The forest of Mirkwood, which played a prominent roll in both The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings was borrowed from Icelandic mythology¹. Meanwhile he acquired numerous Roman languages like Anglo-Saxon, Welsh, German, Finnish, Gothic for example. In 1915 Tolkien was sent to active duty on the Western Front and after four months he succumbed to „trench fever“. It was during that time he lost some of his best friends and began his work on the Book of Lost Tales on which his great work Silmarillion is based on ². The brutality and cruelty of war surely affected his early works. Parallel to Tolkien′s professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for the construction of artificial languages. The best developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin ³.

In this research paper I am going to exemplify Tolkien′s affection for languages by naming comparatively few of his invented languages and explaining their derivation.

2. Languages used in the Lord of the Rings

One of the most vivid expressions of Tolkien′s ability and interest in languages was the creation of his own. Over the course of his life he invented several languages, such as Elvish (including Quenya and Sindarin), Dwarvish (Khuzdul), Entish, and Black Speech ⁴. In the following I am going to numerate and exemplify the most important languages spoken in The Lord of the Rings.

2.1 Elvish Languages

Tolkien′s languages are not only distinguished by cultures, but also by the Three Ages. The plot of the Lord of the Rings proceeds during the Third Age but Tolkien invented languages, largely Elvish, that existed long before that age. There is for example Common Elvish that was spoken by the Elves when they first awoke in the Great Lands before they reached Valinor and later there was Valarin which was spoken by the Valar in Valinor⁵. These are only two examples for approximately fifteen Elvish languages and dialects. I am going to focus on Quenya and Sindarin below.

Quenya was spoken by the Elves of Valinor before the First Age and it has remained a language of high speech or a book language almost everywhere since then. It was used as a high speech of Numenor in the Second Age and the term Numenorean Quenya is used to distinguish it from other varieties of Quenya. Quenya also probably remained in use as a high speech of Gil-galad and other Noldorin Elves on the coast of Middle-earth; of Celebrimbor and of the Noldor of Eregion; of Elrond and his household at Rivendell; and of Galadriel in Lothlorien. During the Third Age Quenya was no longer a living language in Middle-earth: most Elves spoke Sindarin and it was only used as a high speech among Elves along the western coast and in Rivendell and Lorien, and remained in use among the Dunedain, and among certain educated Hobbits ⁶. Not only did Tolkien invent the language, but also a corresponding grammar and Elvish font, the Tengwar.

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1 http://www.indepthinfo.com/tolkien/biography.shtml

2 http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html

3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien#Languages

4 http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/language.html

5 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/9902/langlst.html

6 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/9902/langlst.html