Even if you haven’t read Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, you’ve probably seen the movie. So many orcs!
But did you know just how much linguistics went into the work?
Tolkien wasn’t just a great fantasy writer; he was also a linguist, and linguistics is at the heart of his writing. In fact, arguably, he wrote fantasy novels to find homes for the invented languages he created for the elves, dwarves, and other species that throng the pages.
In Tolkien’s work, Elvish languages, such as Sindarin, are based on real languages, and they have real grammar rules and phonetic patterns. Sindarin, for example, is intricately linked to Welsh.
Some of the languages Tolkien invented were supposed to be related, so he even invented common ancestor languages for them, and then allowed the ‘modern’ languages to evolve in a logical manner. All of this, coupled with his detailed work with landscape and the urban and natural geography of his imagined lands, creates a profound sense of history and make the stories feel deeply real, even as their heroes engage in impossible feats.
So, there you have it: languages are good for a lot of things, including creating fantastical imagined worlds.
We’re not even slightly surprised.
Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/map-8zvGIv4pw1I
