We have often discussed language-related subjects here. Readers interested in language acquisition may find it beneficial to hear something about the language ideas of one of the twentieth century’s most influential fiction authors, J.R.R. Tolkien. Everyone knows him as a founder (perhaps the founder) of modern fantasy writing; few, however, are aware of the depth and breadth of his linguistic knowledge. Tolkien himself once said that he considered his books as little more than vehicles for the expression of his language interests: meaning that for him language was far more important than storytelling.
He did not really develop a “complete” theory of language in the conventional sense. What we know of his ideas comes through in his interviews, lectures, and articles. But there is enough left behind for us to summarize some major points and draw some conclusions. Before we get into these details, we should review a bit of his background.
Tolkien was born in 1892 and showed a facility for language acquisition at an early age. He tried his hand at creating fictional languages several times, learned Esperanto (a popular pursuit at the turn of the century), and learned several real ones. He graduated from Exeter College, Oxford, in 1915 with a degree in English language and literature; he was particularly enamored with Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. The first world war intervened, but he was able to escape the meat grinder unscathed, and was demobilized in 1920.
He immediately returned to his philological and literary pursuits, perhaps grateful that the Reaper had spared him. He soon produced a wonderful and quite influential translation of Beowulf which has remained a vital text in Anglo-Saxon studies. It must be remembered that in Tolkien’s day the poem was still looked upon as a quaint but immature product of a primitive past. Tolkien, using his knowledge of Old English, was able to demonstrate that the work was actually a sophisticated literary work, deserving of serious study. No one had really tried to argue this before, and Tolkien’s contributions to this field soon became legendary.
In his spare time, when he was not lecturing or doing research, he worked on his fictional stories. His active and probing mind could not remain idle for long; he always needed to be working on some linguistic puzzle. Two foreign languages captivated his mind: Welsh and Finnish. Readers who have some knowledge of these languages may discern, here and there, their substratal influence in his “Middle-Earth” books. Tolkien spent considerable time inventing fictional languages as part of his fantasy stories. We should note that these were not just a few sentences tossed together, but logically consistent and grammatically expanded structures.
But with so many real languages to be learned or studied, why would a man like Tolkien devote so much time and effort to inventing fictional ones? To answer this question, we must appreciate the fact that some people enjoy puzzles and cryptograms for their own sake. For this kind of mind, the reward is simply the joy of creating and designing, just as the artist gets joy out of sculpting from a lump of inert clay. I personally would never bother with such an exercise, since time is precious and for me is better spent with real languages.
But I do recognize that such fictional pursuits have real value: there is no better way to know how an engine works than by building your own. On an airplane flight recently I had a chance to see the recent film “Arrival,” directed by Denis Villenueve. In the movie, a linguistics professor, along with some other specialists, is asked to try to decipher the alien speech of some extraterrestrial visitors. As I watched the film, it became apparent to me that someone who had played with synthetic languages would be well-suited to this task. The exercise is also useful for behavioral analysis, code-breaking, psychology, and speech therapy.
Tolkien’s ideas on language “creation” are worth noting:
- Language creators should focus on words and phrases that sound beautiful. This idea, called phonoaesthetics, Tolkien believed was deeply embedded in real languages and should be reproduced in fictional ones.
- Rules of grammar and construction need to go hand-in-hand with the creation of the synthetic languages. Such rules need to be logical and consistent.
- Fictional languages should (or might) create a mythos around them. That is, such languages could inherently generate their own mythologies and cultural accoutrements.
But what were his thoughts on real languages? Some of these ideas are discussed in a famous lecture he delivered on English and Welsh. It is here that Tolkien departs from the conventional wisdom of our own day, and for this reason alone his ideas are worth reflecting on. Our conventional wisdom today commands that a person should learn a language that affords him “practical” benefits for commerce, travel, trade, or what not. Under this view, perceived practicality trumps all else.
But Tolkien dissented from this view. As he saw it, the first guiding principle of language learning should be passion. In other words, a person should choose a language with absolutely no regard for its “practical” value; he should choose it for its own sake. Since learning a new tongue was a huge amount of effort, the only way a person would be able to sustain himself through the grind would be through the assistance of love.
So for Tolkien, love trumped practicality. It is easy to scoff at this idea, but the more one thinks about it, the more one realizes that he has a point. Learning a new language is a tremendous undertaking; and to embark on it for utilitarian reasons alone means that for most people it will be quickly abandoned once the going becomes tough. The passionate lover, however, is not so easily deterred. He will stick with his stubborn mistress though thick and thin, because he is following the desires of his innermost heart.
The debate between practicality versus personal interest is an unending one, and will not be settled here; but we should at least recognize that Tolkien has something important to add to the debate on language acquisition.
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He does have a point, and anyone who has learnt another language (and certainly anyone who has learned several!) will get it quickly… after the initial honeymoon period, it’s hard work acquiring working ability with a language! It helps to find out why and what makes a language interesting…
And languages can be fascinating, as I think you’re also alluding to here, for many reasons….
Italian, for instance is not called ‘la lingua bella’ for no reason – it is acoustically quite enchanting, and clearly optimised to sound fantastic (most ‘girl-friendly’ language I’ve ever mastered).
Arabic is fascinating for altogether different reasons…. it appears to be constructed from three-consonant ‘roots’, around which the meaning changes in a relatively predictable manner by the manipulation of vowels….
for example the K-T-B collection conveys the notion of writing – kitaab is ‘book’, katib is ‘writer’, kataba is the notion of ‘writing’, maktab is an office….
other three letter ‘roots’ will mutate in similar ways!
If you want to learn a language, make sure you find it *fascinating*…
For many months I asked myself which language to learn?
Spanish? Meh, too easy.
Russian? Sounds too rough. Russia will be a muslim hellhole in 10 to 20 years anyways.
Chinese? Tonal language, I dont like that. I don’t care about chinese culture.
Korean? ‘Easy’ alphabet, but harder to pronounce compared to japanese. Honor system even more complicated than the japanese one. Koreans are more racist to foreigners and on the other hand their english level is better compared to japanese people, so it’s not that important to learn the language.
Japanese? Great culture (watches, cameras, books, videogames, animes, food, paintings, architecture and so on), gorgeous women, you really need the language to communicate in Japan, easier pronounciation (I chose latin instead of french in school because of this; I just hate languages who have a difficult pronounciation) than other asian languages, kanji symbols are needed (2000) but not as many as in chinese.
I am now going to learn japanese. Sugoi.
It’s a great choice… I’ve got Japanese on my ‘one day’ list.
Regardless a great country to visit!
I was there for eight years. Worked pretty hard, highly recommend Japanese if you are going to live there.
But I would still recommend Spanish if you are not going to live there. There is a lot of great literature in Spanish, plus you can order a taco. And more senoritas around to speak their lingo.
They like that !
Well, Spanish still is an option.
I will migrate to a different country in the future for sure.
There is no way I will stay in (((modern Europe))).
Call me insane, but I think the best places to go to are a) Argentina, b) Uruguay, c) Japan.
a) and b) are good options because it’s far way from africa and the middle east and there is a majority of white people.
c) is a great option because despite the fact that I would be part of a minority I would rather work my ass off for a magnificent culture and be safe compared to living in germany where I don’t feel safe, I can’t say what I want and where I hate everyone because they are all cucked af.
I recommend Japan. It is still easy to find a teaching job there, I hear. Even if it is no longer the gravy train like in the 80’s just before I got there. Or still very good in the 90’s when I was there.
But I spoke with a buddy teaching there now. It is still very doable. Also, if you are in Tokyo, you can study in an American University and work on a degree part time while you are there.
I got there in 1990 with a backpack and about 5000 dollars. When I left eight years later, I had a beautiful wife, an MA from Temple University Japan, pretty good Japanese language ability, a two year old beautiful son, and enough money to buy me a Buick LeSabre in cash and make a down payment on a townhouse.
Plus, a public school ESL teaching job lined up I could step into less than a month after returning. A job I am still doing and from which I plan to retire in seven years. (Could actually retire reduced benefits with 20 years in July this year with all my sick leave saved up, but I would have to get another job. 20 year pensions too small to support myself and wife)
So that is how my stint in Japan developed.
Good luck. Lots of cool places on the planet. This to do, cultures to study, and much better women than western countries.
Spanish is next language I’d like to learn..
Japanese in Japan is very rewarding because in the beginning the country confuses the shit out of you especially the women..
Magnificent culture? Unless you are Japanese, you’d be working against their culture, and you’d always be an outsider.
More to the point though, Japan is distressingly socialist as a nation.
South America has a reputation for being the refuge of dissidents. Unlike the Confederates, I wouldn’t go to Brazil, but I share your views of Argentina & Uruguay.
A workhorse of a car, having had one myself, but I’m still struck by curiosity at your purchase.
I like geezer cars. I grew up playing in the back seat of a Delta 88 while my dad drove down the road drinking whisky and listening to Hank Williams.
I am still hanging on to my 1996 Lincoln Towncar. No heat or AC, driver side door will not open or close, 2 of 4 windows will not work, nor the defrost. Electric seat is stuck so only me or another 6 ft 2 person can drive it.
Trunkk will not go down completely (but no rain in trunk thank god). Headliner hangs down like confetti, and a cracked front window.
But that workhorse engine churns on, never have any trouble.My wife as asked me to get rid of it, but backs down when I say….
Do you want my sacks of manure in our Milan or Sienna ? It is my favorite car to drive when the weather is nice. Runs smooth. I leave it at home for saftey reasons when there is frost though.
I like old GM, Chevy and Ford box cars. I would like to get a truck, but over priced. My next car will be a utliity van.
It may be easy to acquire a superficial understanding of spanish or other romance languages but it’s easy to get carried away and forget just how much vocabulary there it is to just about any language. The more you know, the more humble you should become.
Just as a bit of a warning, if you go to Japan solely for anime, they will avoid you upon finding that out.
Anime fans have an extremely bad reputation there for their bizarre behavior.
Spanish, so easy, yet you apparently haven’t learned it.
Perhaps he was biased, but a native Spanish-speaking acquaintance of mine was fond of describing Italian as a drunken mishmash of Spanish and Portuguese, spoken with a broken jaw.
Maybe it has its merits as a language, and maybe I haven’t given it its due, but as a language to facilitate an “escape valve”, it’s down there with German.
It’s an amusing description! I have the flip side of that… To me Spanish sounds like a stunted imitation of Italian infected by pigeon-Arabic spoken with a lisp!
I speak German too, and Italian is incomparable… If you look at language genealogy and etymology in Europe a large group, including Italian, Spanish and Portuguese are directly descended from Latin. Originally the dialect of Rome, one could easil argue Italian suffered the least, um… ‘Drift’ so to speak…
German, and Germanic languages (including English! Which is a bastard mongrel with a Germanic structure but Romantic vocabulary!) are an entirely separate grouping (with some tiny overlap).
For a hilarious take on the acoustic difference between Romantic and Germanic languages – https://youtu.be/-_xUIDRxdmc
Yeah the spanish from spain is extremely blundering with that damn TH sound replacing the C. Ugly language, plus lots of arabic words like you say.
Colombian and south american spanish sounds nicer.
Italian and French are the most beautiful languages to listen to.
Completely agree, and it was the Spanish from Spain you rightly saw I was joking(?) about… South American Spanish much more attractive!
IMO Italian has a slight edge over French, but I am quite biased in this! I also find it incredibly ‘tidy’ as it’s grammatical structure and sounds are fairly consistent, and the mapping on the written language to the sound of the spoke language is pretty orthogonal…
This is absolutely true. As a brazilian kid, I was able to learn english by myself just because I thought the language was fascinating, and because I wanted to understand the diologues in videogames (at the time, no games were translated to portuguese).
Passion is the best tool to aquire new skills.
Such a great example!
I leant Italian because I wanted to read Italian classics in their original language (and because young Italian women are absurdly hot).
Passion is the best tool to acquire new skills, as you say, and not just language acquisition!
I find Tolkien and C.S. Lewis’s relationship very interesting. Tolkien was a long standing Christian while Lewis was convinced by Tolkien to come back into the (Catholic?) church. They both wrote books to give Christian themes a place in a secular society (although Tolkien was much better at veiling those ideas).
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2008/august/j-r-r-tolkien-and-c-s-lewis-legendary-friendship.html
They used to drink beer every Tuesday morning at a pub in Oxford and read their works-in-progress out loud. Apparently Lewis liked “that rings thing” that Tolkien never seemed to finish, but Tolkien was irritated by Lewis’ explicit Christian symbolism in the Narnia books.
IIRC Tolkien also held off writing during the war and after completing LOTRs he about shelved it all because he was having a hard time finding anyone who would publish it.
Lewis freely admitted the symbolism.
Now that I think back on it, I find the Lion of Judah imagery quite profound.
exactly why the Narnia books rubbed me the wrong way. The symbolism was just too obvious.
There are some interesting lectures on YouTube, by a professor of theology called Ryan Reeves, about both Tolkein and Lewis; he discusses their friendship, their religious ideas, and their books. They’re mostly just videotaped classroom lectures so they can be a little boring, but I still found them worthwhile. Pop them on when you’re going to sleep at night. The same Ryan Reeves does a decent series of history videos too. All worth a view.
I often think about how much more insightful people would be if they had the opportunity to study things like ancient Sanscrit, ancient Egyptian, etc. Most universities are even eliminating Latin. Many folks would come out of the woodwork aspiring to delve down to the roots of human culture and spirituality. Such encounters with the collective soul of mankind, I am convinced, would lead to a divine spark in our cultures. I actually believe the elites of the world feel threatened by what we might find if lots of students were running around with a direct line to the ancients.
I currently am studying modern languages again-Spanish and French. But I am not in a hurry to learn to speak them. The key to any language is finding something in the culture you love. I remember the love I had for Moliere and Voltaire and French classics when I was in college.
Currently, with Spanish and French, am trying to use the languages to find unique insights that the culture may have and/or study sources that had a large impact on the history and development of the culture.
So right now, I am reading a chapter a day in the bible in Spanish. No, that will not help me much on a cruise to Cancun.But I do think that with culture, you can find a key out of the matrix.
I am convinced that the matrix has been an ongoing project of the elites for the past few hundred years. So I am gravitating toward writers who wrote about things like jacobism, masons, conspiracy.
Right now, I am investigating works by Daniel Estulin for more modern insights, but also, I am trying to look for writers from the 19th century when much of this world view of materialism was being developed. Such as Jose Rodo (currently reading Ariel) and Eugene Tavernier )La Nouvelle Religion plus a book called La Morale et l’esprit laique) Actually, it was here on ROK where a contributor a while back suggested Tavernier.
And yes, I am also utilitarian. I want to dazzle my wife next year on our 25th anniversary when I order a beer and pizza in Cancun in Spanish.
Most of us do not have the luxury or opportunity or access to ancient languages like Tolkein. But you can still access the roots of modern cultures with modern language.
Yes, I would love to read the vedas in ancient Sancrit. But if you can read Dostoyevski in Russian, that is still pretty good for experiencing the depths of the Russian soul. (not that I am able to do that !)
But with regard to mastery of a language, I also will also the following advice in addition to culture.
Game, shacking up and yes, marrying a foreign bride is also good for language. I have done all three in French and/or Japanese. But that is another story.
And it will be nice to put aside all my mythology, conspiracy theories on my trip for a while and just get a taco and a Corona en espanol.
I am glad my mother taught me to write at a young age, because, damn I do not like the language arts.
I have always found that professional linguists, and by that I mean the purely *descriptive* linguists who clutter university Linguistics departments around the Western world, tend to speak, write, and think poorly.
I am now studying my eighth language (Lithuanian) and agree that the only reason to study a language is passion. It is my determination not merely to know how to say expedient things in my target language, but to express myself authentically in the language and to acquire a lover’s understanding of the culture.
I wonder how many fantasy nerds out there have learned to speak Tolkien languages? Sci-fi nerds have already been known to speak Klingon.
Perhaps I’m a philistine, but IMO Tolkien’s prolix prattle about language really bogged down his books.
Edit: Arrival had it wrong: you don’t send a creator of fake languages in to decipher alien languages, you send in a half-crazed African warlord…would Roland Emmerich lie to us?
I found LOTR tedious. Who gives a fuck about midgets with big feet?
But I did notice ….. no multiculturalism …… they all lived separately in their own racial/tribal groups.
Gandalf sure did like to spend inordinate amounts of time hanging around the Shire, immersed in a world of big-footed little boys.
So for a certain type of people, I imagine it’s their second favorite fictional setting next to Neverland.
I speak Czech (my mother language), English, German and I understand Russian (however I don’t speak it fluently). I am thinking about learning Italian and Japanese (both for work and ladies).
I love Tolkien, and read his work voraciously in my teens, but to this day two words still strike fear into my heart: Tom Bombadil
Tolkien’s capacity for inventing worlds, languages and mythologies is unrivalled, but they work best as a rich multi-dimensional backdrop to the heroic children’s tales of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. When they are alluded to within these stories they suggest unseen dimensions of a world that could almost be real, yet when they are explored or rather indulged in directly they often seem dull and lifeless. The Sillmarillion and the Unfinished Tales, are for hard-core fans not dillettantes, and the same is true for the mythologies, ancient histories, the endless poetry (I’d rather to read the depressing war poems of Wilfred Owen than the songs of Tom Bombadil) and other literary and linguistic inventions that either flesh out or weigh down the reality of middle earth.
Tolkien was a brilliant man and scholar but sometimes less is more.
I’d cut him a bit of slack when it comes to Bombadil. He was writing LotR as a sequel to the Hobbit, which obviously has a much different tone. It wasn’t till later that the story took on a more serious tone. But if we are thinking of the Hobbit Part II, characters like Bombadil and Goldberry would fit right in. (Theres a lot of narrative similarities between the visits to Bombadil and Beorn.) I’d also note the similarity in tone between the Hobbit and the first few chapters of Fellowship, up until the flight from Bree when things turn much more dark. So Bombadil fits the story in that sense thus far, and is a similar narrative experience to the visit with Farmer Maggot. I’d also point out that Tolkien had already developed Bombadil as a character around the time he had been working on The Hobbit, and already had him living near the Wythwindle, so there are a lot of similar sensibilities. And to be honest, the poems and story from the Bombadil chapter are in their own right rather enjoyable.
Where Bombadil does not fit is in the overall metaphysical and mythological structure of Middle Earth. What is he? He is obviously a creation of Eru as all things are, but he seems to be neither Vala nor Maia. Nor does he seem to be of Quendi or Human origin. So theres not really a catergory we can squeeze him into. And when we are dealing with such an organized historical and mythological world as Tolkein’s it is a bit painful to not be able to make something fit into a structure in which everything has its ordered place.
Bombadil also fails to advance the plot in Fellowship; the time spent there seems as if everything comes to a screeching halt. Thus when hes clipped from a movie such as Peter Jacksons it makes an awful lot of sense. But when
I am reading Fellowship I have grown to rather enjoy the chapters with Bombadil, and while he fails to advance the plot of the story he does play a role in our experiencing and understanding of the story, much like the Scouring of the Shire does on the other end.
I don’t remember the passage that well, beyond my feelings while I was reading it. Given how early it takes place in the saga Tolkien was definitely running a risk because as you say the narrative pace grinds to absolute halt. I can’t remember being remotely interested in anything that was happening at Tom’s diner. Maybe one day I’ll revisit the passage and be able to appreciate the poetry and pretty language but actually I think the reason I’ve never re-read the whole trilogy is precisely because I don’t want to go through that wall of text.
As to who he really is that’s a question that never really exercised me, although he clearly was a strange sort of chap. Tolkien was probably right not to situate him clearly within the wider mythology as at that stage in the story it’s probably too much to take in. Ultimately though I think it is something of truism that the only way you can really find out about a character is through their action, and specifically their action within the context of the wider plot. As such the Bombadil episode is just a kind of resting place prior to the main action happening once they get to Bree and meet Argorn
Excellent. I need to sharpen my Greek.
Love. That single word separates generations. We live now in a world that has stripped love completely from Man’s vocabulary. Man now eats, shits, makes money and has sex. Is it any wonder our age is not just degenerating, but corrupting the soul of Man? The Boomers made mistakes, big ones, and are on the path to destroying the future for their children. But what they got right, by and large, is that they believed in love, especially those born closest to the greatest generation. Gen X inherited this culture of love and its most free expression came out in the music of the 90 and 00s.
Love.. is the only way back to peace between men and women. We have to start loving again. Does that mean becoming blue pill? Hell no!!! But does red pill mean nothing but Darwinian r vs K selection? I don’t believe it.
This girl has fought to get out of a 6 year ban from making music with her last record label. She is now back and wow… just… wow. Real voice. Real lyrics. Real music.
This is what Tolkien is talking about. If you are not doing it for love, living for it, you will never have anything real.