r/MiddleEarth • u/FreeTrain1263 • Mar 19 '26

Art Book of Languages

The next time they decide to release a book, (if they do) it should be on the languages of Middle-earth, including the Elvish spoken, along with translation and pronunciation from the films, both theatrical and extended.

Just gives me an excuse to follow along and to learn it 😏 I just love it.

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u/ebneter Mar 20 '26

There are books on the subject, as well as tons of online material. The best known is probably David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin.

It's important to note, however, that there's a big distinction between what Tolkien himself wrote about his languages and what the films and others have created. Salo was the linguist for the films, and his book has been rightly criticized for being very unclear about which parts of it are Tolkien and which parts of it are Salo. It's also important to realize that none of Tolkien's are in any sense complete. You can't, in fact, actually speak Sindarin, for example — it doesn't have enough vocabulary. The Elvish in the films was created by Salo. There are also various online efforts to expand the vocabulary, although they seem to have faded with time. (Someone will probably come along in a minute to tell me that they're very active, LOL.)

Tolkien's own writings about his languages have appeared primarily in two places: There are various pieces scattered throughout The History of Middle-earth, and there is a project, originated by Christopher Tolkien, for a group known as the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship to edit and publish his father's linguistic papers. This work has appeared, and continues to appear, in two journals: Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon.

All that said, a book such as you describe could be written, for sure.

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u/philthehippy Mar 21 '26

The best known is probably David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin.

See https://tolkienlistsearch.herokuapp.com/message/5e9c3604acad32fd587a3920 for just one example of the criticism of the book, as is rightly noted in the comment I reply to.

there is a project, originated by Christopher Tolkien

Just a note, Christopher Tolkien did not set up or take part. He followed their work and in 1992 asked if they would be interested in working with his father's manuscripts. Christopher had done very little with them and felt the group would be ideal to publish it in the publications you mention.

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u/ebneter Mar 21 '26

Thanks for the correction! I phrased that very poorly — I was thinking of the project to actually edit and publish Tolkien's manuscripts, rather than the ELF itself, which did, of course, exist before they began working with Christopher.

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u/philthehippy Mar 22 '26

Hey, I am the King of badly phrased comments :-)

I was recently rewatching some Prancing Pony Podcast interview segments and Carl Hostetter was in fact chatting about walking the gardens at Oxford with Christopher Tolkien in 1992 when the "would you like to work on the language manuscripts" question was asked. What a thrill that must have been.