Maybe as a child, you experimented with creating
a new language that only you and your best friend would know. I think a lot of
kids enjoyed this, however, for people like J. R. R. Tolkien, this was a
reality. Tolkien loved languages all of
his life, but when he began writing his tales of Middle Earth, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he began inventing his own
languages.
Tolkien is most known for his creation of Middle Earth;
however, most people leave out Tolkien’s true creative genius, his creation of
various languages. Many authors create their own universe for their characters,
like J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World in the Harry
Potter series. However, Tolkien went above and beyond in his creation of
Middle Earth; he created the geography, the history, and the languages spoken
by many of his characters.
Two languages that Tolkien fully developed include Quenya
and Sindarin, both of which were spoken by the elves in his tales. Not only did
Tolkien create these languages, but he also created specific instances when
these languages would be used. Quenya is the equivalent of Elvish Latin, a
language that is not used for everyday conversations, but rather for poetry,
song, lament, and magic. He based this language on the grammatical principles
of Finnish, while Sindarin is based on Welsh, Tolkien’s favorite language.
Sindarin, in contrast to Quenya, is a spoken language and appears often in his
works.
(Quenya alphabet)
In order to use the proper pronunciation in the movies,
clips of J. R.R. Tolkien reading his novels were used as reference. So, not
only did Tolkien create a language, but he also developed the pronunciation. Thus,
Sindarin and Quenya could be reproduced for the movies and the reproduction is
fairly authentic.
(Here are excerpts from the movie of Legolas speaking Quenya
and Sindarin.)
There were several other languages that he invented for the
people of Middle Earth, but they are not as fully developed as Quenya and
Sindarin, because they are not spoken as often in the books or movies. Dwarvish
and Orcs’ black speech (the language of Mordor) are not as fully developed
because they are missing many words that would be essential to conversations, however,
there are various sentences throughout the books that are written in Dwarvish
and the Black Speech of Mordor.
(Here, Gandalf speaks the Black Speech of Mordor and due to
movie magic, the skies darken to show the true impact.)
Like Andreasen in her article, “Secrets of the Creative
Brain,” I do not think that IQ is the sole indicator of creative genius. For
example, not all smart people have the capability to create their own
languages. Thus, Tolkien’s creative genius is not solely from his IQ, but
rather another aspect of maybe his personality or some other way that he
thinks. In this article, Andreasen expands on the idea of divergent thinking,
which is the ability to come up with various responses to assessments of
creativity. In this definition, I believe J. R. R. Tolkien would have been a
very divergent thinker due to the fact that he not only invented one language,
but several.
The study of “big C” creativity is important to Andreasen,
and there is much value in studying what makes people, such as Tolkien, so
creative that they fit into the “big C” creative category. Andreasen believes that “[c]apturing human
mental processes can be like capturing quicksilver” which I believe to be
accurate. Unfortunately, Tolkien is no longer around to allow us a glimpse into
his mental processes that went into the creation of these new languages. I
guess the only option we have, is to dissect his writings ever further…off I go
to read The Lord of the Rings again.
(Prophecy of Aragorn’s ascension as King of Gondor)
Other useful links:
Image Sources:
Here, you can learn how to write your name in Elvish:
I found this blog post really interesting, in that I did not know that Tolkien had developed an entire language. When reading books that claim to create a new language, I guess I always just assumed that the author wrote a single line and then just defined it for that part of the work. I would never have expected an entire language to be behind it. Then to have not only the written language but to come up with the pronunciations as well is incredible. I agree that Tolkien seems to exhibit divergent thinking n his creation of a language. It is not something that we would expect, but it is certainly unique and creative.
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