Oddly enough, it also works perfectly in Hebrew - I sometimes prefer it to the original English.
After the Romans left, there weren’t many pockets of people speaking Latin. Outside of the churches, who still spoke Latin, the English language was thoroughly Germanic, thanks to the Anglo-Saxon occupation - we barely have any Celtic left either, apart from a few words for geographical features.
some roman latin made it to the english melting pot, according to one history book. all the __caster, ___cester, and ___chester place names are derive from the latin “castra” meaning ‘camp.’ many cities and towns are orignally roman encampments.
He didn’t work directly for M? I wonder if he had a 00 designation.
any Koine Greek influences?
I personally also avoid words with French or Latin origins when writing stories since those words don’t have the same intense ring that Germanic words do. When there’s a choice between words, the Germanic word will usually sound the less bureaucratic and more fantastic of the two.
Although I seem to recall from his letters that he didn’t speak Modern Irish–although he liked Ireland.
Didn’t he learn a bit of Spanish as a gesture to the Spanish priests who were his friends in childhood? A Latin scholar would have found it rather easy. If so, why the heck didn’t he remember that minas means “mines” in Spanish (& Portuguese). It’s a tiny discordant note when reading about Minas Tirith, etc.
Anyway, here’s a pierce on Dwarves versus Dwarfs; winding & discursive, as so many linguistic discussions tend to be. And it quotes JRRT Himself:
(Yes, I’m wandering from the OP; but I’ll keep it in mind next time I read LOTR again.)
He’s not even the only well-known*fantasy author* to do it. (and see the Anglish link from that page)
ETA: and I see I was beaten to this…
The Anglish Moot - an Anglish Wiki of sorts
You’re getting your Tolkien references mixed up. It was Christopher Lee who worked for M.
[wanders off humming Secret Agent Saruman]
M was published in 1908, when Tolkien was still a teenager – doubtless a precocious one, but still going to high school. W was published in 1928.
(Yes, I know it was a joke.)
Oddly enough, in Ken Follett’s WWII spy thriller Eye of the Needle, there’s a smart, multilingual Oxford don who acts as a consultant to MI6, and the character has a strong JRRT vibe.
Place names often outlive the languages they derive from. Almost the only Celtic influences that remain in English are place names, and the same holds true from the times of the Roman occupation, as Double Foolscap observes. However, many Latin words crept into the language not indirectly from Norman French (which was already considerably Germanicized because the Normans themselves were originally Vikings) but the clerical route in the Middle Ages - from the time of the Conquest to the Reformation, and even after. Latin was the language of scholars throughout Europe, and since scholars mostly did the writing, they had an impact on the language.
I’ve never noticed a lack of Romance-language-derived words in LoTR, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. From what I’ve read, most English schoolchildren grew up with the story of the Conquest as just that: a conquest. Harold Godwinson, last Anglo-Saxon king of England and the dead loser of the battle of Hastings, is viewed as the fallen hero. The fact that Harold’s ancestors were every bit the conquerors of the Celts, who in turn had almost certain conquered the previous inhabitants, was not noted. I suspect this is due to the historic emnity, almost feuding, of Britain and France.
This is an interesting idea, one that I will have to bear in mind the next time I read LotR.
That’s fascinating, I’d never heard of this before. It does in parts read like an exaggeration of Tolkien’s style.
This page, on the Banded Folkdoms of Americksland is my favourite so far.
The Ohlmarks translation is generally considered quite horrible. I once compared parts of it with the English original and I cannot but agree.
It occurs to me that in English folklore the *defenders *of England are always the heroes, even if ultimately unsuccessful–which means that their antagonists are the heroes the next time around. Boudicca is the heroine defending the British against the Romans, then Arthur defending the Romano-British against the Saxons, Alfred against the Danes, and then Harold and Robin Hood against the Normans.
And the Duke of Wellington against Napoleon, and Churchill against Hitler!
I’m late to the party, but I completely believe the assertion that Tolkien left all the Romance language out. He was so much more interested in the languages derived from Northern Europe, and he was that finicky for sure. I could make a decent stab at it with my patchy knowledge; it would have been simple for him.
I think it really enhances the text, even if it’s not on a conscious level for most people. The language doesn’t just sound generically archaic, it sounds like the coherent language of a culture–while modern English sounds like the hodge-podge that it is.
I can totally see that too, oh yes. Meanwhile, Kipling was always asserting that the Norman culture was a necessary balance to the Anglo-Saxon one, and that only the blend of peoples could have produced the English. Maybe we could set up a cage match…
Two languages enter! One language leaves!
Quoth Ludovic:
I wonder how much of that is due to Tolkien’s own influence. To most modern fantasy fans, “sounds fantastical” largely means “sounds like Tolkien”.