T.A.
Shippey’s The Road to Middle Earth
reiterates what we have often brought up in class discussion: that via his
writing Tolkien created an incredibly immersive world. One in which he creates
a means of escape and desertion from this world. And yet by escaping to the
world of Middle Earth, Tolkien’s provides a means of
consolation; for readers can gain insight into their own world from their visit
to Middle Earth.
Language
is a key component to creating a novel realm. No matter how bizarre or
fantastical the created world, it has a connection to ours via language. A
fantasy world, like ours, contains this means of communication as beautifully noted
on in The Notion Club Papers (Sauron
Defeated). In this story, it is mentioned that language is used by 'hnau', by intelligent
and physical beings and minds. For, “the irrational couldn’t, and the unembodied couldn’t or wouldn’t [use language].” As such, the existence of
language in a fantasy world make the world and the people in it more real, relatable,
and believable to the reader. For the people in the world are rational,
intelligent, physical beings and minds, just like us.
In his
world, Tolkien goes to a great extent to create unique languages for all the
races of Middle Earth. And amongst these languages, there is evidence of the
evolution of language, such as seen in the many dialects and spoken languages
of the elves throughout the history of Middle Earth. Again, this creates a
similarity between language in a fantasy world to language in the world in which
a reader lives. The evolution of language is inevitable and notable within a
single generation. Today’s dictionary recognizing
phrases like 'texting' and 'lol' are testament to this.
In
regards to the parallels between language in the readers' world and language in
a fantastical world, Tolkien's use of the Common Speech in the Lord of the
Rings beautifully embodies this topic. In a sense, the Common Speech can be
seen as embodying the desire to understand the minds and languages of all
people of the world. Such a desire is highlighted in The Lost Road, in
which the story of Alboin shows Alboin’s intense longing to know and
see people from the past. And when his wish is granted, he travels back through
time and understands the language of foreign people from who are speaking what
is likely a dead language in Alboin’s time.
And yet,
in our world, the ability to understand the minds and languages of all cultures
and peoples is, sadly, impossible without the assistance from technology or
translators. There are only so many languages the human mind can comprehend and
use fluently. And yet, the Common Tongue as seen in The Lord of the Rings
highlights the wondrous gift of being able to learn the language of others. In
learning the language of others, one can speak to and with them. At the same
time, one can better understand the culture of the language in which the tongue
originates via the language's structure and usage (an example is seen in the
situation mentioned in lecture, when Tolkien’s mother scolded him for
saying the 'green great dragon' rather than the 'great green dragon', for
English favors the significant descriptions of a noun to proceeded it. And yet
in languages such as Spanish, the noun always proceed its adjectives, perhaps
alluding to the fact that more significance is placed in the noun than its
description and features). In the realm of Middle Earth in its Third Age,
presumably much could be gleamed from races by their language. In fact, one
could be sure of this, for Treebeard himself comments on how curious the other
races are for being so quick, as seen in their short words! And Bilbo holds a
fascination and desire to preserve the elvish language, as seen in his writing
it down and teaching it to Frodo. The language is important to Bilbo, and he has
a great respect for it, just as he has a great respect for the Elves.
Seemingly, the Elvish language and its speakers are enlightening of the culture
and ideals of elves.
Do not
think the following statement is a random tangent, for it relates to the
subject of phonetics and all that I have mentioned: in my Biodiversity class
this very week, my professor was on the topic of taxonomy, in which taxonomic
'trees' (cladograms) are used to show divergence and evolution amongst similar
organisms. He then showed us a cladogram (follow this link for a cool example! http://static.persquaremile.com/wp-content/uploads/indo-european-language-origin-map.jpg)
of languages, indicating when languages 'derived’ and ‘evolved' from others. If this is not proof that language
indicates much of its speakers, I do not know what is. The divergence of
languages as illustrated on the cladogram is color coded, and a map of Europe
is color coded to the respective language spoken in appropriate regions. Such
shows with amazing accuracy the immigration and dispersal of early (and more
recent) people throughout Europe. A similar process to this was used to track
the story of Little Red Riding Hood, along with its variations. The results of
this study corresponded to likely immigrations of early people, and it also
highlights ideals that were likely significant to early and successive cultures
that arose from shared ancestors. For example, some variations of Little Red
Riding Hood show her to be an obedient girl who is saved from danger, while
other variations show her being a devious girl, devouring the treats for her
grandmother and consequently finding a dangerous tiger in her grandmother’s bed (as seen in Asian variations of the story).
The
migration of people, culture, and language is not a foreign concept in Middle Earth.
The elves’ dispersal across Middle Earth
is testament to this phenomena. The emphasis on the history of elves, both in The
Lord of the Rings and in other of Tolkien’s writings, illustrates
Tolkien’s fascination with the birth
and spread of cultures as seen through linguistics. In The Lost Road,
Alboin resembles a young Tolkien, fascinated with languages deemed dead and insignificant
in the modern world. Yet Tolkien, as mentioned in Flieger’s Question of Time,
pursued the studies of old, seemingly insignificant languages as a young
undergraduate. Even as a professor, he often put work aside in pursuit of the
knowledge gleamed by studying the linguistics of ancient cultures.
“Those who do not learn from
the past are doomed to repeat”, or so it is said in some
variation or the other. On a less daunting but sadder note, Tolkien’s focus of language seems to say, “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to forget
it.” In his studies of
linguistics, Tolkien sought out stories representative of his region of the
world from the early people who settled and lived there. With England lacking such
stories apart from its classic King Arthur stories, Tolkien sought to honor
England and its past via his imagination. The fate of the elves fading away
from Middle Earth seems to hint that people who forget who they are and where
they come from are doomed to loose connection to their origins, their ideals,
and who they are. Or, so I have gleamed from what I have understood of the
elves relationship with Middle Earth.
~C.C.C.
~C.C.C.
1 comment:
Thanks for the post, CCC. It’s a good read.
This idea of the taxonomy of languages, their relation of the peoples who speak them, and the nations that can be defined from those people, was—for good and very ill—one of the key ideas of the Zeitgeist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Tolkien is, in a way, very typical of his times in his profound fascination with it, but he’s utterly atypical in his creative use of it.
I've always thought that one of the most interesting thing is that Gildor regards Frodo as an elf-friend immediately upon hearing him speaking fluent Elvish with a beautiful accent. (Paper topic: Perhaps Gildor and the Elves are French…) While Gildor may be seeing in Frodo’s mien other signs of “elf-friendliness” it seems significant that entrée to Elfdom is clearly denoted through the skillful use of its language.
You might look at Tolkien’s letters for some of his explicit discussions of these issues here in the Fourth Age…
Bill the Heliotrope
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