It's All Oak? Languages and Origin

 "The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it anyways"  

At the tail-end of our discussion on Tuesday we looked at the Tree of Tongues (later form) that is depicted in The Lhammas.  After a hearty discussion on what exactly Tolkien was doing with his languages and what "truth" lied beneath a name, we had settled on an account that words do not have a pure essence, it's not all just oak, but instead carry unique histories with relational words that build onto and expand those histories.  Tolkien articulated these histories when writing the Lord of the Rings.  With such an expansive text and world, it would seem ridiculous to think that it's all oak, all the repetition of one true essence as Robert Graves described in his prose.  However, upon looking at the Tree of Tongues, even though the tree grows and continues to morph, it all leads back to Valanin, the language of the gods; is it actually all oak?

Tolkien spends a great deal of time explaining how these languages changed in his historical account of the Lhammas.  There is a great emphasis of language as a form of individualization: "Now as the ages passed and the Noldor became more numerous and skilled and proud, they took also to the writing and using in books of their own speech beside the Qenya" (HME 5, 189).  It's noted that the language of the Noldor never became fixed and was mainly spoken by a small subgroup of people.  

Later on the diversity in language is exemplified in a different way, not purely being derived from Valanin or Orome but instead highly influenced: "The languages of men were, from their beginning, diverse and various; yet they were for the most part derived remotely from the language of the Valar.   

I'm not sure what to make of this story where time and distance and pride constructed new identities that are all reminiscent yet distinct from their pasts.  I say identity because from these passages, and or discussion, language itself is a name, or a collective of names that brings shape to a group of people.   To clarify, what I mean by this is that we have names in different languages, but we also have names for the languages themselves, and that name is not just a story about the individual but a story about the collective as a whole who participate in that language. I think our class ended on the very hopeful reading that language and it's diversity means there is not one true language, not just oak, that is better than all the rest.  I think a more critical reading, however, or perhaps more cynical, might be to question what this equality. Isn't it all oak if it's all Valinan? And what does it mean for languages to grow on the tree planted by Valinan? Does it mean that we are expanding the world or corrupting the original? 

I'm glad I'm not a cynic, but to answer this question, we must go back to the function of language, for Tolkien this is to transport you back in time.  As Gioia puts it, "to name is to know and remember," but Tolkien also says this explicitly in his letter drafts to Mr. Thompson (Letter 180) and Mr. Rang (Letter 297).  The question then becomes what is it that we are remembering?  What is the origin of the history of these languages and what origin are we being transported back in time to? What is the the shared history of the languages, the names of groups, who all come from Valinan? 

Tolkien answers this question at the very beginning of the Lhammas: "From the beginning the Valar had speech, and after they came into the world they wrought their tongue for the naming and glorifying of all things therein." (HME 5, 183).  Naming for the Valar, is a way of glorifying, and in that sense it is different from oak which just is.  The essence of oak is part of creation, but the essence and origin of the Valar and their language is divinity itself.  This quote and the text afterwards depicts a creation story from which then all things exist and which all things can then be named.  The origin of language in Tolkien's world is not so limited as to find itself in one essence, but in the essence of creation itself; that is what allows the tree to grow and what allows for every other ability to name and glorify to take place, the language of the divine.  

Tolkien annunciates this in a different way in his letter to Mr. Rang: "We are in a time when the One God, Eru, is known to exist by the wise, but is not approachable save by one through the Valar, though He is still remembered in (unspoken) prayer by those of Numenorean descent" (Letter 297). 

The idea of all languages coming from Valanin is not reductionist or essentialist in the way that Graves describes it, but it is necessary for each of those who are named by a language to continue to grow and name all things, as sub-creators of the divine.  "The day light needs no praise, and so we praise anyway" because we have the ability to by the one who created the day.  Our naming, whatever the form, is so much more than our ability o define, but is instead in all forms out ability to continually glorify creation and create on our own. That is our origin, the history of creation and the divine that continues with us in His image.     

I'd like to think Frodo is connecting with this creation story when he is entranced by the elven song as he sees "a golden mist above seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world".       

-Gabby Bayness