In English and Welsh, Tolkien claims language as a marker of
identity in two distinct ways: a person’s “ethnic” identity and a person's individuality.
In the very beginning of the lecture, he quotes Sjéra Tómas Sæmundsson, who when
speaking of the importance of Icelandic and its preservation, said:
‘Languages are the chief distinguishing marks of peoples. No
people in fact comes into being until it speaks a language of its own; let the
languages perish and the peoples perish too, or become different peoples. But
that never happens except as the result of oppression and distress.’
Language define a person’s identity: to natively speak Welsh
is to belong to a clearly set, distinct identity. We are different because we speak
Welsh. To disrupt this cycle, to prevent or disrupt the parent teaching the
child their language, is to prevent the parent from teaching their child how to
be Welsh. A language is an identity marker.
Unfortunately, I erred in the prior paragraph. I said to “natively”
speak Welsh: native how you and I understand it. But that is not what Tolkien
believed: “'But the inherited, first-learned, language - what is usually
mis-called "native" - bites in early and deep. It is hardly possible
to escape from its influence.’” (The Notion Club Papers). There is, in each
person, the capacity for a different, truly native language. A language that
appeals to them, that perhaps comes easier to learn. As he says later in The
Notion Club Papers:
We each have our own personal
linguistic potential: we each have a native language. But that is not the
language that we speak, our cradle-tongue, the first-learned. Linguistically we
all wear ready-made clothes, and our native language comes seldom to expression,
save perhaps by pulling at the ready-made till it sits a litde easier. But
though it may be buried, it is never wholly extinguished, and contact with
other languages may stir it deeply.
Language is not merely a distinguisher of people. Tolkien
asserts in The Notion Club papers that every language is so unique that its different
qualities can never correctly suit the native speaker. We have our own language
within us. Each person, and each language is an individual. A language can and
should be individualistic.
Tolkien must write so many languages, because he wishes to
create individuals. How could Tolkien introduce us to his world, or the
characters within it, without creating different languages.
Consider when Gandalf reads aloud the original words of the
ring within Rivendell:
This I have done, and I have read: Ash
nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul”.
The change in the wizard’s voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful,
harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high sun, and the porch for a
moment grew dark.
A language so evil changes Gandalf, even for a moment. It
darkens the porch – changing Rivendell itself. A character speaking a certain language
within Mordor is the equivalent of wearing a specific type of dress in all
scenes, or even just more subtly giving them a character trait. To speak a
language is to speak like a person, and to, especially in this world, speak and
draw on the qualities of its creators. Tolkien describes our native language,
and even the languages we speak as ready-made clothes, but ready-made clothes still
give you character. Your choice of brand and the designers behind it shape you
in their image: Gandalf speaks the Black speech and he and Rivendell become blacker.
But this act of characterization is most clear with Frodo:
the only hobbit of the four who can speak some Sindarin, which is in opposition
to the Black Speech, as when the hobbits meet Goldberry:
He stood as he had at times stood enchanted
by fair elven-voices; but the spell that was now laid upon him was different:
less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to mortal heart; marvelous
and yet not strange.
Again, Tolkien makes clear the individualistic nature of
languages and the power they hold over a person. Goldberry’s singing in Sindarin
prompts a spell of delight for the hobbits: it is nearer to their hearts and familiar.
Sindarin allows them to trust Goldberry, and allows Goldberry to trust them, as
she says after Frodo sings to her: “‘I had not heard that fold of the Shire
were so sweet-tongued. But I see you are an elf-friend; the light in your eyes
and the ring in your voice tells it”.
Frodo is sweet-tongued because he speaks Sindarin: the ring
in his voice is of the same enchantment. This is no power held by Common
Tongue, as “that fold” of the Shire is not sweet-tongued. Frodo is the hero he
is because, as we set up, he speaks a little Sindarin. He is different from the
rest of the hobbits. Tolkien sets us up in the very beginning of the novel,
through a language difference, to glean this. For Tolkien, to introduce languages
is to do two things simultaneously: introduce the peoples of Middle-Earth (to
be different peoples is to speak different languages) and importantly his
characters: what languages they know and choose to speak defines them on an
individual level as well.
ZJ
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