Mitlings-Munch
Thursday, Sept. 25, 5pm
32-155.
“Writing & Language in JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth”
Dr. Marc Zender, Lecturer on Anthropology, Harvard University
Although readers of many different backgrounds have enjoyed The Lord of the Rings, few are aware of just how fundamentally linguistic JRR Tolkien’s great novel is. As a philologist specializing in the history of the Germanic languages (particularly Old English), Tolkien did more than just indulge an interest in strange sounds and symbols. He invented a detailed proto-language, followed its divergence into distinct speech communities, and thereby produced the different but nonetheless related Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin; he even invented several different alphabets with which to write these languages. Posing as the translator of the Lord of the Rings gave him free reign to employ archaisms, dialectal forms and even Old English itself to reflect the varying speech styles of his characters and their often complex relationships with one another. Understanding the linguistic foundations of Middle Earth greatly increases one’s enjoyment of the novel, and also provides insight into Tolkien’s view of the relationship between language and literature.
Posters: http://web.mit.edu/mitlings/daro.jpg, http://web.mit.edu/mitlings/Zender_MITtalk.jpg
Sponsored by the MIT Linguistics Society