From: ellafunnt
I live in vancouver, b.c. and in this saturday’s edition of the vancouver sun (in the ‘mix’ section) there was an entire page devoted to lord of the rings, titled “The Language of the Elves.” it goes on to talk about tolkien, scholars who study elvish, and a history of the book’s conception. i thought it was very fascinating because until now i haven’t seen many articles discussing the linguistics of lord of the rings, and that’s probably the most important thing!
It also discusses the role of linguists in hollywood and how quenya differs from so many made up hollywood languages out there. and here’s a nicely put take on the whole ‘geek’ factor:
“And you would keep in mind that the humans who study Elvish do no resemble those you might expect to speak Klingon. They will not wear prosthetic foreheads and salute William Shatner. They are more likely to know Native American words for orange juice and read Beowulf in the original Old English. They are, like the professor who started it all, serious people.”
There is also a fairly large picture of elijah wood and sean astin in character at the top third of the page, and on the bottom there is a brief glossary of quenya words–variations on the words ‘air,’ ‘dragon,’ ‘drink,’ and ‘sea’ for example. there’s also a link from where this sample was taken from (www.dragondesign.com/TheLair/elf.html).
