Tolkein's World

Hello, everyone!

As we read more of LotR, I am reminded of one of the original things that got me so invested in Rivendell - Elvish language. Which, of course, got me thinking more on Tolkein's works in languages.

As with everything the man did, Tolkein invested an ungodly amount of time into his fictional languages to the point that you can actually speak them and people are still working on them to this day. There are regional dialects, dialectal shift over time, written varieties, and more. Tolkein so unabashedly loved languages and Middle Earth it's inspiring.

This level of work is another example of why people love Middle Earth so much, I think. Many times now, and then, some vocabulary and rough pronunciations are created for worlds, enough to make it feel like "another language". Tolkein legitimately created an entire system though! Furthermore, he created a beautiful script for it I might add. It has vocabulary, calligraphy, a proper syntax structure, pronunciations, and MORE. All of this, the history of the world, the Valar, the languages, the maps, the changing physical geography, all of it spanning thousands of years... Sometimes it makes me wonder if Tolkein almost thought it was real. As if this was his own personal world to cope with his emotions, as well as escape into a land with magic and prophesies and fantastical creatures but not one for children, one that reflected the reality of our world with tragedies and miracles. While yes, I know that writing is an author's playground and anything can happen but the fact Tolkein decided to use blank pages as a place with people sometimes realer than our own makes me wonder.

Could Tolkein see Middle Earth almost as real as well?

Elendil

Natural vs. Unnatural: Immersion

All,

I know many people have been discussing this however a particular point caught my attention: we were shifting our focus between what's natural in our world and what's natural in Tolkein's world.

Having a few days to think about it, I became more interested in lists for both of these, and this eventually led to a sort of free write of my own volition. I thought about how Tolkein builds such an intense, but almost subtle immersion via blurring this line. Whenever I think of the late nights with reading lights attached my books on the road and being so completely invested in Middle Earth it relates to how natural the world feels. Tolkein's strong suit was building a world recognizable, almost akin to ours. He has butterflies, he has humans, he has mini humans (i.e. Hobbits), he has squirrels, he has eagles, and much more. All of these little comforts I think is what allows us to suspend our disbelief so much further - it's what brings people wanting to enter Middle Earth. If it can have butterflies like us, if we can share so many identifiable features from our world, why can't we share that magic?

I think this is why our focus kept shifting because Tolkein was intentionally making it difficult to tell what is natural.

That's my post,
Elendil