The Constructed Languages of JRR Tolkien (Feat. Lindsay Ellis) | It’s Lit 

That's called "The Silmarillion."

i dont get it

This made me laugh way too much omg, his Pinterest board X'D

Fun fact: « Pinterest » is elven for « large clusterfucky tool of homogenization of cheap design » I think

Funny that same phrase stuck out to me. A million various youtubers flashed through my mind and the image of Tolkien as one of them will now never be gone.

Angelina probably wrote that line, I saw Nearly the same thing tweeted by her like a week ago and she does write and edit for Lindsay so 🤷‍♂️

And that, children, is how weird fetishes are born

I'd wear a t-shirt with that on it. In sequins.

I prefer the way Joseph Campbell put it: "Follow your bliss." Using "cringe" as an adjective is a trend that REALLY needs to die out. It's gross and it makes people ashamed of being themselves (and more often than not, it's used as an ableist slur against people with autism). Let's please stop leaning into it.

Gabriel Schleifer if you haven’t yet, contrapoints has a p great video exploring cringe. It’s a v widely used word & applied in many different ways. In most contexts, it’s not a slur

@@1090Ideas: People seem to forget that the guy who wrote Conan the Barbarian died the year before The Hobbit came out. Fantasy nerds definitivly existed before Tolkien's work.

@Painocus Sherlock Holmes has them both beat in terms of nerdy fandoms. Those books came long before both Howard and Tolkien, and you had fan clubs, people travelled to London just to see Holmes house - when it wasn’t there London had to build it. Doyle did sort of invest modern forensics and he did create a ”language” in the sign of four. The rage when Doyle killed of Holmes is also something I do see echoed today.

I know right? Dude singlehandedly created one of the most lucrative genres of fiction in human history

The Ur-Cringe, as it were.

I'm imagining Hobbits learning Elvish at Michel Delving University. Go Badgers!

Yeah, he's also the THE reason why beowulf is selected to be taught in colleges today

@@TheBebuchis "Beowulf, the Monster and the Critics", Tolkien's seminal work and what put him on the map as the foremost scholar on ancient British literature (what was left of it).

This was good

correct

This is funnier than it should be

I´m 100% stealing this.

😂🤣

Search RU-vid for old interviews with him and his own recordings. He did a fair few. You can even hear him reciting the Ring Verse or do a dramatised reading of Gollum and Bilbo in an excerpt from the Riddles in the Dark chapter of The Hobbit. ;-)

If you like this, I highly recommend reading Carpenter's biography on Tolkien. My fav part was him debating in Old Greek in class

An artist has no other choice but mediocrity

Kinda backhanded IMO.

@@gabe_s_videos I understand why you feel that way. Personally, I don't like the word "cringe" either and keep it out of my vocabulary when referring to art. I only found Lindsay's words encouraging in the sense that she's taking power away from a sentiment used to shame artists and is poking fun at it instead

@@ilikebirds7748 I totally get that, for sure. I just don't think it works imo. It just gives me a nasty feeling when I hear it.

The Kalevala feels more akin to the Silmarillion than LOTR imo.

He also spoke Swedish (and possibly all the Scandinavian languages)

@@servantofmelian9966 We don’t know if he actually spoke these languages, but he was definitely studying old Norse and nordic folk tales.

@@linajurgensen4698 Agree. But I suspect he spoke all of them, and Old Norse, to at least some extent. --EDIT-- Although it occurs to me, if he did speak Norwegian, how familiar he was with the various dialects. And I understand from a usually reliable source (RailCowGirl, who is Norwegian), that there are many.

@@servantofmelian9966 He knew enough Swedish and Dutch(iirc) to complain about the first two translations of Lord of the Rings, and write a sort of guide for future translators. Might sound a bit much, but having been exposed to the insanity that is the original Swedish translation I completely understand; the translator had such a high opinion of his own skills as a linguist and poet that he straight up changed certain songs, poems, names etc in order to "improve" them! 😄

Right? Also, the song is stuck in my head now...

I know. I need it.

Ok then, I wasn't the only one!

Too many Tooks will spoil the wraiths 🎶

@@tidbit2190 And now it won't stop. Oh no, I have intro-itis!

I read this just as I got to that part!

As one does.

You mean hobbies *other than gardening.* ;p

His hobbies and his hobbits.

Are you embarrassed easily? I am. But it's nothing to worry about, it's all part of growing up and being British.

Interestingly though, he was South African by birthright. He was born in Bloemfontein in 1892.

Yes, he said this many times! He would often call Quenya "Elf-Latin."

it wasn't so much ceremonial as had died out. it was the tongue the noldor brought back with them but after learning of the kin slaying it was banned in sindarin realms and was spoken only among the noldor in their own courts. as most of these were exterminated by morgoth, well the speakers were gone. I don't get her claim that sindar was thel anguage of elrond. His wife was the daughter of Galadriel, daughter of Finarfin, and he himself was decended from turgon, high king of the noldor(well one of them) so I'm sure he handled both equally well.

...and don’t forget that Latin is 9/10 directly from Greek...

@@g.thomashart9368 uh, no, they're just both descended from Proto-Indo-European and were in close contact. Latin is well-establishedly NOT descended from Greek.

This reminds me that Sanskrit kind of serves the same purpose on our side of the world.

That's actually the original context for the shibboleth. Those were Hebrew words that were extremely difficult to pronounce even for native speakers. Because they lived so closely with the communities around them, but were historically threatened often, it was a good way to tell an outsider who just lived close and picked up some of the language. That made it easier for them to know who they could trust if things got dicey.

Jews that I know who are familiar with the “Jewishness” of the Dwarves are generally in favor of the representation. The Dwarves are presented as a noble but secretive people who can integrate but only on certain terms. One told me that “The Hobbit” read to him as a critique/support of Zionism. In many ways, the Dwarves present a much more balanced Jewish representation than JKR’s goblins or FSF’s Meyer Wolfsheim.

Basically everyone in Europe did, they just hated it.

@@oremfrien I never really caught the Zionist connection. But thirteen brothers representing the biblical tribes even though most Ashkanazi Jewish people were not Semetic. The devotion and dignity of the past. And how leaders were swept up not in leading their people but an all too common apologia, like the civil war or The Roman Republic or even the horrors of the Diaspora. Focussing on the material trappings of the past instead of leading the people in the world that had changed. I mean Thorin made me angry as a young kid, but as you grow you have differnt view points. Its an interesting take. Post War anticolonial movement was not just for Israel, it was all over Africa and South America. India with so much promise in its revolution devolved into three countries. When your people have been stripped of their dignity and home because of something objectively evil, wouldn't it make sense to want something tangible and behave irrationally. Thorn wants the Arkenstone because it's the most valuable thing, but in reality it's not as valuable as people and the potential they will face rebuilding their new lives with others who have been treated as cruelly by the same forces.

@@elizabethlee2136 I don't disagree with the post-colonial motif, but I think it has a special connection to Jews because of the journey that Thorin had to take from the world of Men and Elves (functionally Europe) to the East (functionally Asia) to return to their homeland and reclaim it from those who now rested there. Other post-colonial peoples did not have a journey; they were fighting in their homes already. The Jews see the Arkenstone as representing Jerusalem. As for whether Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of the Biblical Israelites, genetics quite clearly confirms their Middle Eastern origins. But even if you refuse to believe the science on this, what matters more is that Ashkenazi Jews believe that they are the descendants of the Biblical Jews which spawns that emotional appeal to return.

Mi vidas vin.

@@suburbaknght mi vidas ĝin ankaŭ.

The eye sees all.

@@Volmortanto mi sona ala e toki Epelanto

@@Alexandra-ip2by mi toki lili e toki pona, taso mi toki e ni: mi lukin kin e ona

Maybe if it didn't make the sky turn black when people spoke it...

Go back to the shadows whence you came, you orange eye perv

Don't let those Valar get you down.

What are you guys picking on Sauron for? Do you know how hard it is being a Dark Lord? Meanies.

Some of us still love you O Dark Lord. 🙂

Different PBS show ;)

@@willherondale6367 Talkin' Tolkien

Ditto

Eras, even.

If she did it in Entish you could get your wish.

*wispers* papyrus

@@CathrineMacNiel I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!!!

Oh, Kevin. Not this again.

Shakira merch....off-brand teas?!

like a thoughtless child, wandering by a garden, just yanking leaves along the way.

Please, share his thesis with us! I would love to read it!

Where can one get a PhD in Elvish?

"Press X to learn the dragon language"

I wish they didn't turn the dragons into the chosen one's combat fodder, but hey that's just me.

I mean, your CHARACTER learning the dragon language certainly is part of the gameplay, but yeah, the player doesn't need to do much learning. Has anyone made a mod where you can Shout by saying the correct words into your mic? The game Black & White had a spellcasting system where each spell had a specific shape, and you cast them by "drawing" the shape with your mouse. Really fun game, shame I could never seem to cure my familiar of eating random villagers whenever I left him alone... 😄

The Dragon writing in Skyrim looks like Cuneiform!!

FoTR?

Well, you're in for a treat. Particularly if you haven't read the rest of middle earth yet.

@@kappamakizushi Fellowship of the Ring

Get involved with irl languages that are in danger of going extinct! The Wellsprings project at ANU has done cool work on this recently.

I'm genuinely curious... How old are you, and how is this the first time you're reading it?

True, although some people note how the dwarves are portrayed as a reclusive, bearded race devoted to seeking gold and riches. Those are common antisemitic stereotypes, even if Tolkien never intended his dwarves to be read that way.

@@Amaritudine His portrayal of Tom Bombadil is what irks me!

Yeah they’re an unfairly persecuted people by the elves due to their height and excluding the...rather negative view of petty dwarves, Tolkien never thought lowly of the dwarves. Also dwarvish sounds so Semitic it’s kind of funny tbh. That throaty h is so emblematic lol

Lindsay has some solid takes on movies and books. But unfortunately, her politics make her one of those commentators who, when they aren't sure what they should say about something, will go with "problematic" as the safest bet (best way to avoid getting canceled, really). If anything Tolkien was probably one of the most sympathetic European writers toward the situation of the Jews at the time he was constructing his legendarium. Edit: Oops. Looks like she got canceled anyway. That should serve as a lesson to anyone who thinks they should build a career pandering to people with extreme political views.

It’s not too complicated. Tolkien was very sympathetic to the Jewish people, and clearly he was firmly anti-racists. But if your characters that speak a language related to Hebrew are going to be characterized by their flaw of being rich, greedy, grasping hoarders of wealth who are attached to material things, well, that’s not great. This vicious stereotype has been a cause of enormous suffering in the world and has been used to justify all kinds of atrocities. I don’t think he personally intended ill by it; he portrays the dwarves as admirable and implacable enemies of Sauron and he was probably thinking much more about the dwarves of fantasy then the links to the language. Given what we know of him it seems pretty unlikely he intended that connection. But still. Lindsay says it’s tone-deaf, and I think that seems like the right way to describe it.

XD Me playing Skyrim: Dragonborn? I didn't even do that quest!

Translated or transliterated?

I think it would have to be transliterated, unless they had a name like "Grey" that already had an equivalent in Elvish.

I thought that Celeborn was one of the Teleri (one of three groups of Elves in Valinor -- Noldor, Teleri, and Vanyar). But he never went over the Sea to Valinor until the beginning of the Fourth Age. His wife, Galadriel, was a Noldor who did go to Valinor, and then sailed back in stolen Teleri ships to Middle Earth with Feanor et al. When Feanor's father re-married, he married a Vanyar, and their children were Finarfin, Fongolfin, and Fingon (the first of which stayed in Valinor, while the other two crossed the Helcaraxe and thus returned to Middle Earth). (see not just "The Silmarillion", but also the essay on Celeborn and Galadriel in "The Unfinished Tales" -- the essay was never finished, but went through different versions).

@@philipclayberg4928 The Sindar at the Teleri who stayed in Middle Earth but not by the sea. They had Thingol as their king and stayed behind to wait for him while he was lost meeting Melian. That became the realm of Doriath. So there were the Teleri of Middle Earth (the Sindar) and the Teleri of Alqualonde near Valinor.

The Silmarillon regards all those as High Elves who came to Aman and saw the Two Trees in their light (therefor also called "light elves") . In one of the several biographies that Tolkien created for Galadriel, Celeborn was actually one of the Elves of Tol Eressea who witnessed the Kinslaying. Hence, he was a high elf.

@@laurahill9643 I know. Tolkien called the elves who stayed in Middle Earth the Moriquendi (the ones who hadn't seen the light of Aman; not just the Sindar of Beleriand, but also those who didn't even cross the Misty Mountains) and the Valaquendi (the ones who had seen the light of Aman). It's been awhile since I've read "The Silmarillion" (I also have Vol. 2, "The Book of Lost Plays, Book 2" and Vol. 11 of his writings, "The War of the Jewels"; I used to have all 12 volumes but had to cut back far more than I wish I had to). Maybe I need to go back and do some re-reading.

@@fermintenava5911 But, in that sometimes confusing/conflicting essay, Celeborn also was an Elf who didn't cross the Misty Mountains and stayed in Lorien. At the End of the First Age, instead of going back to Aman, Galadriel traveled east, crossed the Misty Mountains, and met Celeborn in Lorien. I don't know what Tolkien would've eventually decided had he lived longer. As his son Christopher once put it, everything that was published came out of what was written by that point. But since everything was always in flux, things could always change after publication, because his father would go back and think about it some more. And, thank goodness, he kept everything he wrote (or most of it). It's very rare that we, the readers, get such an intimate look at an author's thinking. It's like Pompeii: The citizens of Pompeii probably would never have wanted all their secrets revealed 1700+ years after the 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed it. But, thanks to the eruption, we have a time capsule of the city. Thanks to Tolkien not destroying all his unpublished writing, we have a time capsule of his writing, and his son, Christopher, thank goodness, chose to share that time capsule with the world.

Audrey the cat nerd « it’s toMAHto » Other guy: « prepare to die »

Nice reference to the very obscure "Shibboleth of Fëanor" lol.

brooksboy78 when I spiral I SPIRAL, man

@@brooksboy78 what's that and where did he write about it?

Been well beyond done with the role since before her departure around 2015.

Glad she got out of there when she did, personally.

Actually, deep down she's still that same girl that loves edgy humor and loved it when all those hot dogs hit her face.

TORILLA TAVATAAN

TORILLE

IKR?! I just finished a "Titanic" rewatch after Lindsay's "Is Titanic Good Actually?" video.

And the making of part where they are taught how to sword fight! ❤️

Aww man!. I promised myself: no LOTR for a year. Maybe longer.

@@jbvader721 ha! I've been meaning to do that too

I love the movies but I hate that they’re so good that I haven’t reread the books in years, even though they have a much more vibrant and detailed tale to tell

Looks more like a pocket book edition to me. I thought she was giving it a fake vintage look. I could be wrong.

Smmooothh

I looked for it, but I didn't see it.

@@JervisGermane immediately to the right of her left shoulder, next to Dust on the bookshelf.

exactly the same

Same here.

I had a best friend in elementary that although didn’t become fluent, was able to read and write in it and gave us all elvish names.

Mais pourquoi ?! Ce sont deux langues merveilleuses ! (Signed, a German)

I learned a bit of Sindarin for a con costume back in 2015. You should give it another go; there's a surprising amount of resources for learning it online now. :)

@Satan's Wife - Understood. It takes more work than people think to be an Elvish impersonator...

I think that's something not talked about much when it comes to Tolkien, but he created one of the most beautiful celebrations of northern european cultures in modern times with his admiration of celtic and finnish languages, as well as semitic, latin, arabic etc. I also love the finnish language and can definitely see what he saw.

@@RenegadeShepard69 It may be silly, but sometimes you won't be able to appreciate something you have until someone else does it. 😅 I am very thankful to Tolkien for this reason.

Hyvä Suomi! I am german and learning finnish for about six months. Suomi on todella kaunis kieli.

@@dannyg4383I do not speak a lick of finnish but if I recall correctly, I am pretty sure if you capitalize Suomi it becomes the country but lowercase is the language

Torille!

Was that a joke? Lindsay Ellis is a crap writer. If that's flexing, her bicep is doing that cartoony thing where it falls and sags instead of rises.

Benadryl Thundercrotch just get a different author name, for the love librarians’ shush

It aged worse than yoghurt.

😂😂😂

Came here to comment similar though iirc the version of Belter in the show was the most toned-down version of the language that was actually created

@@ReverendMeat51, there's less Belter language in the books compared to the show. The language expands with each season.

@@SmokeyLaBear I know. It's more than "just a collection of expressions" though.

Oye beltalowda! I saw the Expanse novels in a prominent place on Lindsay's bookshelf to her left. (Btw _beltalowda_ is a collective plural meaning people of the Belt, so "Beltalowdas" is not a proper form. You don't want to sound like the _Inyalowda_ who no sa sa Belta Creole, or worse yet like a _welwala_ who's forgotten where he came from.)

I immediatly jumped when seeing J Peterson, these conservative bafoons really get to you. Anyway, thanks for the additional context on David Peterson!

@Beleg L. J Peterson is a legend though. And Tolkien was conservative as well. LoTR is heavily conservative in it’s themes, characters and plot too... so stop enjoying that I suppose?

Judging by how those names look, that's definitely Quenya.

You can’t translate names.

@@gegenbauer Tolkien translated names in his own writing.

@@gegenbauer I mean, you can, depending on the naming convention. If I name is made up of words of a distinct meaning that can be translated into a coherent name in another language. Most modern western names have lost meaning however so it's indeed less than practical for western naming convention.

@@gegenbauer Dude...

Oh how exotic.

Whereas "Hakkaa päälle!" makes me feel like I'm about to have my head cloven in two.

Yam seng!

Mi pensa Lindsay Beltalowda

Andrea V Sili da Lindsey im mebi wanya xunyam walowda lang belta.... we got lots of resources, keyá? 😉

who knows...

What’s stopping you from getting those exact shame bookcases and putting them in a corner?

Aye, it's not tone-deaf at all. What's tone-deaf is today's Americans expecting the word "Anti" to precede "Semitic" everytime the word appears, shrivering in fear that they'll trip over the glass shard-filled floor in which who falls is a bigot. The man was raised in another era, one where jewish people lived a much different life, and had a normalized widespread stigma similar to today's gypsy, yet even in a shamelessly hostile environment to that people, he openly warmly admired not just the jewish people but many others who didn't have legitimate statehood-status like the finns and karelians, and were persecuted etc. None of his assessments should be demonized. I, for one, can spot many different instances of, the today called, "incidental racism" in his work, many which are brushed away because the people who care about nitpicking dead people for that aren't as comprehensive of what discrimination is like as they think, and I can spot those "problematic" details because I am from a completely different time than his, born around a century after him. Doesn't mean anything other than that the times have changed and that I can interpret things that aren't there and there weren't meant to be and that don't objectively hurt nor violate, as nothing in fiction does. His works are some of the least hateful of the famous writers from the past century.

Tolkien designed his dwarves to resemble Jews. “I do think of the ‘Dwarves’ like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their native tongue.” He intentionally designed their language to be Semitic, with the same triconsonantal root grammar that modern Semitic languages share.

@@TacticusPrime None of that speaks to the physical attributes that were (and still are) used to caricaturise jews. He drew from the history of the jews as a people, but not from their characterisation as a race.

Yes. He needed another culture away from the Welsh and Nordic ideas he had already used, and chose one from the Middle East that fitted the bill in its relations to the others he had already established. The comment of "tone-deaf" was nothing more than some rather sad, lowbrow virtue signalling.

That was also made by David J. Peterson, the guy who fleshed out the game of thrones languages

That movie is mad underappreciated.

So sad it didn't get the appreciation it deserved... It's one of my favourite movies.

It's also the same guy who created Klingon, Marc Okrand.

It’s amazing up to a point. The villan is what drags it down. It comes sort of out of nowhere and his ”plan” make little sense.

Never knew that about Amon Amarth. That's cool.

its out go find out

A shitty one if any. Hell, her book has been described as her not taking her own advice.

@@SirBlackReeds i was talking about the second book. Loved the first

marsouinrirou « youve shown me this before, they clearly changed it »

Yeah, he and Galadriel met in Doriath, not Valinor.

It's not that easy, I'm afraid - Tolkien had invented those two for the "Ring" and later in life, had different biographies for both of them. Read the "Book of Unfinished Tales" for full detail, but in one version, Celeborn was a Telerin on the Isle Tol Eressea near Valinor and joined Galadriel to pursue Feanor for the kinslaying. And only in that regard he can be considered a High elf, because as an Eldar in Beleriand, he lacked the revelation of Aman that only the High Elves received.

A concept from Tolkien's earlier ideas that I absolutely love is that Morgoth and his servants spoke a descendant of Valarin called Melkian, which then evolved into the various dialects of orkish that survived til the third age. In his later concepts what Morgoth and his servants spoke is left a mystery but this is still my headcanon

Burgess Nadsat was one of the best reading experinces I ever had. It’s so cool how fast you pick up on it and can read the book without a hitch.

One of the main themes, “Song of the Ancients” is even sung in a language developed between twins.