What’s the Least Commonly Used Letter in the Alphabet?
Of the 26 letters in the English alphabet, which one do you think is used the least? Let’s explore how the experts — including statisticians and Scrabble enthusiasts — have tried to answer this question.
With over a million English words, all of the letters in the alphabet get plenty of use. But some letters will be played first in Wordle and called out on Wheel of Fortune, while other letters are known to be uncommon. But which is the least commonly used of all? The answer can vary based on the criteria. Are we counting all dictionary entries in history or only those currently in use? Are we focusing on written or spoken language? These questions and more influence the outcome, but let’s turn to the experts to get some answers.
In an analysis of the approximately 240,000 entries in the 11th edition of theConcise Oxford English Dictionary, the letter “Q” was the least used, appearing in only 0.1962% of entries. The second-least-used letter was “J,” followed by “Z,” “X,” and “V,” in that order. On the other end of the spectrum, “E” was the most common letter, showing up in over 11% of entries. Still, this doesn’t necessarily mean “Q” is the least used in everyday English — especially considering the average American knows only about 42,000 words.
This brings us to a more practical (if nonacademic) source: Scrabble. The board game revolves around using letter tiles to strategically spell words on the board. Each letter is worth a certain point value, supposedly based on their rarity in English words. Any avid Scrabble player knows that “Q” and “Z” are worth 10 points — the highest value in the game. This would suggest that “Q” and “Z” are the least-used letters in English, right? Maybe. But Scrabble creator Alfred Butts was hardly scientific in his approach to the point system. When crafting the game in 1938, he calculated a value for each letter by counting how many times it appeared on the front page of The New York Times. However, many critics have contested Butts’ haphazard approach.
To challenge this outdated system, Scrabble enthusiast Joshua Lewis developed a program called “Valett,” which recalculates the letter values based on three criteria: their frequency in English, their frequency by word length (how many times a letter appears in words of different lengths), and how easy it is to play that letter with other letters. Based on Lewis’ findings, several letters would lose value — “Z,” for example, would be worth only six points, suggesting that it isn’t as rare as it seems. However, Lewis kept “Q” as the highest-scoring letter. He even suggested increasing its score to 12 because of its extreme rarity.
So, there you have it: According to statistics and Scrabble aficionados, “Q” may indeed be the least commonly used letter in the English alphabet.
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
If you find yourself writing a song or in a freestyle competition, it’s best to avoid these rhymeless words. There are plenty of English words that lack a perfect rhyming companion.
There are a couple of English words that don’t have any rhymes; they may be few and far between but do pop up sometimes. These rhymeless words may make it tough to write a really good song, ’cause if you try to rhyme them it’ll end up sounding wrong. So if you’d like to learn some more and see a proper sample, here are several rhymeless words that are a great example.
(See what we did there?)
Let’s begin with the word “orange” — orange you glad we started with an example that you’ve probably heard before? Whether the word applies to the fruit or the color (fun fact: the fruit is named after the color), there’s no true rhyme for the word “orange” in the standard English lexicon. There is, however, a very specific and archaic botanical term, “sporange,” meaning “a botanical structure in which asexual spores are formed.” The more modern name for this is “sporangium.” But outside of that weird, historical case, there are no exact rhymes for “orange.” There are, however, some slant rhymes you can consider — slant rhymes being words that share similar, but not identical sounds. Try out“change,” “grunge,” or “tinge” if you must use “orange” in verse.
Continuing this colorful trend, let’s move on to two other rhymeless hues: “silver” and “purple.” While words like “river” or “shiver” may sort of sound like “silver,” they’re slant rhymes at best. The same goes for “purple,” whose closest rhyme is likely “whirlpool.”
But it’s not just colors that dominate the rhymeless spectrum. For instance, the phrase “ninth of the month” is a headache for lyricists, as both “ninth” and “month” lack any sort of proper English rhyme. The animal kingdom is also full of words without rhyming pairs, such as “walrus,” “wolf,” and “penguin.”
The list goes on and on — “angel,” “bulb,” “woman,” “husband,” and “warmth” also fall into the rhymeless category. While preschoolers singing nursery rhymes and skilled rappers make it seem easy, it turns out the English lexicon is full of rhymeless words just waiting to trip us up.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
Listening to younger generations speak can feel like trying to decode an alien language. Let’s help clear things up by explaining some popular modern idioms.
Just like clothing fads, certain expressions go out of style. For example, it’s probably been a while (if ever) since you heard someone exclaim, “Now you’re on the trolley!” or threaten a person with a “knuckle sandwich.” But as idioms come and go, other ones appear to fill the void. Brand-new phrases are coined by each generation, leading to an array of fresh figurative speech.
An idiom, of course, is a symbolic phrase that can be hard to understand from the literal definitions of the words. For example, when telling a performer to “break a leg,” you’re not actually hoping they shatter a femur. The phrase is more figurative in nature; its meaning is defined not by the dictionary, but rather by how the wording is used and understood in society. So let’s take a closer look at the origins and meanings of some popular modern idioms.
Spill the Tea
While tipping over a teapot may result in a messy situation, “spilling the tea” means that someone is dishing out gossip. The “tea” is actually “T,” which is short for “truth” in this context. The phrase developed widespread use in LGBTQ+ culture, specifically among Black drag performers. It gained widespread attention when
transgender club performer The Lady Chablis used the phrase prominently in her interviews with writer John Berendt, the context of which appeared in Berendt’s 1994 nonfiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. “Spill the tea” remained primarily LGBTQ+ slang until the popularity of the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race pushed this idiom and other drag-related terminology into the collective lexicon.
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Understood the Assignment
In 2021, it was impossible to browse TikTok without hearing the phrase “understood the assignment.” This idiom means that someone pulled things off in an impeccable manner and nailed whatever goal they were aiming for. The tipping point for this phrase seems to be August 16, 2021, when musician Tay Money posted a teaser of a new song, “The Assignment,” to her TikTok, and the viral reach spread the idiom far beyond the song’s initial fan base. The idiom can apply to big things, such as a celebrity matching an elaborate outfit to an important event, but it can also apply to everyday people showing up in their lives in meaningful ways. A dad who learns how to braid his daughter’s hair because it’s important to her? He understood the assignment.
Living Rent-Free in Your Head
Sadly, rent is never free, unless we’re talking about this figurative phrase. To “live rent-free in someone’s head” means to occupy space in their brain, often in a detrimental manner. For example, if you find yourself always thinking about how annoying someone else is, that person is living rent-free in your head. The “rent-free” aspect implies a lack of control, and you’ll often find that this constant worrying has no positive impact on your life. It seems like an ultramodern phrase, but it’s attributed to a somewhat old-school source: advice columnist Eppie Lederer, who wrote under the alias Ann Landers. In a 1999 column for the Chicago Tribune, Landers wrote, “Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.”
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Shooting Your Shot
To “shoot your shot” means to try to seize an opportunity, even if the odds of success are slim. It often requires stepping out of your comfort zone. Someone might shoot their shot when asking someone on a date, or blindly emailing their resume to a company in hopes of landing a job offer. Even though this idiom’s origins are unclear, it’s likely derived from the world of sports, specifically the idea of shooting basketballs at the net. It also could be related to the famous quote by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
The phrase “keep it 100,” could be taken as a literal command. Should you turn the thermostat up to 100 degrees? Or strive for a perfect 100 on a test? This idiom is a way of saying, “be true to yourself,” and is explained by Dictionary.comas being akin to “keeping it real.” To “keep it 100” means to be 100% authentic and to embrace transparency over deception. The idiom’s modern popularity is tied to rap music, as many popular lyricists, including Lil Wayne and Jadakiss, have incorporated the phrase into their songs.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
The English language comprises thousands and thousands of words (more than 150,000 in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary). But as language evolves and new vocabulary (including slang) is coined, older words that have fallen out of favor are continually revised, retired, and, sometimes, removed from dictionaries.
Dictionaries tend to fall into one of two camps: descriptivist or prescriptionist. The latter means that explicit rules are given as to how language, grammar, and words operate. However, most modern lexicographers are descriptivist, which means they record how language is used by people. As such, sometimes words drop out of the lexicon.
Compendiums such as the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary are more likely to mark the usage of a word as “archaic,” “historical,” or “obsolete,” than to remove a word from their corpus (the word for all the words in a dictionary). But smaller or more specialized dictionaries can be more particular. A printed dictionary must be edited, and words that have fallen out of use over time are likely to be dropped from a newer edition. Even online, a specialized dictionary will be limited.
We’re not the arbiters for culling any words from the dictionary, but here are a few words that we think are out-of-fashion enough that they could be up for elimination.
Aerodrome
This British English term refers to a landing field for airplanes and related structures (e.g., hangars). The word “airport” has since replaced it.
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Alienism
This is an obsolete term for psychiatry, the study and treatment of mental illnesses. It’s a fair assumption this term was phased out due to the offensive connotation of connecting the word “alien” to people with mental illnesses.
Brabble
“Brabble” is a synonym for “squabble,” “quarrel,” “argue,” or “fight.” This term has fallen out of fashion, and there are so many other available words, so it seems ripe for retirement.
Charabanc
This word belongs in historical fiction. The term was borrowed from French, where it meant “wagon with benches,” for a Victorian-era sightseeing vehicle, but it’s long obsolete.
Deliciate
Check again. The spelling is not “delicate.” “Deliciate” means “to amuse or please oneself by indulging in revels.” However, it does trace back to the Latin word delicatus, which means “delicate.” With this confusing etymology, it’s good that this word dropped out of common use.
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Frigorific
This adjective was used to describe something that causes cold or is chilling. Today we still have “frigid,” but the older cousin is no longer commonly used.
It sounds like an advanced form of interrogation, but “supererogation” means “going above and beyond what is required by duty, obligation, or need.” Its roots lie in Medieval Latin, and it was primarily used in religious contexts. We think “going above and beyond” says enough in today’s language.
Younker
The original definition of this word is “a young man or a child.” There’s also a former department store founded in 1856 by the name of “Younkers.” There isn’t much need for this one in the dictionary anymore.
Jennifer A. Freeman is the Senior Editor of Word Smarts and Word Daily. When she's not searching for a perfect synonym or reaching "Genius" level on Spelling Bee, she's playing with her Welsh Terrier in Greenville, SC.
Is the phrase “scot-free” a call for independence? Or was a man named Scot wrongly imprisoned? Well, neither. The phrase actually has to do with one of life’s inevitabilities: taxes.
For the kid who snuck some extra cookies and the dog who just chewed up the couch cushions, there are grand hopes of getting off scot-free. This expression relates to doing something bad without suffering any consequences. But despite the spelling of “scot,” the phrase didn’t originate in Scotland — it comes from a term used a few hundred miles away in Scandinavia.
The phrase “scot-free” is rooted in the Old Norse language, which was spoken across Scandinavia from roughly the ninth to 13th centuries. Around the 10th century, the word skot, meaning “payment,” made its way over to the British Isles, where it was anglicized as scot. There, it was used for a royal tax levied on locals. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, this gave rise to the Old English term scotfreo, meaning “tax free.”
As Old English evolved into Middle and then Modern English, the term developed a new spelling and meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary points to several spellings from the 16th century where it was written as “scott fre” and “scotchfree” (still no relation to Scotland). The phrase came to mean “getting away with anything,” whether it be avoiding one’s taxes or getting away with a crime. One of the earliest figurative uses appears in a 1567 natural history book titled A Greene Forest by John Maplet: “Daniell scaped scotchfree by Gods prouidence.”
Today, people rarely use “scot-free” with regard to avoiding one’s taxes, though it could certainly still apply in the right circumstances. (By the way, if the IRS is reading this, just know that I would never try to get off scot-free.) In most instances, the phrase has shed its original meaning and is now almost always used in the sense of getting away with criminal or wrongful activity without punishment.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
Terms such as “a lot” and “schoolwork” keep writers playing a complicated grammar game of “Is this one word or two?” Let’s lay out some general guidelines and advice for this tricky topic.
In English, certain terms can be confusing because they sound like they could be either one word or two. Take, for instance, the common expression “made for each other.” Despite frequent misspellings, there is only one way to write the reciprocal pronoun “each other” — with a space between the words. This makes it an “open” compound word. In contrast, compound words written without spaces are known as “closed” compounds. Compound words function in all parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and even prepositions. There aren’t any universal grammar rules for compound words, so their usage often comes down to meaning, context, and convention.
Speaking of “made for each other” relationships, while “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” are written as one word, “best friend” is two words. Often, when a compound noun contains an adjective (like “best”), it’s written as two words, whereas compound nouns featuring two nouns are more commonly written as one word (“boyfriend”). While there are a few loose guidelines, hard rules are rare. For example, “blackboard,” “smartphone,” and “greenroom” are one-word adjective-noun compounds. Similarly, “workday” and “weekday,” which can function as adjectives or nouns, are written as single words.
School-related compound words are just as unpredictable. “High school” is an open compound, but “schoolteacher,” “schoolwork,” and “schoolroom” are closed. To remain inconsistent, the terms “school year” and “school day” are two words. Compounds that function as pronouns form another murky category. While “each other” and “no one” remain two words, “someone,” “anyone,” and “everybody” are closed. In these situations, the categories and functions of the terms have little impact on whether or not they are written as one or two words.
As you can see, we don’t have much help in the form of a handy rule that will tell you when a compound is one word or two. The safest bet is to consult a dictionary when unsure. In the end, compound words often say “never mind” (yes — two words) to typical grammar expectations, leaving writers to memorize their favorite words and look up the rest.
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
Weird Names You Never Knew for Stuff You Use Every Day
From the sleeve on your coffee cup to the dots on a domino, this list uncovers the surprisingly weird — and wonderfully specific — words for things you see all the time.
Names carry meaning — sometimes more than we realize. As Shakespeare famously wrote, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” Juliet may have been lamenting the weight of Romeo’s family name, but to lexicographers, her question applies to everything. Even the most ordinary objects have names with surprising histories. Asking “What’s in a name?” about everyday things — from the dots on a domino to the sleeve on your coffee cup — reveals fascinating stories that can change the way you see the world around you.
Muselet
(Noun) The metal cage that holds the cork on a bottle of Champagne.
This metal contraption secures the cork on a bottle of Champagne or other types of sparkling wine. The French word isn’t likely to be found in standard English dictionaries, but it’s well known to those in the wine industry. According to Becky Sue Epstein, author of Champagne: A Global History, an early version of the muselet was crafted in 1844 by Adolphe Jacquesson (of the renowned Jacquesson Champagne house). The word aptly derives from museler, a French verb meaning “to muzzle.” The muselet is a three-piece system with a ring of wire around the bottle, additional pieces of wire stretching over the cork, and a metal plaque between the wires and the cork to prevent damage to the cork. Traditionally, the connecting wires are twisted together a precise six times to secure the cork in place when pressure builds from the sparkling beverage.
Aglet
(Noun) The plain or ornamental tag covering the ends of a lace or point.
Aglets are caps at the end of shoelaces that prevent the strings of laces from fraying and allow laces to pass through eyelets with ease. While this might seem like a modern invention, the word “aglet” has been around since at least the 14th century, when the term “ageletmakere” was seen in a collection titled Middle English Occupational Terms, compiled in 1950 but dating to 1365. Back then, someone who made aglets was working with metal because plastic wouldn’t be around for approximately 500 years. The term “aglet” originates from the Old French aiguille, meaning “needle.”
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Tine
(Noun) A slender, pointed projecting part.
There is a specific word for the tiny prongs of a fork: “tines.” The term is an alteration of an older English word, “tinde,” which denoted other pointy things, such as an animal’s horn or the branch of a deer’s antler. It derives from the Old Norse tindr, meaning “point” or “summit.” The earliest recorded use of “tines” (with this spelling) is from a 1554 volume of tragedies called Lydgate’s Bochas: “The fiery tines of his brennyng arow.” Since then, “tine” has been used to describe almost anything pointy, from a 16th-century arrow to the long prongs of a modern lawn rake.
Ullage
(Noun) The amount that a container (such as a tank or cask) lacks of being full.
Have you ever tried to make it through the TSA line with a half-full bottle of shampoo and been turned away because the label read “5 oz.”? Of course you had less than 3 ounces of shampoo, but the TSA doesn’t account for ullage — the amount between the actual contents of a bottle and the capacity. “Ullage” was first used in Middle English in a more specific sense, pertaining to “the amount of wine or other liquor by which a cask or bottle falls short of being quite full.” The term traces back to the Old French verb ouiller, meaning “to fill up (a barrel) to the bung.” (The “bung” or “bunghole” is the hole through which a cask can be filled or emptied.) Later, the term “ullage” came to be used for the space that was not filled to the top of a bottle or cask. Interestingly, during the mid-20th century, the term acquired another specific usage: “In a rocket, the part of a fuel tank that is not occupied by fuel.”
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Dongle
(Noun) A small device that plugs into a computer and serves as an adapter or as a security measure to enable the use of certain software.
A dongle is a common term for any pocket-sized device that connects to a computer, typically through a USB port. This includes items such as SD card readers, Bluetooth connectors, GPS receivers, and flash drives. The term was first recorded in a 1981 edition of New Scientist magazine: “The dongle is an extra piece of memory that is plugged into the computer, without which the program refuses to run.” While the Oxford English Dictionary lists the term’s etymology as an arbitrary formation, one explanation is that it is an alteration of “dangle” due to how USB flash drives (and other dongles) jut out of computers and modems when plugged in.
Zarf
(Noun) The cardboard sleeve used to carry a hot beverage.
Zarf (or zurf) is an ancient Arabic word for “vessel.” It was adopted in Levant (a region in the eastern Mediterranean) as a word for an ornamental metal holder for a coffee cup. During the 19th century, ornamental zarf became a fixture of ritualized coffee drinking in the region — the wealthy cherished their gold and diamond-encrusted zarf. In modern English, the term is catching on as a name for the cardboard sleeve on a to-go coffee cup. While a flimsy modern version may not feature precious gemstones, it serves the same purpose: to protect your hands from burns.
(Noun) One of the dots used on dice and dominoes to indicate numerical value.
Here’s a fun fact for your next game night: The dots on playing cards, dice, or dominoes are called “pips.” This usage dates to 1600, though its root is unknown. However, this definition contributes to the use of “pip” as a synonym for “fleck,” “speck,” and “dot.” Interestingly, “pip” also stands for another category of minuscule items, though this etymology apparently evolved separately and unrelated to its use in dominoes and dice. During the 18th century, “pips” emerged as a term for seeds of various fleshy fruits such as apples, oranges, and grapes. It stems from an earlier Middle English use of “pip,” meaning “apple tree” or “apple.” Using “pip” to describe fruit seeds is now rare in American English but is still common in British English and other dialects.
Featured image credit: Shandie Poitras/ Alamy Stock Photo
Rachel is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. When she's not writing, you can find her wandering through a museum, exploring a new city, or advocating the importance of the Oxford comma.
The rule against starting sentences with conjunctions is one that writers love to break — but it turns out it might not even be a rule at all. Let’s learn more about beginning conjunctions.
Yes, you can start sentences with “and” and “but.” If you thought doing so would break a sacred law of grammar, you’re not alone. But it is (and always has been) grammatically correct.
You might remember a teacher telling you never to begin a sentence with a conjunction. Maybe you’re misremembering the advice, or maybe they actually did say that. Either way, this “rule” is more legend than law. Even Strunk and White used conjunctions to start sentences in the venerated grammar guide The Elements of Style. The real reason teachers discourage the practice is chiefly in order to avoid sentence fragments:
Correct Sentence: And I went to the store.
Incorrect Fragment: And went to the store.
A sentence fragment may look similar to a sentence at first blush, but it cannot stand on its own because it lacks a subject or a verb. Starting with a conjunction can also feel abrupt or casual, likely another reason why teachers steer clear of it while students are still learning the basics of sentence structure. But that doesn’t make it grammatically incorrect.
Breaking one longer sentence into two can make a passage more accessible. Starting a sentence with a conjunction is a style choice that can shift tone, add emphasis, or create a more natural rhythm. Consider Ernest Hemingway’s spare, minimalist prose in A Farewell to Arms: “But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”
So, yes, you can start sentences with “and,” “but,” and other conjunctions. (Remember the conjunctions with the mnemonic FANBOYS: “for,” “and,” “neither,” “but,” “or,” “yet,” and “so.”) But make sure the sentence that follows is complete, not a fragment.
Samantha Abernethy is a freelancer in Chicago. When she isn't staring at a laptop, you can find her sniffing out the best coffee with her greyhound Ruby, or chasing her kids around the nearest library.
Humans have long been fascinated by mythical figures such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and even Santa Claus. If you’re familiar with the phrase “nervous Nellie,” you may wonder if there’s truth to Nellie’s existence as well. Given there have been tens of thousands of Nellies throughout history, odds are any number of them struggled with anxiety. But was there one particular Nellie who was so apprehensive that she served as inspiration for this now-common phrase? The short answer is yes and no: The phrase was coined for a specific person, but their name wasn’t Nellie.
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The term “nervous Nellie,” which Oxford English Dictionary defines as “an overly timid, cautious, or fearful person,” dates back to the 1920s. When it was coined, it had nothing to do with a real “Nellie”; rather, it was a moniker given to Frank B. Kellogg, a former U.S. senator and secretary of state under President Calvin Coolidge. Kellogg was known for using extreme caution when making decisions, and in the early 1920s, several newspaper articles described him as a “nervous Nelly” or “Nellie.” The unfortunate nickname became commonly used by those he worked with: A 1925 piece in the New York Herald Tribune described how Kellogg “was labeled ‘nervous Nellie’ by those who were irritated at his maneuvering during the League of Nations flight.” So it was a combination of internal trepidation and his anxious physical tics that earned Kellogg this unique sobriquet.
But why “Nellie,” out of all the possible names? “Nellie” was indeed a popular name at the time — it was in the top 100 U.S. girl names from the 19th century until 1925. People also love their alliteration, and the prevailing theory is that Nellie probably seemed like a perfect verbal pairing for “nervous.” Thus, the phrase entered the common lexicon, and before long, “nervous Nellie” was used to describe anyone exhibiting timidity and caution.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
How Did Real Languages Influence J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation of Elvish?
If you’re a fan of “The Lord of the Rings,” you know many dialects of Elvish play a part in creating the rich fantasy world. Author J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by several real-world languages to create new, complete languages.
From Klingon to Dothraki and whatever dialect “bazinga” comes from, popular culture has given us entirely new words and languages that didn’t exist before the 20th century. Among the more fascinating and complex examples are the Elvish languages, which were developed by fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. To create the language spoken by the Elves of Middle-earth, Tolkien drew inspiration from real languages he studied and admired, including Finnish and Welsh. While entire treatises can be written about Tolkien’s genius, let’s take a quick look at some of the inspiration for the Elvish languages.
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The Elvish language family contains a variety of dialects, the two most popular being Quenya, the language of the “High Elves” used primarily for poetry and ceremony, and Sindarin, which is more commonly spoken. There are many other dialects — including Telerin, Noldorin, Silvan, Avarin, Vanyarin, and Valarin, each of which serves a specific purpose in the LOTRuniverse — as well as the writing systems Tengwar and Cirth.
Having taught English language and literature classes at the University of Leeds and Oxford, focusing on Old and Middle English, Tolkien had the academic chops for this work. He also worked for the Oxford English Dictionary for a time. But that doesn’t mean the language construction was fast or easy. The author began creating Elvish long before he published The Hobbit in 1937 and the Lord of the Rings series in 1954 and 1955. In 1914, he penned The Story of Kullervo, a tale that was heavily inspired by the Finnish mythological poetry collection Kalevala. According to the BBC, Tolkien “liked the long vowel sounds of Finnish and the umlaut accents.” He borrowed many Finnish grammatical concepts and words while developing the Quenya dialect. They’re not identical, but Quenya avoids large clusters of consonants and relies heavily on frequent vowel usage, which are also features of Finnish.
Sindarin, meanwhile, was more directly inspired by Welsh. The Guardian notes that Tolkien enjoyed Welsh for its sound, citing an essay in which he said that Welsh “pierced [his] linguistic heart.” Both Welsh and the created Sindarin dialect use consonant changes to express grammar, demonstrating Tolkien’s influence. This is just the tip of the iceberg for Tolkien’s linguistic creations, of course — you could teach entire academic courses about the creation of Elvish (and they exist!). But if you listen to Elvish and Finnish or Welsh side by side, you’ll notice some striking similarities.
Featured image credit: Magnus Binnerstam/ Shutterstock
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism. He is also a freelance comedy writer, devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
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