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.
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 LOTR universe — 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.
