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J. R. R. Tolkien's Influence On Language

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J. R. R. Tolkien's Influence On Language
The author of the novels of The Lord of The Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, was a very bright and well educated man who was greatly inspired and fascinated by languages. His interest in languages influenced him to create and incorporate new languages into many pieces of work during his life and help the series feel more complex and intricate. His invented languages played a crucial part in creating this fictional word for his series to take place in. Tolkien began learning languages at a fairly young age while living at home. His mother had taught him Latin, French, and German which sparked his interest in languages. Once entering grammar school, he explored several other languages; such as, Welsh, Finnish, and Old Norse. Tolkien first started inventing languages in his teenage years. One of his earlier projects was his reconstruction of an unrecorded early germanic language which might have been spoken by people from the germanic heroic age. Prior to his Lord of The Rings novels, Tolkien was a professional philologist of Germanic languages, specializing in Old English. He was a scholar with knowledge of both ancient and modern languages and by the end of his life, Tolkien could speak a total of thirty-five different languages including variations of English, Finnish, Gothic, Greek, Italian, and Spanish while being familiar with Danish, Dutch, Lombardic, Norwegian, and many others. Tolkien had a love for one language …show more content…
For example, “Mordor” comes from the Old English word “morthor” which means “murder.” The character Sauron was named after a link to Old Norse or Icelandic stem meaning “filth”, “dung” or uncleanliness.” Even Saruman’s name foreshadowed his future actions because his name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, root “searu-” for “treachery” or
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