Tolkien’S Languages

Tolkien’s languages

Introduction

Finding a universal language has been an aspiration of civilizations since time immemorial. The first written reference that can be found is the Bible, which in several texts spread between both will speaks of a universal language, the Adamia language. In Genesis (2:19, 6-7, 11: 1-9) three of these texts are found, in which the Divine Don of Adam is spoken to understand the name (essence) of each thing of the universe. The myth of the Tower of Babel is subsequently reported, in which humans spoke a unique language, but because of their excessive pride were punished with disintegration and fragmentation of this in a host of various languages. 

Developing

In other texts, such as the miracle of Pentecost. In other texts, such as the miracle of Pentecost (Acts of the Apostles, 2: 1-8), the apostles are endowed by God of the gift of being understood by anyone regardless of the language that is speaks. Long after Christian myths, artificial linguistic systems arise as such, enormously inspired by the original adamish language: this is one of the influences that led to the authors of the first models to seek essentiality, given the Christian association of nomenclatures withThe "authentic nature" of things. 

However, the primary reason for the search for that universal language in this century was the inevitable decline of Latin as a bridge language, due to the emergence of new nationalisms that revalued the native languages, to contacts with non -European civilizations, to the extension ofCulture to a middle class that was not willing to invest its time in learning classical languages.

The Linguists of the Renaissance found interest, on the other hand, in the characters of the Chinese and the Egyptian hieroglyphs (misunderstood), in addition to the figures, which they used in the creation of their projects. 

These a priori languages were backed by the Renaissance belief that the value of culture and distribution of it was a supranational issue, and the conviction about the need to polish a common enough language to be used in theInternational scientific community. At the end of the 18th century the previous conception of words is dying as the essence of things, and the creation of artificial languages gives an important turn towards pragmatism. The new languages are constructed according to natural languages, and thus arise the systems a posteriori. 

In the nineteenth century, especially towards the end, the projects destined for international communication are multiplied, which now take into account the phonetic elements and the ease of learning. However, they don’t reach any real success either. The twentieth century has several failed attempts of artificial linguistic systems. In 1924 the International Auxiliary Language Association was founded in New York, which made the comparison of six artificial languages among the most successful to combine its characteristics in a common vocabulary called Interlingua. It had some importance in the 50s, but it has not subsequently prospered. 

In 1943 the Interglossa was published in England, a language scheme based on neoclassical elements common to European languages. In the second half of the century there were numerous attempts, of which none achieved too much success. However, the most notorious was the change in mentality. He gradually accepting that artificial language projects as a universal communicative method have a short or no probability of success, and English (as before French or Latin) was assumed as a bridge language. It has been tried to simplify this language, as in the BASIC project (British, American, Scientific, International, Commercial) English prior to World War II. 

This attempt also neither prospered due, mainly, to war, since the eldest interested had been the Central European and Japan states. Currently, all the prominence is taken by systems for artistic purposes, for their potential for the creation of fictitious worlds and the importance they are acquiring in cinema and literature, such as eligible languages (Tolkien), Klingon (Okrand) From the Starrek or the Na’vi (Frommer) saga of the Avatar movie, as well as the Dothraki and the Valyrio, both of Peterson and in which the work will be deepened more advanced. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the influence of symbolic artificial systems in utopias highlights.

In which ideal worlds were devised with languages that joined the harmony of the environment, clearly based on the original adamish language. They also drank fascination with distant and exotic places. An example is the famous Swift story, Gulliver’s trips, where we find constant allusions to language and mentions of invented languages, both that of Lilliput and Laputa and Baleibarbi, which involve a parody of European linguistic rationalism. In the twentieth century, however, literature takes a turn to orie. 

To this end, language was used in dystopian stories as a manipulation tool and as a weapon against freedom of thought. This is seen, better than in any other work, in 1984, with the neo -government that intends to completely control the individual through language, eliminating words related to negative concepts for the dictatorial regime that governs Orwell’s society. Another example is found in a happy world, of Huxley, where the language does not have such protagonist but it is interesting, because control is based on loading certain words of negative connotations so that people, for modesty, do not use them.

Highlights the jump from fictitious languages to the big screen, although it is possible. Others, such as Tolkien’s elphic languages, had already been designed for literary projects and had to be learned by actors in film adaptations. Finally, it has also been the case that from few words the need to invent a complete language arises, as is the case of the Harry Potter parsel, since in the book the language is not used in a literal way.

It was necessary to develop it to be able to use it in the movies, or as the Valyrio and Dothraki of the Game of Thrones, which began being some loose words in the novels and had to expand until they form two complete languages to be able to use them in the series. Although this was not its initial objective, it is obliged to cite its role in the cinema, since this system was an important resource in certain films that required a fictitious language. Esperanto made the leap to the big screen as an artistic resource in the great dictator, in Chaplin, in 1940, to write the ghetto posters that appears in the film. 

The first film complete. Very shortly after, Incubus, from Stevens, in 65, in which several dialogues appear in Esperanto. In the burned city of Ribas, published in 1976 and set in a conflicting Barcelona of the beginning of the SXX, it is stated that this language is represents peace and the future. In spite of everything, Esperanto did not succeed as a film resource, perhaps because it is not intended to get attention or be beautiful but as a practical.

Unlike the great linguistic systems of cinema, raised from an artistic perspective, often born of literature. The Klingon: It was created in 1979 for the first movie of the Star Trek Space Science Fiction Saga, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It was decided that the Klingons, some humanoid -looking aliens and factions that cause repulsion, should have their own language. In this first film there were invented phonetic expressions, without any premeditated structure or real meaning, which intended to give the impression of being a language. His invention was in charge of actor James Doohan.

Played Montgomery Scott (chief engineer of the protagonists’s spaceship) in the series. This is what is called a xenolalia, or imitation of foreign speech without structure, and as in other examples of artistic languages, the first pillar in the creation of Klingon. This project reappears in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, 1984, now as a language consolidated by the linguist Marc Okrand, who had already developed another linguistic system within Star Trek, the Vulcano. At first, Okrand was based on the proper names and sounds that had already appeared throughout the series.

I did not plan to make a complete language but only terms and expressions that were useful for the script. Therefore, its main objective was that phonetics do not seem at all to that of human languages and, nevertheless, pronounceable for actors. He ended up choosing a wide range of guttural noises, difficult to pronounce and understand. In fact, Okrand himself had to help actors learn their lines. It was not until later, after the success obtained by the Klingon and for the pressure of the fan phenomenon, which Okrand decided to elaborate a complex and consolidated linguistic system. 

Much of the lexicon refers to war concepts, since it is an important factor of the fictitious culture of the Klingon and, as an anecdote, Okrand decided that the pronunciation errors committed by the actors would become colloquialism. Despite the great difficulty it presents, Klingon is a very popular phenomenon among the numerous fans of the Star Trek title. This fame, propelled through the Internet, has turned the Klingon into an icon and has allowed, despite being a language born with artistic purposes, gradually becomes something more practical: a Klingon Language Institute has been founded (founded in 1992), in which a language level degree can be obtained through an exam. 

In addition, cultural projects such as the translation of Hamlet have been developed and the language appears regularly in series such as The Big Bang Theory. Both grammar and vocabulary are registered in Okrand works and the Klingon Dictionary. Tolkien’s elphic languages: Tolkien has the merit of being the precursor of artificial languages used in fiction, and we are not talking about expressions or terms, but of more than 14 complex systems in his grammar and phonetics, all of them designed forUse only in the author’s universe in order to make civilizations that coexist in this more realistic and tangible. Although he invented languages for orcs, dwarves, humans and hobbits, those of the elves became the most popular. 

Siandarin (common elphic) and Quenya (cultivic cult) were the most prominent, mostly due to the success of the cinematographic adaptations of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. These languages are present throughout Tolkien’s work, and they supposed an important influence, possibly being their popularity the root of the abundance of fictitious languages in the subsequent fantasy literature. They are designed to convey beauty, calm and harmony in their phonetics. Tolkien argued that, by the framework of his work, his characters could not use English. However, it was based on English to devise a language common to all civilizations, the Westron, which was preferred by all races except elves.  Quenyya arose as a result of Tolkien’s interest in the Finnish language, which influenced the structure of the system. 

conclusion

Sse be influenced by Latin and Greek: it is a flexive and also binding language. To introduce an example: Hautanyel ("I stop you") is made up of hauta (stop) and the flexive morphemes NYE ("I") and L, ("te"). How are morphemes and monets express? The Sindarin, something different in search of a less refined sound, is more based on the Welshman, from which the phoneme / ə / and certain consonant groups was extracted. Even so, he shares features with Quenya as the abundance of liquid and nasal consonants and the usual presence of several vowels together as in Aearon ("Ocean"). By baseing their systems in these languages, Tolkien managed to be European appearance languages, which are relatives for Westerners, but with a softness very typical of the invented culture to which they belong.