When Elvish Met Klingon - An Interesting Exchange of Two Art-Langs

Mae Govannen!  

Among several projects that now exist as little stickies on my Tolkien Office wall to keep me busy for the next year or two (a tip I recently picked up from a Tolkien colleague) - one of the fairly new projects I have embarked on is to explore the reception of Tolkien's invented languages among early readers, fans and then the different groups of Tolkien linguists which developed around a shared reception and interest in Tolkien's languages and the exploration of various elements of them.  

One group of texts I am currently studying are the earliest issues of Vinyar Tengwar ('News Letters') - the journal of The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship which started to be published in September 1988, edited by Jorge Quinonez and featuring contributions from the founding Tolkien linguistic giants whose shoulders we Tolkien language scholars of today work upon; including Bill Welden, Christopher Gilson, Tom Loback, Nancy Martsch, Jim Allan, Arden Smith and Patrick Wynne - with my personal Tolkien linguist role-model Carl F. Hostetter appearing first in issue six and who would go on to edit this journal.  In the second issue there is also a letter from UK Tolkien Society member and editor of the Tolkien language journal Quettar  David Doughan!  

Issue 4 of Vinyar Tengwar (which moves to a somewhat easier computer font to read), published in March 1989, has a interesting exchange from a Mr Ronald E Kyrmse from S. Paulo Brazil.  

'Pocket Books, NY, published recently The Klingon Dictionary by Marc Okrand.  If you're a Star Trek fan, you may find it interesting, maybe even fascinating.  I've read it quite attentively and have composed a little text in Klingon which is of interest to Elvish linguists, though not paradoxically, in an Elvish language (I won't give a translation, as finding out what it is all about is left as an exercise of the reader - as it it were that difficult): 

Hoch che'meH wa'Qeb, tu'meH wa' Qeb 

Hoch qemmH lan HurghDaq weghmeH je wa' Qeb 

Qotbogh QIbmey morDor puHDaq 

Well?!' (VT 4, p. 4) 

Well.... given the next to last word that gives it away it is clear that this is the inscription on the Ring of Power ('Wa'Qeb') based on Okrand's Klingon Dictionary which was published in 1985 and is considered the first foundational text for the art-language of Klingon.  The following glosses are attested in this dictionary....

Hoch - Everyone, all, everything 

che - rule 

MeH - infinitive form ('to rule') 

wa - one

Qeb - Ring (for finger) 

tu - discover, find 

MeH - infinitive form (to find) 

wa'Qeb - one Ring 

Hoch - Everyone, all, everything 

qemm - to bring 

mH - infinitive form (to bring) 

lan - place 

HurghDaq - be dark (v) 

weghmeH - confine (v) - to confine 

je - and 

wa' Qeb - One Ring 

Qotbogh - where 

QIbmey - QIb - galaxy (in the galaxy of Mordor?) 

morDor - guess thats what it is called in Klingon as well...interesting. what would be the actual word in Klingon I wonder? 

puH - land 

Daq - of dark (not to be confused with pu'Dah which means phaser banks!) 

So it looks like Kyrmse did some good work on rendering this poem in Klingon - although I don't think the adage 'You have not experienced Shakespeare - until you have read him in the original Klingon' (spoken by Chancellor Gorkon to James T. Kirk in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) is true for Tolkien!! 

In the next issue of Vinyar Tengwar Craig Marnock said of Kyrmse's Klingon version of the Ring Poem 'I liked Ronald Kyrmse's Ring Poem version in Klingon....could this be the start of new trend?' (VT 5, p. 6).  

In Vinyar Tengwar Issue 6 I also noticed another Elvish/Klingon connection.  There is a letter in this issue from Professor Lawrence M. Schoen who writes that he had been intending to offer to his students a Beginning Quenya Course 'sort of learn as you go (which would include my learning as well')' but he had to cancel offering it due to  being transferred to another school (VT 6, p. 2).   Schoen is one of the foremost authorities on the Klingon Language and in 1992 set up The Klingon Language Learning Institute (KLI) which has been responsible for such publications as The Klingon Hamlet (1996)  

So an interesting meeting of two art-languages in the early issues of this foundational journal for Tolkien Language studies - long may the issues continue! 

More to come as I go through them for this Tolkien Language Reception project. 

Namarie and Qapla! 

Tolkien and Dark Shadows Musings

Greetings from Wotan! Wotan has not sent Hugin and Muin out lately as he has been locked in his fortress of Valhalla researching and studying.

Wotan is very excited to have officially started a Phd research project around the Early Literary and Linguistic Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (1908-early 1920's) and is even triply excited to be working with one of the leading Tolkien visionaries and academics - Dr Dimitra Fimi - through Cardiff Metropolitan University. Wotan is working towards the final research proposal which is due in April and then a full 3-6 years of glorious Tolkienian research (and lots of talk and trying out at ideas at this summer's Return of the Ring Tolkien conference)

Wotan is also in the middle of an excellent online class through Signum University/Mythgard University on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis taught by the excellent Tolkien Professor himself, Professor Corey Olsen's (whose upcoming Exploring the Hobbit book is a must pre-order!). This is a brilliant class where we have compared and contrasted the works of Lewis and Tolkien and we have some exciting upcoming classes including a look at Leaf by Niggle,Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, Till We Have Faces, The Notion Club papers, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Smith of Wooten Major. There is great work afoot at Signum University/Mythgard Institute and the upcoming summer classes include one on beginners Latin and, be still my heart, Dr Verlyn Flieger teaching a course on Arthurian Literature (which yours truly will probably be virtually attending tuxedo-clad after many excellent evenings at Glyndebourne where Wotan toils.

Also on the Dr. Verlyn Flieger front - joy and exultation her new book Green Sun and Faerie is now available and I have been devouring every chapter which includes some excellent new writing by Dr. Flieger on Tolkien and the Kalevala based on the work she has done on Tolkien's early Kullervo story and Tolkien's 1914-15 talk on The Kalevala.

It is brilliant to have this volume on Tolkien by Dr. Flieger and it stands next to Tom Shippey's Roots and Branches - now one hopes Dr Michael Drout would write a similar volume. A must read

Switching gears - the other excitement for Wotan has been the coming of the new Dark Shadows film in May. But even before this and perhaps even more exciting for Wotan has been the publishing of a new book on Dark Shadows -

The Return to Collinwood by Kathryn Leigh Scott (who played Maggie Evans and Josette Du Pres (among others) in the original Dark Shadows TV show - appearing in over 600 of the 1,222 episodes) and Jim Pearson. I highly recommend this book to any lover of Dark Shadows. There are some great insights into the coming movies and the recollections of Kathryn Leigh Scott and Lara Parker (Angelique) are brilliant and add some interesting info to how this 1,225 episode fantasy/sci-fi/gothic soap opera was flamed as well as the two movies (and I eagerly awaiting the reedited cut of Night of Dark Shadows with the cut scenes put back). good chapters on the revival series as well and he current audio dramas through Big Finish Productions.

Having the book signed by Kathryn Leigh Scott herself makes it one of my treasured Dark Shadow possessions which will never leave me for all eternity and I decided to join the signed picture she sent me with another of my treasured Dark Shadows items which will be familiar to all fans of the show!

Finally there is the upcoming big budget blockbuster Dark Shadows movie starting Johnny Depp as Barnabas and Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman directed by Timothy Burton. Wotan is hopeful about this film - the trailer is exciting and yes I think there it is a bit of tongue in cheek treatment of the story (set in the hippie lava lamp strewn days of 1972), But Depp is a great fan of Dark Shadows so I am sure it has been done with care - and it will be fun to watch for the original Dark Shadows cast members (including the first and best Barnabas of all times Jonathan Frid) in the Dark Shadows town ball party scene). Trailer below!

So that is it from Wotan for now - Wotan returns to the Halls of Asgard to consult my friend Erda the green headed torso on the early lexicons of Tolkien - but he will stay in touch and send Hugin and Munin out for news of the many worlds!

Lebe wohl for now!

Tolkien Work Current and Future and Some Linguistic Archaeology

This week Wotan is taking a break from Nysianer Chronicles (which is taking up many notebooks with root words and proposed declensions and the dreaded chapter two exposition story around the languages more to come in the holiday break)

I wanted to report on some interesting areas of Tolkien Studies Wotan is currently involved with and end with two bonus Tolkienian linguistic explorations that have come out of this work

MYTHGARD INSTITUTE - TOLKIEN AND THE EPIC

I can hardly believe that we are in the final weeks of the Mythgard Institute's very first excellent course Tolkien and the Epic - and what a way to conclude this exploration that has taken us through some of the great works that influenced Tolkien (Beowulf, The Kalevala, The Lay of the Volsungs) and great works by Tolkien himself (Sigurd und Gudrun, The Children of Hurin and The Lay of Leithian).

In addition to excellent lectures by the President of the Mythgard Institute, the Tolkien Professor himself, Corey Olsen (his lectures on The Lay of Leithian were awe inspiring) we have also the incredible good fortune to have guest lectures by some of the pantheon of Tolkienian scholarship including Dr Verlyn Flieger, Tom Shippey (the Gandalf of Tolkien studies) and this week Dr Michael Drout - I consider myself a groupie of all four! It is quite amazing to sit at your computer (our modern day Palantir) and have these important scholars comes as if out of the west to talk about Tolkien and, more importantly, interact with students online with q

uestions and discussions,

And what a way to end this first course than with a three week exploration of Tolkien's masterwork The Lord of the Rings. Dr Drout's talk on The Fellowship of the Ring focused on how Tolkien gets us to care about Middle Earth and how knowledge is distributed in the narrative. This was some of the most original thought I have heard on The Lord of the Rings in a while. I am a massive fan of Dr Drout having heard all his Modern Scholar series and his excellent Anglo-Saxon Aloud podcasts. I have been through his landmark work J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf and the Critics twice and am looking forward to his upcoming Tolkien book The Tower and the Ruin and his new book on philology. C.S.Lewis said of Tolkien that he lived inside languages- and I think it can be said of Dr Drout that he lives inside Tolkien - the power of The Mythgard I

nstitute is being able to take a virtual class with an important Tolkien academic like Professor Drout as he sits in his house (having just read a chapter of The Two Towers to his son for bedtime)

The spring the great work of The Mythgard Institute continues with two brilliant courses - Tolkien and Lewis and the Making of Myth and Taking Harry Seriously -Exploring Harry Potter (taught by the excellent Amy Sturgis)

Here is a short film showing some exciting highlights of The Tolkien and Epic Course....

THE GREAT WORK BEGINS

Wotan is also very excited to announce that he has recently been excepted into a Phd Programme through The University of Wales to work with one of the top Tolkien scholars Dr Dimitra Fimi on Tolkien Studies. Dr Fimi is the author of one of the key works on Tolkien - the 2011 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award winning Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits.as well as teacher of two of the best online courses I have taken J.R.R Tolkien Myth and Middle Earth in Context and Fantasy Literature Before and After Tolkien

Wotan feels like Frodo at the Council of Elrond starting on this quest! My Phd project which I have started work on is called "I'll have to find out what that means" Employing Literary and Linguistic Archaeology to Unearth the Earliest Strata of Tolkien’s Secondary World - And there will be more to come on this project in the coming weeks, months, and years!

FINDEGIL - An Unsung Gondorian Scribe with Nice Hair

In preparing for our Mythgard Institute The Fellowship of the Ring exploration I re-read the notes on The Shire Records and one character jumped out at me who is very important as without him we would not have the Account of the War of the Ring translated by Professor Tolkien - and that is the Gondorian scribe - FINDEGIL

In the Note on The Shire Records it states that the original Red Book of Westmarch was not preserved. Several copies, with various notes and later additions, were made. The first copy was made by request of King Elessar of Gondor and Arnor, brought to Gondor by Frodo's companion Thain Peregrin I. This copy was known as the Thain's Book and "contained much that was later omitted or lost". In Gondor it underwent much annotation and correction, particularly regarding Elvish languages. Also added was an abbreviated version of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen by Faramir's grandson Barahir. A copy of a revised and expanded Thain's Book was made probably by request of Peregrin's great-grandson and delivered to the Shire. It was written by the scribe Findegil and stored at the Took residence in Great Smials. This copy was important because it alone contained the whole of Bilbo's Translations from the Elvish (i.e. the great tales of the Silmarillion). It was this version that passed through many hands and came down to Professor Tolkien who translated it.

So without the scribe Findegil we would not have the account of The War of the Ring and perhaps the great tales of the First (and Second?) ages.

So who was Findegil and, more importantly, what does his name mean (key to Tolkien). ]

According to the Encylcopedia of Arda -

" Findegil's main claim to historical notice was due to a note he added to the Thain's Book, marking its completion in the year IV 172. This gives Findegil the distinction of being the last character in any of Tolkien's tales whom we can date with confidence."

So we know he was a scribe who lived in Gondor in the time of the Reunited Kingdom

His name certainly sounds Elvish and specfically Sindarin -

The Roots FIN, FINN, FINDEL all have to do with hair, a single strand or mass PHIN+DELAD hair (as in Glorfindal) GLORFINDEL = GLAUR + PHIN+DELA. DEL thick dense, Q PHINDELE mass of long hair OLD SINDARIN findel later finnel (Parma Eldalamberon 17, p. 17)

But there is also the Quenya gloss FINTA to make, show off or decorate a thing with delicate work (a good root word for a scribe)

GIL of course means star (Gil-Galad) and can also mean glint or spark

Ah but then in The Etymologies we find the root TEK (p. 391) which means to make a mark, write or draw together and the Quenya word TEKIL meaning pen which in Noldorian becomes TEGOL so not to far from DEGIL - so perhaps his name means - He with the fine hair who writes with a pen."

So lets hear if for our fair haired Gondorian scribe Findegil for without his effort we would never have heard of any of these glorious tales!

MUSINGS ON FARAMIR'S NAME

Faramir is one of my favorite characters in The Lord of the Rings and I am enjoying revisiting with him this weekend in preparing the readings for The Two Towers lectures next week by Professor Olsen. I have always thought it interesting that Tolkien gave his own recurring nightmare of the great wave comimg over the land to Faramir.

As to the roots and meaning of his name - there is an easy part and a not so easy part.

The easy part is MIR which according to The Etymologies is the root for jewel, precious thing, treasure from which we get the Quenya MIRE which in Parma Eldalamberon 17 Tolkien quotes for atamir, heirloom as a gloss for the Old English word maðm (a precious treasure, valuable gift) there is also the Quenya word MIRYA for a beautiful work of art. MIRIAMA very precious So it is pretty clear that the MIR ending means jewel of precious thing.

The Fara (or Phara) is s bit trickier. In The Etymologies there is a root PHAR from which we get the Quenya word FARYA meaning suffice, sufficient

So Faramir could be a Quenya/Sindarin mixed name for "a sufficient jewel??"

Boromir's name according to the Etymologies might mean enduring, faithful, loyal -so perhaps his name means faithful or loyal jewel.

It is interesting to posit if Denethor their father gave these names then we are already seeing a bit of the source of favoritism between the two sons - both are jewels but one is loyal and faithful and the other one is only sufficient. Also the irony of Boromir's name based on what happens to him is palpable.

But there is another possible root that comes from Parma Eldalamberon 17 (Words, Phases, and Passages in LOTR) is PHERE which means quick, ready, prompt - so could his name made The Jewel that is ready (to fight) ... Possibly.

That's it for now from Wotan - in the next blog post Wotan will discuss two new books on constructed languages he is currently reading The Dictionary of Made Up Languages and From Elvish to Klingon - Exploring Constructed Languages

Lebe Wohl for now!

Wotan Has Returned!!!! Autumn Postings Shall Commence

After many nights at the opera and trips to the east and west, Wotan has returned to Valhalla (well if you can call Clapham Valhalla) with a back log of blog postings. First up is a book review Wotan did recently for the Mythprint the Journal of the Mythopoeic Society of a fantastic new book about Tolkien by a man who actually worked with him...so here it is.....




Arne Zettersten. J.R.R. Tolkien's Double Worlds and Creative Process - Language and Life. Palgrave MacMillan 2011. 243pp. £47.00 ISBN 978-0-230-62314-9.

Like many, if not all, of you I am always on the lookout for new books about J.R.R Tolkien. I probably hit the Amazon search button two or three times a week to see what is both out there and on the horizon (you'd think they have a twelve step programme for this!). So it gave me great delight several months ago to see that Professor Arne Zettersten's new book on Tolkien was available for pre-order. At the same time as this rush of excitement I also had that usual tedious inner dialogue with myself regarding rationalising the price for this book (close to £50 in the UK) against other projected expenditure (like rent, food, the dog etc.). As I remember the internal dialogue for this book went on a bit (not as long as the continuing one for purchasing an original copy of The Songs for the Philologists) - but finally my mind rang with "YOU SHALL BUY" and I ordered it.

Arne Zettersten is currently a Swedish professor emeritus. Before retirement, Zettersten was a Professor in English at the University of Copenhagen.
What probably tipped my purchasing decision over the edge was my reading in the notes for the book that Zettersten is one of those fast fading people who actually knew and actively worked with Professor J,R.R. Tolkien. Zettersten gave the keynote lecture at the 2004 Marquette Blackwelder conference on his work with Tolkien in the 1960-70's while Zettersten was working on his doctrinal thesis on the AB language - a term coined by Tolkien himself when he noted that the dialect of a series of works in Early Middle English (the works of the Katherine Group and the Ancrene Wisse (also known as the Ancrene Riwle or the Guide for Anchoresses)
each had a standard language based on one in use in the West Midlands an area of England Tolkien was very interested in linguistically and historically.

What Zettersten includes in this roughly 200 page book is an incredibly focused blending of a personal reminiscence with a biographical sketch that includes the greatest emphasis and discussion I have seen to date on Tolkien's philological development. He also gives an in-depth analysis of Tolkien's professional and academic work and his parallel work on his legendarium, It is from this analysis and personal experience draws one of the key conclusions of the book that I felt is worth the price of purchase - but more on that later.

The very cover of the book sets the tone for this exploration. A hand sketched map Thror's Map from The Hobbit with an inset picture of Tolkien's from the 1960's in his garden.

The book starts with Zettersten's reminiscence of his first meeting with Tolkien in June 1961 with a scene that I am sure every Tolkien lover has fantasised about - the walk up to the front of 76 Sandfield Road, the first glimpse of Tolkien standing by the garage (that garage with all its documents, maps and some yet still to be revealed secrets!) and Tolkien offering him a cup of tea and saying "Mr. Zettersten, do come in." This was the first of Zettersten's meetings with Tolkien which would continue up to Tolkien's death in 1973. As Zettersten points out their shared love of languages, the primary and Tolkien's secondary world and their depth of friendship resulted in Tolkien in the last year of his life asking Zettersten to call him "Ronald" (which Tolkien in a letter to Amy Ronald indicated "was for my next kin only (Letters 309)." In addition in March 1973 Tolkien wrote a letter to Zettersten addressing it as "Dear Arne."

While the biographical sketch (which covers close to ten chapters) does have strong echoes of the key Tolkien biographies we already have (Carpenter, White and John Garth's excellent work on Tolkien and the Great War), Zettersten gives us a much more focused analysis of Tolkien's academic and philological development and especially the key role his mother Mabel Tolkien nee Suffield played in this. According to Zettersten, Mabel Tolkien was a lover of language, calligraphy and drawing - all loves and talents passed on to her son Ronald. Zettersten gives an example of this with a Christmas card Mabel wrote in 1893 on behalf of the then two-year old Ronald to his father in South Africa (a precursor to her sons later Father Christmas letters perhaps?). The card includes a rendering of "baby speech" including "Toekins" for "Tolkien (babies have a hard time saying the letter l).". As Zettersten says "She taught him to read, write, draw and paint. She instructed him in both classical and modern languages. She placed the right books in his hands at a very early age and practised the precise and ornamental handwriting that was characteristic of him.". While is certainly not new knowledge, what I found interesting is the emphasis on Mabel's love and experience with languages herself before passing it on to Ronald. Zettersten brings Mabel Tolkien the person out of the shadows a bit more and emphasises that very early bond between Mabel and her son had - cut had tragically short by Mabel's death in that postman's cottage at Rednal in 1904.

Another new area of insight that comes out of Zettersten's work is through his focus on Tolkien's ability to live in different worlds at the same time (the "double worlds" of the book's title). Zettersten observes that in his meetings with him, Tolkien could suddenly move from the primary and his secondary world without the slightest difficulty or doubt and he did this with same rapidity that one would switch from one language to another Zettersten uses the linguistic term "code switching" to describe this ability. He traces the development of this ability back to Tolkien's early development (for example his use of the Gothic language to construct new Gothic inspired words for his very early languages) up to his research work in the 1920's on the Oxford English Dictionary (for example parts of the re-write of The Fall of Gondolin were written on slips he used for researching the word wariangle "shrike" for the dictionary).

Zettersten's main point here, and this is what I thought was revelatory in the entire book, is the effect Tolkien's remarkable ability to switch between the "real" world and his secondary world had on the quality and depth of his work in both worlds. This "code switching" allowed him to put as much focus and emphasis on the history, language and culture of Middle Earth as he did on Anglo-Saxon and Germanic literature and culture he taught and researched in the primary world. He had the remarkable ability to hold both these worlds in his grasp and be able to discuss, debate and explore each of them almost simultaneously (an early form of multi-tasking?) The primary world complimented and enriched his secondary world. Tolkien's work as an academic and scholar gave him the process and methodology for the development of his secondary world and his work on his secondary world informed his love and passion for the primary world and his "Northern Spirit.". While others may have frowned on Tolkien's waste of time working on his fantasy world, it seems clear from Zettersten that to Tolkien there was no division, they were in the same and each were as important as the other. An area of Tolkien studies that perhaps can do with more focus and investigation?

I always judge the value of a scholarly work on the amount of highlighting I have done in it and I must say at the first pass of this book (and there will be others) I would give it high marks all around, The appendices offer a good summary of the key points from each chapter and Zettersten's gives some interesting insights into the screen versions of The Lord of the Rings (in the preface Zettersten states that Sir Ian McKellen - Gandalf gave him some insights!).

One final item that I thought was interesting In 1972-73 Zettersten was working on a fragment of the Old English Poem Waldere and Zettersten states that Tolkien was interested in Zettersten's aim to be the first person to use ultraviolet light on the manuscript to decipher the illegible parts of the manuscript. One wonders what he would have made of Professor Michael Drout's excellent current work on genomics, DNA and Anglo-Saxon texts.

This book includes some interesting illustrations and pictures of documents including a photo of a handwritten page of a section of the Return of the King time scheme from Lord of the Rings currently in the Marquette University Tolkien Collection. There are also some very interesting and useful charts including a list of the books in Tolkien's private collection when he was a student at Oxford (donated by the Tolkien family to the Bodliean library in 1982).

There is much more to dig into in this book and as an amateur Tolkien academic and philologist (who certainly lives in the primary world while taking long extensive visits to Tolkien's secondary world) I would highly recommend Arne Zettersten's book to lovers, students and aficionado's of Tolkien's works in both primary and secondary worlds. i do hope other reminiscences from Professor Zettersen are on the horizon!!!

NB: after posting this Johan Olin reminded me that Zettersten's book isn't actually that new, it's a translation of the Swedish original that was published in 2008. so really it is the English translation that is new!!!


MYTHGARD INSTITUTE - The Day Has Come!!!

Wotan's other exciting activity this autumn has been taking part in the first course of the new Mythgard Institute entitled Tolkien and the Epic. The Mythgard Institute Has been formed by the
The Tolkien Professor himself, Corey Olsen, who has created an online university for the study of Tolkien amd related subjects using interactive meeting resources (which we have dubbed Webmoot) Professor Olsen has lined up a stellar group of Tolkien academics for this first course on Tolkien and the Epic including Dr. Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger and Michael Drout as well as Professor Olsen himself to talk on such works as Beowulf, The Kalevala, Volsungasga and seversl of the key works of Tolkien. More classes are planned for the spring and beyond.

At one of the recent sessions with Tom Shippey, Wotan asked him about Dr. Zettensten's book and if he thought the idea of Tolkien as code switcher from the primary world to secondary world was a useful way to analyze Tolkienian literature and scholarship and he agreed it was.

Looking forward to more regular blogging on Wotan's work in the Mythgard Institute and other Tolkien matters and my new autumn language project learning Old Irish!!!

Lebe Wohl for now!!!!

Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Rivals and Mrs Malaprop

This weeks blog posting came about from a visit last night to London's The Haymarket Theatre to see Penelope Keith (Good Neighbors) and Peter Bowles (To the Manor Born, Rumpole of the Bailey) in Peter Halls excellent production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's first comedy The Rivals (1775)

I had planned for this weeks posting to be more about early Tolkien linguistics but then as I sat in the theatre I realised that as much as I tried to put Tolkienan things aside for one night - I had actually come back around to Tolkien - for Tolkien himself has been involved with a production of Sheridan's The Rivals and in his youth had played not the dashing Captain Jack Absolute or his father Sir Anthony Absolute - but indeed Tolkien played the "she wolf" Mrs Malaprop - she who "calls her words so ingeniously misapplied, without being mispronounced" as Julia Melville the cousin of our heroine Lydia Languish says of her in the play. It seems natural that Tolkien with his love for language would savour the opportunity to play a character who uses language in shall we say interesting ways - so what is the evidence of Tolkien taking to the stage to do this?


According to Christina Scull and Wayne G Hammond's J R R Tolkien Companion and Guide in Volume Two The Readers Guide in the section on Tolkien's involvement in pre World War One school days with "The Tea Club Barrovian Society"* -

"In autumn term 1911 Gilson (Robert Quilter Gilson) was Secretary of the Musical and Dramatic Society and planned a performance of The Rivals by Sheridan to be staged at the end of the term. Tolkien, by then at Oxford, was lured back to play Mrs Malaprop, while Wiseman (Christopher) played Sir Anthony Absolute, Gilson Captain Absolute and T.K Barnsley Bob Acres." (p. 999)

Gilson's motivation for producing The Rivals seems to have come a year earlier when according to Scull and Hammond's Tolkien Chronology for December 1910 RQ Gilson during a dinner of the King Edward's School Music and Dramatic Society recited the abduction speech from Shakespeare's Richard II and two scenes from Sheridan's The Rivals (p. 22).

The production of The Rivals was set for Autumn 2011. In Hammond and Scull there is a note that "after the dress rehearsal, the friends, still in costume, marched up Coronation Street in Birmingham to have tea in Barrow's stores (p.999). One could imagine Tolkien decked out as Mrs Malaprop walking up the high street!!

The T.C.B.S performance of The Rivals was given on 21 December 1911 at King Edwards School Birmingham. According to the King Edwards School Chronicle quoted in Scull and Hammond's Tolkien Chronology

"the performance was a thorough success both artistically and financially (ed note - in my line of work both items very welcome!) J R R Tolkien's Mrs Malaprop was a real creation, excellent in every way and not least so in make-up...." (p. 31)

(Now there is a oh I wish I could get in the TARDIS and go back in time moment to see the soon to be Oxford don in drag playing Mrs. Malaprop!!)

It is quite interesting to think that Tolkien a future philologist and creator of languages would play a character whose very name and action would be responsible for a new word in our language

"The word malapropos is an adjective or adverb meaning "inappropriate" or "inappropriately", derived from the French phrase mal à propos (literally "ill-suited")।[1] The earliest English usage of the word cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1630. Malaprop used in the linguistic sense was first used by Lord Byron in 1814 according to the OED. The terms malapropism and the earlier variant malaprop come from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, and in particular the character Mrs. Malaprop. Sheridan presumably named his character Mrs. Malaprop, who frequently misspoke (to great comic effect), in joking reference to the word.A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism or acyrologia) is the substitution of a word for a word with a similar sound, in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but often creates a comic effect. It is not the same as an eggcorn, which is a similar substitution in which the new phrase makes sense on some level. Occasionally a phrase, rather than a single word, replaces the original word, for example Stan Laurel said "What a terrible cat's after me!" (i.e., catastrophe) in Any Old Port" (Wikipedia entry on Malaproprisms)

Some of the best of Mrs Malaprop's utterances are -

"...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory." (i.e. obliterate; Act I Scene II Line 178)
"...she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying." (i.e. comprehend; Act I Scene II Line 258)
"...she's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile." (i.e. alligator; Act III Scene III Line 195)
"Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!" (i.e. apprehend, vernacular, arrangement, epithets). (Sheridan, The Rivals)

One could just hear Tolkien declaring this in the play!!

In a similar way much later on his life Tolkien would construct a word that has now come into our language and the OED; namely "Hobbit"

But if Mrs Malaprop substituted "a word for a word with a similar sound in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but creates comic effect" what the later Tolkien did in developing his languages (not all together for comic effect) was use similar sounds to create a vast tapestry of language structure and from it developed the key languages of his legendarium.

It would be interesting to go through the legendarium and look for examples of malapropisms they must be there - the only related one I can think of right now is something I heard someone once say about Tolkien's works - "Middle Earth is Hobbit forming" (how true).

Welcome more Tolkienian malapropisms and thoughts!!

*it is sobering to think that many of these TCBS friends of Tolkien would soon perish on the battle fields of World War One as masterfully told in the best book on this subject John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War - soon to be in paperback and audio book.

Works Cited

Scull and Hammond The J.R.R Tolkien Companion and Guide (2 cols) HarperCollins:London 2006

Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

Middle Earth Comes to the IPAD

When I purchased my IPAD last July (way back in the days of IOS 4.0) I hoped that there would be a whole library of Tolkienapps for it. However save a Quenya tutor and several Elf name generators for the Iphone there has not been much movement in this area....that is until now.

On Monday I discovered whilst going through the App store a bona fide Tolkien related app - The Middle Earth Map.

The app has been designed by Richard Blum who develped it as a personal resource when he was reading The Silmarillion. What is currently available is phase one which covers the first age and is a great guide to use if you are reading The Silmarillion or the early parts of The History of Middle Earth.

Richard will be bringing out versions to cover the second age with the Island of Numenor and the Third Age of Middle Earth at the time of The War of the Ring.

I am very impressed by this app. it is like having Google Earth for Arda. you can start with an "Iluvatar view" of Arda and then visits your favorite places, peoples,tombs, graves, mounds and hedges with a great navigation system and colour guide





From the walls of the night in the West to the East seas you can explore Arda of the First Age and stop off and visit the Valar in Valinor, Melian and Thingol in Doriath and Turgon in थेhidden kingdom of Gondolin (just don't anyone you have been there)

But not only does this excellent app offer a tour of Arda, it also connects in to several of the best online Tolkien resources including the One Ring.net and the Tolkien gateway so when you are in a certain land or place you can access information and links about it immediately


I wrote my first app store review about The Middle Earth map and gave it 5 stars - a must for any Tolkien lover. i've got my Sillmarillion on my Kindle app and my Middle Earth map app ready to explore the vast realm of Tolkien's Arda.

I applaud Richard Blum's work and look forward to the next editions! An app worthy of Feanor!!




Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

The History of Middle Earth - A Chapter by Chapter Exploration

Some former students (including yours truly) of Dr Dimitra Fimi's excellent
Tolkien Myth and Middle Earth in Context through the University of Wales (UWIC) have banded together as a group called the Tolk-lings to start a chapter by chapter exploration of the twelve volume bedrock of Tolkien scholarship The History of Middle Earth. Thanks to Dr. Fimi and UWIC we have been given permission to use the UWIC Fantasy literature discussion board to explore and discuss each chapter and very excited with the group of UWIC students and others who are joining in
(and anyone can join as well)

Another thread of this blog, in addition to Wagner and Tolkien, will be some key observations On The History of Middle Earth as I journey chapter by chapter through it with a specific focus on the development in the legendarium of the language system of the Elves and Men (we have now received our first glimpse of the language of the first men, Taliska is Parma Eldalamberon 19)

So here is my first posting on the first chapter of Book of Lost Tales One - The Cottage of Lost Play





Tolkien's Early Concept of the Olore Malle - The Path of Dreams

So much in the opening chapter so where does one start? Well, one concept that has always interested me mainly because it is introduced in this chapter and then slowly fades away (or does it) is the Olore Malle - the pathway of Dreams on which mortal children travel to Valinor in their dreams as Tolkien illustrates in the poem "You and Me and The Cottage of Lost Play (Lost Tales I, pp 28-31). As Christopher Tolkien says the entire conception of the Children who went to Valinor was to be abandoned almost without trace (Lost Tales I, p. 27) with only two other major references to it throughout the rest of the Book of Lost Tales. So this was a very early concept of travel into faerie through dreams which Tolkien brought into the development of the Book of Lost Tales and then "abandoned.". One of the most fascinating aspects of the Book of Lost Tales, for me, is even at this earliest point in the formal development of his legendarium, Tolkien had already developed a body of poetic works about his early world. John Garth's excellent Tolkien and the Great War and Dr Dimitra Fimi's award winning Tolkien, Race and Cultural History are key sources for charting the development of these pre Book of Lost Tales works and their influences. As Dr Fimi indicates an important early influence of Tolkien and the specific development of the Olore Malle was J.M Barrie's Peter Pan which Tolkien saw as a child. Dr Fimi indicates that the idea of children coming and staying in fairy land parallels the story in Barrie's Peter and Wendy in which reference is made to Peter Pan living with the fairies and who when children died accompanied them part of the way so they would not be frightened (Fimi, p.37). So this early concept comes out of the Edwardian and Victorian fairy tradition that soon faded, as did this concept, in the harsh light of the aftermath of World War One. But did it? Actually the concept of "travel" in dreams to faerie actually persists in Tolkien's writings as we will see later on in his time travel stories The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers.

I was also struck on this re-read by how much of the atmosphere of the hall found it's way into the Hall of Fire in Rivendell where great tales are also told.

Works Cited

The Book of Lost Tales 1 in The History of Middle Earth (Part 1), edited by Christopher Tolkien. (London: HarperCollns: 2002)

Fimi, D (2010) Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: London: Palgrave







Also stop presses!!! Professor Corey Olsen otherwise known as The Tolkien Professor has announced a new course which he will make available for iPod listening called Faerie and Fantasy .

His course last year on Tolkien's major works was brilliant and I think a key event in Tolkien scholarship and looking at the reading list which includes Middle English literature, Chaucer, Dunsany, Lewis, Tolkien and more looks really exciting.

Professor Olsen should receive one of the rods of the Istari for opening up and allowing exploration of the works of Tolkien and others to international audiences!! I will be reading and listening along to this one.










Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

The Tolkien Professor

Over the course of the last week I have been listening to a wonderful new IPOD lecture series called The Tolkien Professor. Its the work of Corey Olsen Professor of Medieval Lit and an English PhD. Professor Olsen has started his series with several lectures on The Hobbit and then he is gong to go into Lord of the Rings and hopefully the other parts of the histories. He is also offering a Q&A discussion group on Tolkien items. In his first edition of this special discussion there is some really good insights into the three age old question of whether Balrogs have wings and who exactly is Tom Bombadil? These are really worth a listen.

Looks like Tolkien Studies Vol 6 is on the Horizon.