Tolkien in General

Made this thread as there was nowhere to put stuff about Tolkien other than the tradegy thread about his rewrite of TH.
I found this on the BBC news site;

'Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien was heavily influenced by Welsh when creating the Elvish language for his books, an academic says.
Dr Carl Phelpstead of Cardiff University said one language even sounded very Welsh.
He has just completed a study of Tolkien's debt to the language and literature of Wales.
It is being launched at a free public event on Saturday, celebrating Welsh scholarship on Tolkien.
For Tolkien and Wales: Language, Literature and Identity, Dr Phelpstead said he examined a wide range of his fictional and scholarly work.
He said: "He knew the Welsh language extremely well - both medieval and modern Welsh.
"He read a lot of medieval Welsh literature, taught medieval Welsh when he was working at Leeds University and you can see the influence of the language and the literature in his creative writing and his scholarly work."
This particular Elvish language is very like the sounds of Welsh and deliberately so”
He added: "Welsh is important as an influence particularly on one of the Elvish languages, Sindarin.
"It's not so much that he borrowed Welsh words, more the sounds.
"This particular Elvish language is very like the sounds of Welsh and deliberately so.
"I have a friend of mine who is a native Welsh speaker who went to see the Lord of the Rings films and when they started speaking Elvish in the film she turned to her daughter and said 'they are speaking Welsh' so people do see this relationship."
Dr Phelpstead said he also had access to Tolkien's unpublished manuscripts and the collection of Welsh books the author owned.
"The marginal comments, corrections and other notes provide interesting evidence of the depth of Tolkien's knowledge of medieval and modern Welsh."

His book will be launched at 1400 BST on Saturday at Cardiff University's Bute Building. '

So there you go Ally speaks Sindarin!!

I don't think anyone below the age of twenty actually does speak Welsh at all well, well not at least in South Wales. But interesting nonetheless!

I think it's fairly well-known that Tolkien based Sindarin on Welsh and Quenya on Finnish. He discussed that in the Letters, if I recall correctly.

If it is that obvious, I'm suprised he said it at all! He really should have made something up. Like "Tolkien based Sindarin on the neighing of skiing horses in Australia." Well maybe not that silly, but that's how you sell a book!


I'm training to become a revisionist historian...hopefully I will have my own BBC4 show one day!!

I'd buy one of those! And if there were kangaroos! You know, there was not one kangaroo in LotR! PJ would be open to the idea, I'm sure! Maybe, I underestimated this rewriting business...

Ally wrote:I'm training to become a revisionist historian...hopefully I will have my own BBC4 show one day!!

I hope BBC4 isn't anything like the (Alternate) History Channel here in the US, because that channel always gives me a crabbit attack. It's either Nazis or Aliens (or both -- seriously) with them, plus a heaping dose of unsubstantiated BS.

The Nazis are largely under control I hear - but I also hear that aliens are about. (And Mr Tyrant wouldn't lie to me - unless it was about rusty pails!)

I can't believe I forgot the Ancient Mayans and Nostradamus. Dec. 21, 2012 is just around the corner, which I know thanks to the Alt-History Channel.

"I hope BBC4 isn't anything like the (Alternate) History Channel here in the US"- Eldo

Nah its just like this;



(From the episode where they go to London and Family Guy watches BBC4)


Actually BBC4 is one of my fav channels on the BeEb. Small truely wonderful drama and some outstanding performances- I reccomend for example this for anyone who knows who Kenneth Williams (most famous for Carry On films) was and to anyone who loves superb acting (Michael Sheen is uncanny at being other people and this rightly won him the BAFTA)

I like BBC4; though I must confess I haven't seen many of the dramas on there. I remember seeing Lennon naked which I think Christpher Ecclesson did perfectly (obviously the issue of him being much too age, but as it really focuses on him being a son and father not specifically on the fame of The Beatles it didn't really matter) so that was good. I also used to watch Lead Balloon, but now the new series is on bbc2

Most often I watch the music stuff on there, recently they've been rerunning old Top of the Pops eps! They also have some pretty cool music documentaries which I watch, like on the history of rock or something. But it is a great channel!

But we do have a few channels like that Eldo, especially if you have SKY or something. Though 'Dave' and 'Virgin Media' are also pretty bad- endless repeats of motoring shows or Jack Ass! D

I'm reading TOLKIEN AND THE GREAT WAR The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth. All about Tolkien and the TCBS and the First World War. Fascinating!

I haven't read that one- I do hope you intend to provide a review when you are done?

Maybe. I can say now, one third in, that I'm impressed. It certainly fleshes out this early part of Tolkien's life. Must say, I'm not looking forward to his friends dying in the war, but it'll begin soon. Being a fleshed out history, I guess I'll be told about their sad deaths with some detail, which I'm not really looking forward to. They become more real and likeable the more I read about them. He lost another young friend who I hadn't even heard of, Vincent Trought, to illness even before the War. All very sad.

I think G.B. Smith and R. Gilson will soon be dead. This book reeks of sadness.

And yet without that horror and that sadness would LotR's be the work it is? Would it even exist? Strange are the wheels of fate.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:And yet without that horror and that sadness would LotR's be the work it is? Would it even exist? Strange are the wheels of fate.

If there was no sadness would there be anything?

A worrying question- and a bit of a depressing one! Unfortuntely I fear that the only sensible response to finding you are a concious entity in this universe is sadness. Its a place of transitions, everything is fading one way or another from individuals to the very basic blocks of the universe. A place of entropy. Something Tolkien reflects strongly in LotR's.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:A worrying question- and a bit of a depressing one! Unfortuntely I fear that the only sensible response to finding you are a concious entity in this universe is sadness. Its a place of transitions, everything is fading one way or another from individuals to the very basic blocks of the universe. A place of entropy. Something Tolkien reflects strongly in LotR's.

Too true. I think it's why I respond so well to him. He was lucky, though, he believed in Valinor as a reality.

G.S. Smith gone now. The TCBS is down to two! Reminds me why I hate Leaders - stupid ones, that is.

Orwell wrote:G.S. Smith gone now. The TCBS is down to two! Reminds me why I hate Leaders - stupid ones, that is.

Almost done. Fascinating! Hard to sunnarise, Petty. I guess the best thing for me is obtaining new tidbits about Tolkien's life and his thought processes. A great read!

I shall need to visit amazon and pick up a copy. Sounds interesting if melancholy.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I shall need to visit amazon and pick up a copy. Sounds interesting if melancholy.

Yes, a worthwhile quest, Petty. And yes, it's melancholy. I found out something too - something I probably might have already known if I had paid better attention to my imaginative life - and that is a new aspect of the word "enchantment'.' Inherent to it is the important word within it, i.e. "chant". So when Luthien sings Morgoth into a daze, he is being "lulled" by song! Yeah, yeah, it's obvious, I know, I know that now! Nonetheless, for me it's an epiphany. "Song" as a "spell" itself, not just as the "method" or "means" of casting the spell! And me a poet and songwriter! Or am I? Maybe I havent got a "voice" after all, just thought (possibly pompously) that I did.

I dont think its necessary to be aware of the power of song in order to deploy it effectively.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I dont think its necessary to be aware of the power of song in order to deploy it effectively.

I feel - and I don't mean to criticize, Petty - but you have missed a certain "resonance" in what Orwell said. I think he has found his feminine side. "Female magic" and "enchantment" can never be properly addressed through a male black and white lens - only males (like Orwell, clearly) have the subtlety of Soul to do this. It's not you're fault that you're a roughshod Scotshobbit, of course, and I do not seek to apportion blame in any sense:-

"I think he has found his feminine side."- Jane

Then he would be well advised to put it back where he found it! That sort of thing can lead to terrible confusion- look at poor Lorient.