Table of Contents

On Neo-Elvish

This opinion piece exists to put down my thoughts on the pursuit of the Neo-Elvish languages – mainly Quenya and Sindarin.
I’m writing this because there are perspectives on Neo-Elvish that conflict and lead to what I’d call “stupid hate”.

I may improve this article over time, gradually.

,

Tolkien's Aim

Tolkien‘s aim with the elvish languages wasn’t to create a ‘finished’ language that he could speak in with others (as is often the case with most conlangs) but to create languages that he thought were aesthetically pleasing. Though I’m not 100% convinced of this as the sole reason he made his languages – mostly because, logically, you wouldn’t create more than one in that situation – but it is the main reason he made his languages.A)
Tolkien created Quenya and Sindarin because he thought they were pretty. He described their histories and changes over time because he thought it was fun. It’s quite simple really.

However, this conflicts with the idea of, y’know, learning Quenya with the intent to speak it.

Fan Aims

Generally, fans have a desire to learn languages. If you present them with an elvish language, they’re gonna wanna know how to speak it. There are dozens of reasons why besides “just learning it for the sake of learning it” and I won’t really bother listing them all. Some simple ones would be to produce fanfiction or get tattoos.B)

This conflicts with Tolkien‘s aim when creating languages, however.

Neo-Elvish

I’ve seen some arguments for and against Neo-Elvish conceptually, which I’ll generalize and summarize.

The arguments in favor are based around the desire to speak these languages. The arguments against are that they’d go against Tolkien‘s vision.

Carl F. Hostetter goes a step further and believes that Tolkien wouldn’t like people’s attempts to finish his languages for him. That’s something I’m not sure about, as it seems a serious leap in logic.C)

Moving on, I think that the conflict here is kinda dumb, because it should be obvious to onlookers that Tolkien‘s motivations for making the languages and the Neo-Elvish effort are two different things. Though I’m not sure I can articulate exactly what I mean right now.
I think that I’m trying to get across that it’s okay that fans and Tolkien aren’t exactly aligned in their goals: one doesn’t de-legitimize the other. In fact, I don’t see how Neo-Elvish (if handled properly as I believe Eldamo is for example) would be disrespectful towards Tolkien.

Stupid Hate

I mentioned this in the opening of the article, so I’ll elaborate what I mean. The people who are against Neo-Elvish tend to come off as if they just hate the enterprise completely. And it seems stupid to me because there’s no actual conflict.

Though this could also be Academia’s tendency to want to treat everything like a museum artifact, reacting with hostility to any attempt at making it lived-in.

A) What else makes me second-guess this is that, based on what I know about Tolkien…he probably did want to learn to speak Quenya/Sindarin at some point. I say this just based on his own words. In Elvish as She Is Wrote written by Carl F. Hostetter, he shares contents of letters written by Tolkien. In them, Tolkien explains that he would have liked to write the entire Lord of The Rings in Elvish if he could. While he’s no doubt exaggerating, I would actually argue that this indicates that Tolkien would have liked to speak/write in ‘Elvish’ himself. It’s just as likely to me – considering Tolkien‘s perfectionism streak – that Tolkien didn’t speak ‘Elvish’ because he didn’t feel the need to…but because he never actually finished Elvish.
B) Though I don’t necessarily approve of tattoos in general.
C) I also think it’s a leap to suggest Tolkien didn’t want to speak his own languages, which is something that Mr. Hostetter seems to sincerely believe. I don’t know Tolkien as much, but I found it doubtful. Hostetter’s argument seems to be based around the fact Tolkien constantly changed the languages. But this also applies to Tolkien‘s stories. So, does that mean that Tolkien had no inclination to finish The Silmarillion either? I think that Occam’s Razor suggests that Tolkien did have the intent to speak Quenya/Sindarin and never did because he just didn’t finish the languages due to his own perfectionism – just like The Silmarillion.