The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy novel, written almost 100 years ago by the author and linguist J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon, a historical linguist, and an author of fantasy literature. Tolkien’s work set the standard for high fantasy literature, epic poems and tales, and constructed languages. His influence can still be seen in books, games, television and cinema, as well as in the course in this department on constructed languages.
For the second semester, Julia Papke has been leading a workshop discussing the works of Tolkien. Their hope in having this course was “to use Tolkien as a way to introduce a lot of historical linguistics and history of language (and history of English specifically) to students in a low-pressure way.” Julia has always been a big fan of Tolkien and discusses him and his works frequently in their conlangs class (LING 3502, the Linguistics of Constructed Languages). In fact, Julia was the TA for Rich Janda’s Tolkien class, years and years ago. When students from the conlangs class asked about a Tolkien specific class, it was clear that this course needed to come to fruition.
During the course, there are weekly readings from the LOTR, which lead to discussions about the storyline, inspiration drawn from European history and literary work, his use of rhetorical devices, placename and proper name etymologies, as well as the numerous languages created for Middle Earth. The complexity of the constructed languages ranges from half a dozen placenames to fully developed Elvish languages, complete with dialects and writing systems. There were also many discussions on Tolkien’s knowledge of Anglo-Saxon culture and warfare, and songs and speeches influenced by Icelandic sagas.
When asked about any favorite moments, Julia shared the following:
I was surprised by how many people in the class had never read the Lord of the Rings before! And it was just a real pleasure to see by the end that my students were like “oh yeah, that’s got a velar, it’s clearly a Norse word and not native English” or “oh, right, that’s the soft mutation because it’s a compound” even though it wasn’t a class where I was formally teaching any of these concepts, they were exposed often enough to them that they picked them up! I also really enjoyed getting to play a lot of Tolkien-inspired music. There’s so much poetry in those books (probably more than people remember!) On the last day of class, I played a bluegrass version of the Hymn to Elbereth and joked that the singer was “from Mirkword” which got a big laugh – a nice indication that they remembered what I’d been saying about Elvish dialects! The music and poetry were a great way to get into Tolkien’s worldbuilding, linguistic and otherwise.
What does the future hold for courses on Middle Earth and Elvish dialects? Julia hopes to teach it again soon, possibly expanding it into a full 3-credit class, or even making it a first-year seminar. Tolkien’s literature is packed with dense and complex stories, is influenced by many facets of history and culture and is equally influential on history and culture. There is enough historical linguistic material to continue teaching this course for many years to come.