Does anyone speak Elvish?
I have memorized a few lines from the FOR and it feels so nice to pronounce them. The flow so gently out of your mouth: Lasto beth nin, tolo don na ngalad...
shareThere are a few people who have devoted some serious study to Tolkien's invented languages. I am not one of them. David Lazslo (sp?) who consulted on the film says it's hard to have much of a conversation in Elvish unless you're talking about stars or trees or Death. Tongue-in-cheek, but it makes the point. He took the available vocabulary and imagined how other words would have been formed based on the structure of the language.
Over on The One Ring website there are a few people who seem to be able to speak (or at least write) a bit on Elvish.
The name of the Tolkien language consultant for the films was David Salo. :-)
I met him in NYC for the FOTR Live Concert. We were at an evening bar event hosted by TORn and we all had name tags in the shape of the Elven leaf brooches. I was chatting with him when I realized his name tag was written in Elvish! (we all wrote our own names on the tags)
When I showed my delight at realizing it, he took it off and gave it to me. I still have it. He is a very quiet, gentle soul and a delight to meet.
(rest of reply to OP and anyone in general)
There is a small but devoted camp of Tolkien language enthusiasts. And like any devoted fanbase, it is deeply (and even at times bitterly) divided in how to use/treat Tolkien's created languages.
Some people adhere (and expect others to adhere) strictly to the canon of what Tolkien created. And they feel that the languages, like other aspects of Tolkien's work, are intellectual property and should fall under the same copyright restrictions as other aspects of his work (his maps, drawings, and - of course - the books/stories themselves)
Others want to treat them (there are multiple languages) more like living languages. If Tolkien didn't specify a word for something, they will extrapolate. (of course, discussing their reasons for choosing how they do)
For a short time, I was lurking on a yahoo group and left because of the deep rancor between (individuals in, at least) the two groups.
It seems that yahoo group is now defunt.
Some names in the Tolkien language community include:
Carl F. Hostetter > http://www.elvish.org/
Ryszard Derdzinski > http://www.elendilion.pl/category/english/ (primarily in Polish) > http://elendili.pl/viewforum.php?f=22 (English corner of forum) (old site) http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/
Helge Kåre (H.K.) Fauskanger > http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/
This thread at TheOneRing.net's message boards might be of interest. Just like one can view threads here as 'nested' or 'flat', one can at TORn, as well. I think seeing the outline structure helps sort out who is talking to who so I'm linking you to a view that shows that:
http://newboards.theonering.net/forum/gforum/perl/gforum.cgi?guest=178791365&do%3Dpost_view_threaded%3Bpost_latest_reply%3Bso%3DASC%3Bpost%3D84359=View+Threaded
If you hate that view, find and click the button on the top right that says "View Flat Mode"
(One my notice that - in that TORn thread - I made a passing observation and Hostetter - as they say - kinda 'jumped in my s**t'. For me, that was a clear example of the kind of rancor I observed while I lurked amongst the Tolkien language community at large. I enjoy Tolkien too much to deliberately engage in angry contentious discussion regarding him and his works.)
"The name of the Tolkien language consultant for the films was David Salo. :-)"
I knew I spelled "Lazslo" wrong (HA!). Neat story, M.
Anyway, It's great that there are people who delve this deeply into something like this and a shame that they allow themselves to get their knickers in a twist over it but that's human nature.
neater part of that story... someone snapped a photo of me pointing to his tag (while he was still wearing it). So I have the tag and the photo!
shareNeat indeed. IIRC we were going to try and say "hello" in real life at that NYC show but couldn't (my wife and I still had young rag-tag waiting at home).
share