Editing J. R. R. Tolkien (section)

=== Language construction ===

{{See also|Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien}}

Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for [[constructed languages|constructing languages]]. The most developed of these are [[Quenya]] and [[Sindarin]], the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's ''legendarium''. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of [[aesthetics]] and [[euphony]], and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek.<ref name="letter144" group="T">{{harvnb|Carpenter|Tolkien|1981|loc=''Letters'' #144 to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April 1954.}}</ref>

Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of [[International auxiliary language|auxiliary languages]]: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture ''[[A Secret Vice]]'',<ref>{{cite web |last=Corsetti |first=Renato |date=31 January 2018 |title=Tolkien's 'Secret Vice' |url=http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2018/01/tolkiens-secret-vice.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180204082940/http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2018/01/tolkiens-secret-vice.html |archive-date=4 February 2018 |website=British Library}}</ref> "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he had concluded that "[[Volapük]], [[Esperanto]], [[Ido (language)|Ido]], [[Novial]], &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".<ref name="letter180" group="T">{{harvnb|Carpenter|Tolkien|1981|loc=''Letters'' #180 to 'Mr Thompson' (draft), 14 January 1956.}}</ref>

The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which now commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings ''dwarves'' and ''dwarvish'' (alongside ''dwarfs'' and ''dwarfish''), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the [[Old English]] plural survived, it would have been ''dwarrows'' or ''dwerrows''.) He coined the term ''[[eucatastrophe]]'', used mainly in connection with his own work.<ref>{{cite news |last=Fisher |first=Richard |title=Eucatastrophe: Tolkien's word for the "anti-doomsday" |url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221005-eucatastrophe-tolkiens-word-for-the-anti-doomsday |year=2022 |access-date=9 February 2023 |work=[[BBC]]}}</ref>