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Old 2011-01-02, 09:37   Link #4571
TinyRedLeaf
Moving in circles
 
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
Quote:
Originally Posted by SaintessHeart View Post
I haven't studied much into Quenya, but if we are to identify how sentence construction is usually done in different ways, it may yield suspicions that Tolkien may have included the precision style of Asian languages into the broad style of European languages.
Quenya is a fictional language that Tolkien invented. The guy was eccentric that way. Among other things, he used it to study how the words of real languages evolved through the years. Along the way, he imagined the events in elvish "history" that caused those changes, and thus were born the nascent versions of Middle Earth mythology.

I highly doubt that Asiatic languages had any influence on Middle Earth languages, since most sources point to Scandinavia instead. That's just the way the dice rolled, and not a reflection on the aesthetic qualities of languages like Chinese. Tolkien never quite encountered them and even if he did, the culture behind the languages may have been so alien it would be difficult to say if he could have related with any of them.

If I recall correctly, both the men and elves of Middle Earth are descended from the Valar, and in their creation myth, the world was created from a song. That's food for thought, isn't it? Words created that were meant to be sung, and not just read. (It would be interesting to think about what Tolkien would have made of Arabic. If there's ever a language meant for reading aloud, and especially sung in verses, Arabic would be it.)

Last edited by TinyRedLeaf; 2011-01-02 at 09:49.
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