Sound and language in Middle-earth: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:56, 10 September 2022

Revision as of 02:44, 7 December 2022

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Tolkien explained in the essay that the person inventing a language must address the "fitting of notion to oral symbol", and that the pleasure in such invention derives mainly from the "contemplation of the relation between sound and notion". He went so far as to state that he was "personally more interested perhaps in word-form in itself, and in word-form in relation to meaning (so-called phonetic fitness) than in any other department".<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1983|pp=206, 211}}</ref>

The Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] notes that in ''[[The Fellowship of the Ring]]'', the poem ''[[A Elbereth Gilthoniel]]'', written in [[Sindarin]], one of Tolkien's invented Elvish languages, is presented directly without translation:{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=129–131}}<ref>A similar view is voiced in {{cite journal |last=Robbins |first=Susan |year=2013 |title=Beauty in language: Tolkien's phonology and phonaesthetics as a source of creativity and inspiration for ''The Lord of the Rings'' |journal=Žmogus ir žodis ['Man and Word'] |issue=1 |pages=183-191183–191 |url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/21979431/beauty-in-language-tolkiens-phonology-and-biblioteka }}</ref>

{{blockquote|<poem>A Elbereth Gilthoniel

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Tolkien's point of view was a "heresy" because the usual structuralist view of language is that there is no connection between specific sounds and meanings.{{sfn|Turner|2013|pp=330–331}} Thus "pig" denotes an animal in English but "pige" denotes a girl in Danish: the allocation of sounds to meanings in different languages has been taken by linguists to be arbitrary, and it is just an accidental by-product that English people find the sound of "pig" to be hoglike.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=129–131}}

Tolkien was somewhat embarrassed by the subject of his linguistic aesthetics, as he was aware of the conventional view, due to [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] and from the 1950s strengthened by [[Noam Chomsky]] and his [[generative grammar]] school, that linguistic signs (such as words) were arbitrary, unrelated to their real-world referents (things, people, places). The Tolkien scholar Ross Smith notes that Tolkien was in fact not the only person who disagreed with the conventional view, "unassailable giants of linguistic theory and philosophy like [[Otto Jespersen|[Otto] Jespersen]] and [[Roman Jakobson|[Roman] Jakobson]]" among them.<ref name="Smith 2006">{{cite journal |last=Smith |first=Ross |title=Fitting Sense to Sound: Linguistic Aesthetics and Phonosemantics in the Work of J.R.R. Tolkien |journal=[[Tolkien Studies]] |volume=3 |issue=1 |year=2006 |doi=10.1353/tks.2006.0032 |pages=1–20|s2cid=171047658 }}</ref>

More recently, [[sound symbolism]] has been demonstrated to be widespread in natural language.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Blasi |first1=Damián E. |last2=Wichmann |first2=Søren |last3=Hammarström |first3=Harald |last4=Stadler |first4=Peter F. |last5=Christiansen |first5=Morten H. |title=Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages |journal=[[PNAS]] |date=27 September 2016 |volume=113 |issue=39 |pages=10818–10823 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1605782113|pmid=27621455 |pmc=5047153 |bibcode=2016PNAS..11310818B |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Joo |first1=Ian |title=Phonosemantic biases found in Leipzig-Jakarta lists of 66 languages |journal=[[Linguistic Typology]] |date=27 May 2020 |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=1–12 |doi=10.1515/lingty-2019-0030|hdl=21.11116/0000-0004-EBB1-B |s2cid=209962593 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Erben Johansson |first1=Niklas |last2=Anikin |first2=Andrey |last3=Carling |first3=Gerd |last4=Holmer |first4=Arthur |title=The typology of sound symbolism: Defining macro-concepts via their semantic and phonetic features |journal=[[Linguistic Typology]] |date=27 August 2020 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=253–310 |doi=10.1515/lingty-2020-2034 |s2cid=209913202 }}</ref> The [[bouba/kiki effect]], for example, describes the cross-cultural association of sounds like "bouba" with roundness and "kiki" with sharpness.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bremner |first1=Andrew J. |last2=Caparos |first2=Serge |last3=Davidoff |first3=Jules |last4=de Fockert |first4=Jan |last5=Linnell |first5=Karina J. |last6=Spence |first6=Charles |title="Bouba" and "Kiki" in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape–sound matches, but different shape–taste matches to Westerners |journal=[[Cognition (journal)|Cognition]] |date=February 2013 |volume=126 |issue=2 |pages=165–172 |doi=10.1016/j.cognition.2012.09.007 |pmid=23121711 |s2cid=27805778 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ćwiek |first1=Aleksandra |last2=Fuchs |first2=Susanne |last3=Draxler |first3=Christoph |last4=Asu |first4=Eva Liina |last5=Dediu |first5=Dan |last6=Hiovain |first6=Katri |last7=Kawahara |first7=Shigeto |last8=Koutalidis |first8=Sofia |last9=Krifka |first9=Manfred |last10=Lippus |first10=Pärtel |last11=Lupyan |first11=Gary |last12=Oh |first12=Grace E. |last13=Paul |first13=Jing |last14=Petrone |first14=Caterina |last15=Ridouane |first15=Rachid |last16=Reiter |first16=Sabine |last17=Schümchen |first17=Nathalie |last18=Szalontai |first18=Ádám |last19=Ünal-Logacev |first19=Özlem |last20=Zeller |first20=Jochen |last21=Perlman |first21=Marcus |last22=Winter |first22=Bodo |display-authors=6 |title=The bouba/kiki effect is robust across cultures and writing systems |journal=[[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B]] |date=3 January 2022 |volume=377 |issue=1841 |pages=20200390 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2020.0390 |pmid=34775818 |pmc=8591387 |s2cid=244103844 }}</ref> Svetlana Popova comments that Tolkien "came very close" to the findings of [[psycholinguistics]] including the bouba/kiki effect, and that his ideas of what makes the sound of a language pleasurable agree with [[David Crystal]]'s findings.<ref name="Popova Magsymov pp. 8–26">{{cite journal |lastlast1=Popova |firstfirst1=Svetlana |last2=Marsymov |first2=А. | title=Sound symbolism as a phonetic phenomenon and a means of artistic expression |journal=Issues of Applied Linguistics |publisher=The Business and Vocational Foreign Languages Teachers National Association | volume=41 |date=30 March 2021 |issn=2306-1286 |doi=10.25076/vpl.41.01 |pages=8–26 |s2cid=233562358 |language=en |url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Svetlana-Popova-8/publication/350501330_ZVUKOVOJ_SIMVOLIZM_KAK_FONETICESKOE_AVLENIE_I_SREDSTVO_HUDOZESTVENNOJ_VYRAZITELNOSTI/links/6093a9cea6fdccaebd0dfc5f/ZVUKOVOJ-SIMVOLIZM-KAK-FONETICESKOE-AVLENIE-I-SREDSTVO-HUDOZESTVENNOJ-VYRAZITELNOSTI.pdf350501330 }}</ref>

=== True names ===

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* {{cite book |last=Fimi |first=Dimitra |author-link=Dimitra Fimi |year=2010 |title=Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits |___location=London |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0230272842 }}

* {{cite book |last=Higgins |first=Andrew S. |title=The Genesis of Tolkien's Mythology |publisher=[[Cardiff Metropolitan University]] (PhD Thesis) |date=March 2015 |url=https://repository.cardiffmet.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10369/7528/Final%20submission.pdf }}

* {{cite book |last1=Honegger |first1=Thomas |author1-link=Thomas Honegger |last2=Vanderbeke |first2=Dirk |chapter=Introduction |title=From Peterborough to Faëry: the poetics and mechanics of secondary worlds: essays in honour of Dr. Allan G. Turner's 65th birthday |publisher=[[Walking Tree Publishers]] |publication-place=Zurich |year=2014 |isbn=978-3-905703-31-3 |oclc=898346156 |pages=i–v |url=https://www.academia.edu/12231185/_From_Fa%C3%ABry_to_Madness_The_Facts_in_the_Case_of_Howard_Phillips_Lovecraft_}}

* {{cite book |last=Martin |first=Philip |title=The writer's guide to fantasy literature : from dragon's lair to hero's quest: how to write fantasy stories of lasting value |publisher=Writer Books |publication-place=Waukesha, Wisconsin |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-87116-195-6 |oclc=49379142}}

* {{cite book |last=Podhorodecka |first=Joanna |year=2007 |chapter=Is ''lámatyáve'' a linguistic heresy. Iconicity in J. R. R. Tolkien's invented languages |editor1-last=Tabakowska |editor1-first=Elżbieta |editor2=Ljungberg, Christina |editor3=Fischer, Olga |title=Insistent Images. Iconicity in language and literature. Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium in Language and Literature |pages=103–110 |___location=Amsterdam/Philadelphia |publisher=[[John Benjamins Publishing Company|John Benjamins]] |isbn=978-9027243416 |url=https://www.academia.edu/19105666/Is_l%C3%A1maty%C3%A1ve_a_linguistic_heresy_Iconicity_in_J_R.R._Tolkien_s_invented_languages|doi=10.1075/ill.5.11pod}}

* {{ME-ref|ROAD}}

* {{ME-ref|FOTR}}