Over the course of my challenge, I have learned phrases in a few different languages. I’ve picked up the basics in the British and Irish languages, learned how to count to ten in Japanese, and found it out how to say hello in some endangered languages. Today, I’m going to dabble in a made-up language – Elvish.
Elvish was created by J.R.R. Tolkien for his books The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings. Both are some of the most famous English-language novels in the world, and their popularity only increased after the blockbuster films won a total of 18 Oscars. Tolkien worked on the books for over a long time – Wikipedia tells me 12 years – and developed the folklore and therefore the Elvish language to an extraordinary degree. He developed multiple versions of the Elvish language, and as a result, created a fully formed language.
As impressive as Elvish is, I can’t say I would have thought about looking at this outside of my challenge. This is the biggest step into any fanbase I’ve made, and it was a bit…scary. I found it quite overwhelming how much people knew of this artificial language. I am a very casual Lord of the Rings viewer and this was a bit intense for me. That’s why I chose to get this over with as quickly as possible and chose the above video!
Now I have this knowledge, I have no idea what I’ll do with it. Don’t get me wrong, I love that people are passionate about things like this. We all have things that we are deeply nerdy about: mine is Italian food and Mad Men – but it is quite intense when you dip into another nerd’s culture. This challenge is always a learning experience!
New Day, New Thing 