: : : : I read a post by MM on the Anglo-Saxon issue and found that Tolkien was not only a scholar of Enghlish (Old, middle, modern) but also of a whole host of other languages.

: : : : This brings Elvish and Dwarvish tongues to mind. From what languages did Tolkien derive these from or were they partially derived and partially made-up?

: : : It's important to remember that the Guvnor was first and foremost a philologist, someone who studies the origins of words, grammar, language. As such Tolkien had to be familiar with a wide variety of ancient european languages including Old English, Middle English, Old High/Low German, Middle German, Gothic, Icelandic, Danish, Finnish, Lombardic, Gothic etc. Some of these, such as Gothic have had to be "re-invented", almost entirely from scratch, inferring what a word might have been from how the word changed over time or translation into different languages, due to the fact that very few of their words have survived the centuries intact. This was the root of Tolkien's obsession with "made-up" languages.

: : : Tolkien's preferences were for Finnish and Welsh from which he derived much of the grammar and word structure of Quenya and Sindarin, though Sindarin bears more resemblence to Welsh than Quenya to Finnish, for example Welsh amar (wound), amarch (dishonour), amorth (misfortune,curse) recall Sindarin amarth (doom/fate), or, du (black) with Sindarin duath (shadows) etc (apologies for lack of accents but couldn't really be bothered).

: : : The language of the Dwarves, Khuzdul, poses more problems as to its derivation. This is mainly due to the fact that a) so few examples of it exist (only 20 or so words and 2 or 3 phrases) and b) Tolkien himself wrote very little about it. It bears some resemblence to our semitic languages e.g hebrew in terms of the arrangement of consonants and vowels.

: : : Generally though Tolkien chooses to mix and match. The Northmen of east Rhovanion are given Gothic names, the Rohirrim speak Old English and have names though in the same tongue, dwarf names are of Old Norse formation and the personal names of some upper class hobbit families are early medieval names of Germanic origin.

: : : Jim Allen's "An Introduction to Elvish" is a good source for further information on this topic, alternatively there is a very good Tolkien language resource on the web called Ardalambion, to which I attach a link (if it works!)

: : Some yeras ago I attended a talk by E.Klozko on Tolkien's Languages. Klozko is the author of an Elvish dictionary and some shorter works on Tolkien and ME. He pointed out many of the facts raised above, and also suggested a link between Irish and the dark tongue. The example Klozco used was Nazg, meaning Ring in both languages. There was a professor of Irish studies present who denied that such a word existed in either ancient or modern Irish. Klozco then admitted that the idea was not his and that he had not checked it up, but the story had been circulating in Tolkien-linguistic circles for some time.

: : Is there anybody out there with either sufficient knowledge of Irish or of Tolkienist linguistics to comment on this?

: I find it difficult to believe that Irish is in any way related to the Black Speech. This could of course be due to offended national pride, however (although my Irish is not what it used to be) the Irish for ring is fainne and although philologists might be able to suggest a fainne/nazg link, I think I would be hard pushed to believe them. I'm expecting a mail back from someone (an irish scholar) with a translation of the ring verse, so I'll keep you informed.

As Tolkien states that the Black Speech was a deliberate corruption by Sauron of the Elvish languages, then it would logically follow that if derived from Quenya the nearest real languages would be Latin and Finnish, or if derived from Sindarin - Welsh. Irish doesn't seem to enter the equation at all (except for a fairly removed relationship with Welsh).

Tolkien discusses somewhere (can't remember) specific derivations of individual Black Speech words from their Elvish roots.