There are arguably two elements of Tolkien’s creative work that readers tend to skip over to “get to the good parts.” One of these is Tolkien’s brilliant poetry – the beauty and excellence of which Dr. Corey Olsen explored in his Tolkien’s Poetry course. Now we would like to invite you to explore the second crucial element of Tolkien’s creative work which is often neglected, or passed over with head scratching puzzlement, by readers – Tolkien’s Invented Languages.

This course will explore language invention through the works of the greatest and most prolific inventors of language for fictional works and world building – J.R.R. Tolkien. In his lifelong work on his legendarium, Tolkien, at both heart and mind a philologist, put language invention at the core of his mythology. Tolkien narrative and para-textual work is infused with his invented names for people, places and items, as well as the use of these invented languages in dialogue, prose and poetry. The interdependence of invented languages and mythological narrative permeates the entire Legendarium Tolkien would work on for over sixty years and is a crucial and consistent element of his world-building.