Notice to subscribers
I am currently applying a zero-tolerance policy to returned messages.
If your copy of a TolkLang message comes back saying you don't exist,
your subscription will be immediately cancelled. If a message
comes back saying your mailbox is full, or similar, your
subscription will be immediately suspended. If you aren't
getting messages, use the mail server status command to
check your subscription. Alternatively, here is a
list of suspended accounts as of last night.
The Tolkien Language List
Welcome to the home page of the Tolkien Language List, otherwise known
as TolkLang.
What is TolkLang? It is a mailing list whose purpose is discussions of the linguistic aspects of
J.R.R. Tolkien's works. This covers everything from Elvish
vocabulary and grammar to his use of Old English. The list is
(lightly) moderated.
TolkLang may be received normally, or as a weekly digest. To subscribe,
send a message containing the line (in Subject OR message-body)
subscribe
or, for the digest version,
subscribe digest
to tolklang-server (at) quettar.org
Miscellaneous useful things
Here are some of the items in the archive:
TolkLang messages
The individual messages sent out on TolkLang are not currently formatted
in a manner suitable for Web browsing, but you can find them
here. Note: in order to prevent spammers
harvesting the messages, they are protected by password authentication.
The username is tolk, and the password is lang.
You can also find previous messages packed into gzipped tar files,
one file per volume, in the directory Packed.
You can also search the message archive.
(If you dislike frames, then here is a frameless
search page.)
If you'd like to get an idea of what we do, you can look at the
last issue of the weekly digest.
The Elfling and Lambengolmor mirrors
Elfling and
Lambengolmor
are other lists on Tolkienian linguistics. This site holds
mirrors of the these lists, mainly
so that they can be searched (from the search link above).
Longer articles
A collection of fairly substantial articles on Tolkienian linguistics
can be viewed here.
Poems
A collection of poems in Elvish that have been submitted to TolkLang.
This collection is maintained by Anthony Appleyard.
Prose
A similar collection of prose in Elvish.
The archives are also used to store temporary documents associated
with postings to the list.
Other Web pages of interest
- Recommended for beginners (and others): Helge
Fauskanger, with some help from others, has produced the
most comprehensive description of languages of Middle-earth
available on the Web; come to that, it's more comprehensive
than any of the paper resources in my collection. The only
disadvantage is the truly horrible misuse of colours, which
can make it hard to read, and results in invisible words on
monochrome screens. However, anybody with any questions
about anything to do with Tolkienian linguistics should
investigate this site first.
- Carl Hostetter's Resources page
- The Elvish
Linguistic Fellowship, including Vinyar
Tengwar, and Parma
Eldalamberon.
- The home
page of the Mellonath Daeron, the linguistic guild of the Stockholm
Tolkien Society.
- Ryszard Derdzinski's web page Gwaith-i-Pheddian.
- The home page
of a Finnish Tolkienian linguistics group.
- The home page of the Tolkien Society
- The page for the Oxford Tolkien Society, Taruithorn.
- The Czech Tolkien page.
- A Tolkien
page based in Sweden
- A Russian language
Tolkien page
- A list of email lists on
language(s).
Julian Bradfield
tolklang-request (at) quettar.org