A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages. Andrew Higgins

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СКАЧАТЬ unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends.) So though being a philologist by nature and trade (yet one always primarily interested in the aesthetic rather than the functional aspects of language) I began with language, I found myself involved in inventing ‘legends’ of the same ‘taste’. (Letters, p. 231)

      In contrast to Tolkien’s own invented languages, which are indissolubly bound up with the history and legends of the various peoples in his complex secondary world, many IALs divorce language from culture. IALs arguably offer a ready-made linguistic idiom that is simpler, easier to learn, and more logical than natural languages, but may also be perceived as neutral, non-personal, a-historical, standardized, sterile. Okrent notes that this may be the reason why many people talk about IALs with scorn or dismissive humour. An IAL asks us to ‘turn away from what makes our languages personal and unique and choose one that is generic and universal. It asks us to give up what distinguishes us from the rest of the world for something that makes everyone in the world the same’. They are a ‘threat to beauty: neutral, antiseptic, soulless’ (Okrent 2009, pp. 111–12). Tolkien’s 1956 comment on IALs follows a similar line of argument: he characterizes them as ‘dead’ languages (a term usually used for languages with no living speakers) because they are not rooted in a cultural context. But, applicable though his comments may be to Volapük, Ido and Novial, they oversimplify the long historical development of Esperanto and the gradual development of an ‘Esperanto culture’. The younger Tolkien who co-signed the 1933 article discussed above seems to be more keenly aware of the success of Esperanto over many years, which led to the composition of original literature in this IAL. Okrent (2009) has handled the idea of an ‘Esperanto culture’ with honesty and sensitivity and has given a colourful and fascinating account of the shared culture of Esperanto speakers when they find themselves in ‘Esperantoland’ (anywhere in the world Esperanto is spoken – and definitely at congresses and other regular gatherings of Esperanto supporters). She offers evidence of the development of idiomatic language in Esperanto to suit its speakers’ shared values, principles and anxieties, and the development of a shared identity beyond national boundaries. The fact that Esperanto has allowed a shared tradition and culture to ‘breed’ among its speakers, makes it more sympathetic to Tolkien’s ideals for invented languages than the older Tolkien is willing to admit.^fn12

      The general consensus in Tolkien scholarship is that Tolkien originally expressed admiration for Esperanto but changed his mind later on, or at least lost his original enthusiasm. For example, Hammond and Scull claim that: ‘Tolkien’s view of artificial languages changed over the years’ (Reader’s Guide, p. 474), using as evidence the 1956 letter quoted above, as well as a few revisions Tolkien made to ‘A Secret Vice’, as presented by Christopher Tolkien in the original publication of the essay in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Our edition questions the date and interpretation of these particular pencil notes, arguing that they were contemporary with the first delivery of the essay (see p. xxxiv). Moreover, it offers a series of additional comments that Tolkien made on Esperanto and unveils further links between Tolkien and the Esperanto movement. Readers are therefore afforded a more rounded understanding of Tolkien’s views on Esperanto at different times.

      As noted above, Tolkien mentioned Novial alongside Volapük and Ido in his 1956 letter in order to contrast them with his own invented languages. But there is another cryptic reference to Novial in the same 1932 letter to The British Esperantist quoted above. Tolkien writes:

      Actually, it seems to me, too, that technical improvement of the machinery, either aiming at greater simplicity and perspicuity of structure, or at greater internationality, or what not, tends (to judge by recent examples) to destroy the ‘humane’ or aesthetic aspect of the invented idiom. This apparently unpractical aspect appears to be largely overlooked by theorists; though I imagine it is not really unpractical, and will have ultimately great influence on the prime matter of universal acceptance. N^**, for instance, is ingenious, and easier than Esperanto, but hideous – ‘factory product’ is written all over it, or rather, “made of spare parts” – and it has no gleam of the individuality, coherence and beauty, which appear in the great natural idioms, and which do appear to a considerable degree (probably as high a degree as is possible in an artificial idiom) in Esperanto … (quoted in Smith and Wynne 2000, p. 36).

      Smith and Wynne are right to point out that the only IAL Tolkien can be plausibly referring to in this letter is Novial, which Jespersen had released in 1928. They also hypothesize that the reason for Tolkien’s discrete reference (‘N^**’, rather than naming it in full) was his reluctance to criticize a fellow-philologist and eminent scholar – and a colleague that Tolkien admired for his work on linguistics and whose books he had praised in his reviews for the Year’s Work in English Studies a few years earlier (YWES V, pp. 28–32, 52; YWES VI, p. 56). But Jespersen’s principles for an IAL, applied in Novial and outlined a year later in an article, seem to have jarred with Tolkien’s investment in the aesthetic qualities of invented languages, even if they were to be used as IALs, as evident from the letter above. Jespersen’s principles included the use of:

      a) pre-existing international roots (i.e. creation of an a posteriori IAL)

      b) a phonetic system which should be as simple as possible, in order not to hinder non-European nations

      c) the Roman alphabet (based on the fact that it is the best-known one worldwide)

      d) spelling that is simplified and as easy as possible

      e) grammatical material from existing languages and no grammatical irregularities whatsoever

      f) tenses that are formed by short auxiliaries – apart from the past tense that would be denoted by a different ending to the present (see Jespersen 1929)

      Jespersen’s objective, quite evidently, was an IAL that would be regular, logical, and easy to pronounce and use for speakers of any language of the world. That Tolkien was referring to Novial in the letter above is therefore even clearer when his criticism concentrates on the exact elements Jespersen aspired to: ‘greater simplicity and perspicuity of structure’ or ‘greater internationality’ – elements that Tolkien felt were to the detriment of individuality, coherence and beauty, and made Novial sterile, contrived and colourless. This edition offers more evidence of Tolkien’s thinking about Novial.

      Tolkien’s language invention, therefore, seems to respond to contemporary IALs. Indeed, as he reflects in ‘A Secret Vice’, his early efforts of language invention were often associated with communities of (child) speakers seeking an instrument of (playful) communication. But Tolkien swiftly progressed from invented languages as communication

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