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Evan Galdeen

English 507

Dr. Koster

November 25, 2017

Paolini v. Tolkien

One of the most common tropes across the genre of fantasy is a fictional language. As the

most well-known epic fantasy series are written in English, the fantasy language within the

stories are derived from English in some fashion, be it bringing in older forms of the language, or

mixing it with another, such as Latin. Amongst the most popular franchises is what many might

consider the gold standard: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien, the author, is the first “widely

known author to use a more or less fully constructed language” (Peterson 10). Another example

of a language that is fully constructed can be found in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle,

which, while popular in some circles, is not as well-known as Tolkien’s, perhaps due to its lack

of good film adaptation. Despite its lack of renown, I feel that Paolini’s Ancient Language is

more viable and memorable than Tolkien’s, and is a more impressive feat due to Paolini’s young

age in comparison with Tolkien’s at the time they created their respective languages. Due to their

similarities and differences, the two Elvish languages are ripe for comparison concerning their

origins and connections to the development of the English Language.

Despite the admittedly flawed nature of his fantasy language, the fact that Paolini was

able to create as much as he did is an impressive feat. His full biography is incomplete as he is

still alive, and biographical information has evolved over time, but facts about him are found in

sources such as an interview published in Current Events, and "Living a Real-Life Fantasy,”

published in Newsweek by Sean Smith. Paolini began writing Eragon, the first book in the
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Inheritance Cycle when he was only fifteen (Dragon Tales). At that time, he had sketched out the

plot for a Trilogy, rather than the four-book Cycle that the series eventually became, and by age

nineteen, Eragon had debuted at No. 3 on The New York Times best-seller list, ahead of every

"Harry Potter" except the latest (Smith). The fourth book, released in 2011, also broke sales

records (Dragon Tales).

Unlike Paolini, who was homeschooled and had just earned his GED when he began writing

(Smith), Tolkien had achieved a much higher level of education when he began his seminal work.

This is due in full to the age he started writing, but the facts are still apt for contrast. According to

"The Life & Times of J.R.R. Tolkien,” written in Christian History, Tolkien attended Oxford from

1911-1915 and was married with children before he began writing The Hobbit and later, The Lord

of the Rings in 1937 and 1954-55, respectively. He passed away in 1973, leaving behind a great

legacy.

Though there is a lack of academic, critical sources on Paolini’s work, there are two

guides to his ancient language on his website, one of which is an in-depth introduction written by

fans for a class project and one of which is more cursory, written by Paolini himself. In this

guide, Paolini sets forth nine basic rules for his grammar, concerning apostrophes, verbs, definite

and indefinite articles and their use in ‘formal’ grammar, the lack of present participles, titles,

honorifics and descriptions, accent marks, the lack of q and x, and the “tricky business” that is

adjectives (Paolini). He also covers vowels, consonants, diphthongs, an ‘others’ category, accent

marks, prefixes, and suffixes. While shorter in page length, this document covers the basic rules

and parts of the ancient language. Sophie Brouwer’s “An Introduction to the Ancient Language,”

which is also found on Paolini’s website, is a fan-written guide to the language posted on the

author’s website with his stamp of approval. She and her team completed this guide as an
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assignment in their Interlinguistics class at the University of Amsterdam. Their goal was to

complete the grammar, as well as to “satisfy, clarify, and most of all help one get into closer

touch with this fantastical, mystical world” (Brouwer 3). In writing the language, Brouwer and

her team also offer some fair criticism of the Ancient Language:

“After taking a look at the original material, we had to conclude very soon that Paolini is

not a linguist. All the original material is a grammatical a mess. Often, the sentences

seemed to be constructed randomly and any solid regularities proved to be hard to find.

However, we have tried to pick out as many original regularities as possible and worked

them into the grammar” (Brouwer 43).

Despite this, Brouwer, along with Susannah Dijkstra and Emma Konijn managed to shape the

language into a more concise grammar, using the guidelines Paolini provided in the books. On

the process, the authors had this to say:

“Because it was quite clear from the start that the Ancient Language is basically a

language with a grammar similar to English and with Old Norse as lexifier – for which it

is , unfortunately, also criticised– we decided that our mission would not only be to

follow these two guidelines, but also to create its own identity. By creating new

constructions and principles –sometimes based on the original material, sometimes not –

we have attempted to create not “just” a language, but a language in its own right, with its

own original identity.

We started by making word categories complete. For example, we completed the sets of

pronouns, possessive pronouns, interrogatives, honorifics, etc. We also analysed all the

sentences from the Ancient Language samples from the books to find rules on word

order, subordination, morphology, etc. After that, we examined the Old Norse, Icelandic
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and sometimes even Old English for more guidance on the subject matters. With those

building blocks we constructed the grammar and expanded the lexicon. We kept into

account that the rules should not only be understandable for linguistics students, but also

for the fans of the Inheritance Cycle” (Brouwer 43).

In response to this, Paolini made the following statement:

“Wow. This is amazing and astounding. I love it. The amount of work is staggering. I

wish I’d had access to this document when I was writing the series because, as they quite

rightfully point out, I’m not a linguist, as much as I love language. If I have to choose

whether to put my time into writing the story or inventing a language, I’ll always choose

the story” (Complete Grammar)

Other than the time periods they lived and wrote in and the ages they worked at, this is the major

difference between Paolini and Tolkien. Tolkien studied English at Oxford for four years and

took a more scholarly approach to the language invention, while Paolini chose to focus on the

story, and while opinions on this may vary, I would argue that his story is more successful, while

Tolkien’s language is more complete.

Because Tolkien lived [and died] before the internet age, he is unable to make a concise

guide to his language, and so scholars must rely on their peers to make such guides. In “Essence

of Elvish: The Basic Vocabulary of Quenya,” Christopher Gilson does just that. Early on, he

offers Tolkien’s definition of language: “[Tolkien] considered an invented language to be an

arbitrary system of words, consisting of phonetic forms and related meanings, together with

grammatical devices—added elements and syntactic rules of combination for expressing

relations among words” (Gilson 215). By Tolkien’s definition, the ancient language would apply
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as a language, even with the various grammatical issues Brouwer pointed out in her team’s

analysis.

While Paolini’s language is not perfect, that does not mean it is necessarily bad or invalid

as a language outright. In his examination of Quenya, Gilson points out that Tolkien would

“sometimes reject linguistic concepts” (Gilson 219), and while Tolkien knew linguistics better

than Paolini, he still chose to break rules. In the realm of linguistics, overall, Tolkien is the

superior writer; however, that does not leave Paolini’s language without its merits.

In Elizabeth D. Kirk’s article, “I Would Rather Have Written in Elvish”: “Language,

Fiction and “The Lord of the Rings,” the author examines a critique of Tolkien’s series written

by Burton Raffel, who claims that Tolkien’s books “exclude what [he] term[s] literature” (Kirk

6). This criticism focused on the series as a whole, including the languages within Tolkien’s

works. In opposition to Raffel, Kirk points out “Tolkien has created an entire world within its

spatial and chronological dimensions, peopling it with languages which have, in a necessarily

stylized and simplified version, all the basic features of language, from writing systems and

sound changes through diction and syntax to style…” (Kirk 10). Though her argument with

Raffel centered on the Lord of the Rings series status as literature, these language ideas are

applicable to Paolini’s world and language as well. In Kirk’s argument, she points out that

Tolkien created multiple languages, something Paolini did as well. In this case, though, the

Ancient Language is his main focus, with Dwarvish as a secondary language, which has less of a

base structure than the Ancient Language, as the main character, Eragon, does not learn as much

Dwarvish as he does Gramarye [the ancient language word for magic] (Brouwer 34). Paolini’s

language also fulfills criteria Tolkien himself laid out:

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“The incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale are, in our world coeval. The human mind,

endowed with the powers of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass,

discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is

green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the faculty that

produced it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faërie is more

potent. And that is not surprising: such incantations might indeed be said to be only

another view of adjectives, a part of speech in a mythical grammar. (p. 50)” (Kirk 10).

Kirk then goes on to add, “Such an idea of the connection between language and invention

centers itself on the relation of language to those experiences that are not peculiar to a given,

specially sensitive individual” (Kirk 10). This applies especially in the case of Paolini’s books: in

the Inheritance Cycle, Eragon is learning Gramarye at a fast pace, in a limited period of time and

with a specialized curriculum. Because of this, Paolini’s grammar does not have to be pitch-

perfect, and as Brouwer points out, it is not, but it suffices for the story. Adding to this discussion

is Susan Mandala’s book, Languages in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Mandala discusses fantasy

languages in a general sense. In her first chapter, she defines style as the following:

“Style, when interpreted according to its widest definition, as Leech and Short

(1981/2007) point out, ‘refers to the way in which language is used in a given context, by

a given person, for a given purpose, and so on’ (9). The literary-linguistic study of style

narrows this focus somewhat, and considers style to be the way language is used in

literature for ‘artistic function’ (Leech and Short 1981/ 2007: 11). How, for example, is

the style of a particular text, its use of language, instrumental in creating character, or

establishing atmosphere, or revealing theme? It is this aspect of style, and questions such

as these, that are of interest to the literary linguist. In this investigation, it is the language
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of fiction, in particular the language of science fiction and fantasy, that is explored”

(Mandala 1-2).

This matches up with Kirk’s philosophy in her article on Tolkien and supports the idea that

Paolini’s language does not have to be perfect to suffice.

The similarities between the languages of Paolini and Tolkien’s worlds are found not just

in their elvish languages, but in their English-equivalent languages as well. In Michael Adams’

book, from Elvish to Klingon: exploring invented languages, he says the following of the origins

of Gandalf’s name: “Gandalf is a name borrowed from Norse legend (Gandalf < Old Norse

Gandalfr, from gand ‘staff’ and alfr ‘elf’)” (Adams 76). Similarly, the name Eragon comes from

old myths as well, in this case, Gaelic. Behind the Name has the following to say on Paolini’s

name choice:

“The name of the main character in American author Christopher Paolini's Inheritance

Cycle novels. In the novels, Eragon is a dragon-rider, and in interviews, Paolini has stated

he came up with Eragon's name by changing the first letter of the word dragon. Some

posit that Paolini got Eragon from the character Erragon from author Anne McCaffery's

Pern series, also featuring dragons and from which Paolini has admitted being influenced.

McCaffery herself may have gotten the name from the character Erragon from The Battle

of Lore, of the Poems of Ossian (c.1760), Ossian being the fictional narrator Gaelic

myths and legends created by Scottish poet James Macpherson” (Eragon).

Both characters names come from elvish origins within their respective worlds, and from

predecessors of the English language in the real world.

Though, as research shows, there is little argument that Tolkien’s language is superior in

its completeness, correctness and volume, there is something to be said for Paolini’s more
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concise and rough [grammatically, anyway] language. For example, the Quenya word for sword

is makil (Gilson 234), while the Ancient Language word is sverd (Brouwer 35). While Tolkien’s

creation of an entirely new word that has no resemblance to the English word could be argued as

more creative, there is a simplicity to Paolini’s letter-swapping and use of Old Norse, which

Brouwer points out is a frequent habit of Paolini’s (Brouwer 3). This is another habit he shares

with Tolkien, as discussed with Gandalf’s name above.

As well as the lingual differences between the languages of Tolkien and Paolini, there are

also differences in the backgrounds of these languages. Of the Ancient Language, using

information provided from Paolini’s books, Brouwer says:

“His books take place in the mystical land of Alagaësia, where elves, dragons, dwarves,

humans and every other kind of magical creatures can be found. Nowadays, only the

elves, dragons and some humans master and use the Ancient Language. Once this

language was the language of all creatures in Alagaësia. Unfortunately, it started to die

out. The Grey Folk, however, somehow managed to tie the language to their magic, as a

tool for regulating their powers. Significantly, it is impossible to lie in the Ancient

Language; everything said in this tongue is irrevocably true. As a result, most of the

original material from the books are spells and phrases commonly used in official, formal

ceremonies. The bigger one’s knowledge of the Ancient Language, the more spells one

possesses and the more power they have” (Brouwer 3).

In Paolini’s world, the language is used both as communication and as spells. In Peterson’s book,

he says the following of Tolkien’s languages: “Quenya and Sindarin, his two most famous

languages, descend from a common ancestor, Quendian, and themselves have languages that

have descended from them and other languages to which they are related” (Peterson 10). Both
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authors put some amount of thought into the history of the language within their worlds, which is

admirable.

Part of the reason that I feel that Paolini’s language is more memorable than Tolkien’s is

their use in the film adaptation. Though many of the changes made to the Eragon film are

reprehensible, one of the things that I think it does relatively successfully is the incorporation of

Eragon’s education in the Ancient Language (Buchman). In contrast to this, the Lord of the

Rings films incorporate the language cleanly into the world without explanation of the language

(Jackson). This is, of course, due in part to the nature of the stories they are adapting. In Eragon,

the titular character is learning the language, whereas in Lord of the Rings, the characters are all

educated in the languages they speak prior to the beginning of the books.

The research I have done on Tolkien’s language, and fantasy language creation in general

all indicates that Tolkien’s language is superior. This is a point I must concede to the research.

Tolkien was a linguist, and therefore knew the English language and its history better than any

fifteen-year-old could hope to. On a structural level, Tolkien’s language is better, however, on an

accessibility level, Paolini’s ancient language is still favorable. Its simplicity makes it easier to

learn, and even though it is not “correct” by English standards, that does not make it any less

valid a fantasy language than Tolkien’s Quenya. In terms of the two languages effects on the

English language, Tolkien’s is undeniably greater. There have been many books, articles, and

essays written about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and a fair number at least mention the

languages he created. Paolini, on the other hand, has not reached this level of fame so far, though

he may one day, as his books are infants in comparison to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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Works Cited

"Christopher Paolini." People, vol. 60, no. 10, 08 Sept. 2003, p. 92. EBSCOhost,

winthropuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&

db=a9h&AN=10706773.

"Dragon Tales." Current Events, vol. 111, no. 9, 05 Dec. 2011, p. 6. EBSCOhost,

winthropuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&

db=a9h&AN=69797355.

"The Life & Times of J.R.R. Tolkien." Christian History, vol. 22, no. 2, May 2003, p. 26.

EBSCOhost,

winthropuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&

db=a9h&AN=10001159.

“Complete Grammar of the Ancient Language.” Paolini, Paolini.net, 26 July 2017,

www.paolini.net/2015/01/09/complete-grammar-ancient-language/.

“Eragon (Name).” Edited by Mike Campbell, Behind the Name, 25 Apr. 2014,

www.behindthename.com/name/eragon/submitted.

Adams, Michael. From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages. Oxford University Press,

2011.

Brouwer, Sophie, et al. “An Introduction to the Ancient Language.” Paolini, Paolini.net,

www.paolini.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/An-introduction-to-the-Ancient-Language.pdf.

Buchman, Peter. Eragon (2 Discs). 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2007.

Gilson, Christopher. “Essence of Elvish: The Basic Vocabulary of Quenya.” Tolkien Studies, West

Virginia University Press, 14 June 2009, tranb300.ulb.ac.be/2014-

2015/groupe481/archive/files/0b5cfc664efc4bff4abe36084cac5e7d.pdf.
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Jackson, Peter. Lord of the Rings trilogy. New Line Cinema, 2001-03.

Kirk, Elizabeth D. “‘I Would Rather Have Written in Elvish’: Language, Fiction and ‘The Lord of the

Rings.’” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 5, no. 1, 1971, pp. 5–18. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/1345231.

Mandala, Susan. Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy: The Question of Style. London,

Continuum, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/winthrop/reader.action?docID=601854.

Paolini, Christopher. “Ancient Language - Invented Language of the Inheritance Cycle.” Paolini,

Paolini.net, www.paolini.net/fans/invented-languages-inheritance-cycle/ancient-language/.

Paolini, Christopher. The Inheritance Cycle. Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.

Peterson, David J. The Art of Language Invention: from Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words

behind World-Building. Penguin Books, 2015.

Smith, Sean. "Living a Real-Life Fantasy." Newsweek, vol. 142, no. 13, 29 Sept. 2003, p. 67.

EBSCOhost,

winthropuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&

db=a9h&AN=10874878.