Buch lesen: «A Secret Vice»

INTRODUCTION
Myth-making and Language Invention

J.R.R. Tolkien spent a large portion of his life creating an extended and complex mythology set in a fully fledged secondary world. Many readers know this world and its legends primarily through The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–5), although Tolkien composed these works by drawing upon a vast backdrop of mythic narratives developed during a span of more than thirty years. An equally significant part of his life was devoted to the creation, development and refining of a series of invented languages, some fully formed, some partially sketched out, and others only mentioned. Many of these languages would become inextricably intertwined with his invented secondary world and its attendant races, cultures and mythology. From his earliest contribution to the code-like Nevbosh in 1907, to the last philologically focused work he wrote in 1972 on the name of the Elf Glorfindel shortly before his death, Tolkien never stopped working on the development of what he would characterize as his ‘nexus of languages’ (Letters, p. 143). That Tolkien saw language invention and myth-making as coeval and co-dependent creative acts is evident from several of his letters. For example, he stated that The Lord of the Rings was ‘fundamentally linguistic in inspiration’ and, for him at least, ‘largely an essay in “linguistic” aesthetic’ (Letters, pp. 219–20, emphasis in the original). Moreover, he wrote to his son, Christopher, that The Lord of the Rings was an attempt to ‘create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real’ (ibid., p. 264). Finally, in a draft of a letter from 1967, Tolkien summed up his language invention:

It must be emphasized that this process of invention was/is a private enterprise undertaken to give pleasure to myself by giving expression to my personal linguistic ‘aesthetic’ or taste and its fluctuations. (ibid., p. 380)

Tolkien’s linguistic invention was, therefore, a fundamental part of his artistic output, to the extent that later on in life he attributed the existence of his mythology to the desire to give his languages a ‘home’ and peoples to speak them (ibid., pp. 219, 264–5, 375). As other of Tolkien’s writings reveal, what is closer to the truth is that myth-making and linguistic invention began as separate strands of artistic expression in Tolkien’s youth, but very soon became indissolubly bound to, and inextricably dependent on, each other (see Letters, pp. 144, 345).

In the 1930s, Tolkien composed two essays in which he explored these two key elements of his sub-creative methodology: myth-making and language invention. In 1931, Tolkien delivered a paper for the Johnson Society, Pembroke College, Oxford, entitled ‘A Secret Vice’. He unveiled for the first time to a listening public the art which he had both himself encountered, and been involved with, since his earliest childhood: ‘the construction of imaginary languages in full or outline for amusement’ (see p. 11). He also proposed that: ‘the making of language and mythology are related functions’, in fact ‘coeval and congenital’ (see p. 24). Later that same decade, in March 1939, Tolkien was invited to present the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of Saint Andrews, and delivered a paper titled ‘On Fairy-stories’, in which – as Anderson and Flieger point out – ‘he declared his particular concept of what fantasy is and how it ought to work’ (TOFS, p. 9). Tolkien’s drafts for this lecture reiterate the centrality of myth and language in his legendarium: ‘Mythology is language and language is mythology. The mind, and the tongue, and the tale are coeval’ (ibid., p. 181).

This interdependence of invented languages and mythological narrative permeates the entire legendarium Tolkien would work on for over sixty years. The History of Middle-earth series (1983–96) has afforded readers unprecedented access to Tolkien’s creative process, from the first versions of the legendarium and related languages in the 1910s and 1920s, to his latest writings of the 1960s and 1970s, which include complex considerations of the interconnection of language and myth such as the masterful ‘The Shibboleth of Fëanor’ (Peoples, pp. 331–66). In addition, specialist publications such as Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar have made available Tolkien’s linguistic documents that were beyond the scope of The History of Middle-earth series (see also ‘Coda’). These linguistic works often reveal glimpses of stories that were never developed in full, thus once again confirming the ‘coeval and congenital’ nature of language and myth in Tolkien’s legendarium.

‘A Secret Vice’ is a defining, and rare, exploration by Tolkien of his own practice of language invention, the personal aesthetic it reflected, and its relation to his mythology, which had been evolving for over fifteen years by that time. The text of the lecture itself, and the attendant drafts and notes that this volume brings to light, focuses on some of the key elements that Tolkien thought were crucial in language invention.

Theorizing Language Invention

‘A Secret Vice’ opens with a preamble, a number of false starts or preludes, before Tolkien comes to his main topic. He begins with mention of a recent Esperanto Congress in Oxford (1930) and offers some evaluative comments on Esperanto as an International Auxiliary Language (IAL). Tolkien recalls a time during World War I while ensconced in a tent, overhearing a ‘little man’ who was composing a language sotto voce, ‘in secret’; but that man, Tolkien explains, remained unforthcoming about his task. Tolkien then references a ‘nursery’ language, Animalic (made up from names of animals, birds and fish), that he learnt as a child. He notes that in contrast to Esperanto, which was constructed as a utilitarian means of international communication, both of the other two examples cited associate language invention with pleasure. Following this somewhat prolonged introduction, Tolkien comes to his topic proper, hailing it a ‘New Game’ or ‘New Art’: ‘the construction of imaginary languages in full or outline for amusement’ (see p. 11).

Tolkien continues his lecture focusing on autobiographical examples, reflecting on his own progression from helping create crude childhood languages to the invention of more sophisticated and developed ones. He mentions Nevbosh (the ‘New Nonsense’), a language that he co-invented with his cousin, Marjorie Incledon, and which was influenced by English, French and Latin. Nevbosh moved away from the simple substitution of Animalic by phonetically distorting words from learnt languages, but it remained ostensibly a code and fairly transparent for speakers of its source languages. But there were exceptions: Tolkien offers the example of a word that was chosen not based on an English, French or Latin prototype, but because its sound seemed to ‘fit’ its meaning. This element, coupled with the fact that Nevbosh was shared by only two speakers and was not dominated by the need for communication, makes this childhood language an important step towards the imaginary languages of the older Tolkien.

The next example Tolkien mentions in this largely reflective essay is his first ever private language, created for his personal amusement only and not belonging to a community of speakers: Naffarin. In this language he was free to express his own taste for sounds and structure and chose Latin and Spanish as inspiration. Tolkien points out that the ‘refinement of the word-form’ (see p. 17) made this language a superior specimen compared to Nevbosh and he also talks about the gradual development of a personal ‘style’ and ‘mannerisms’ in language invention.

From Naffarin onwards Tolkien claims to have aspired to the highest standard of language creation: he attempted to fulfil the ‘instinct for “linguistic invention” – the fitting of notion to oral symbol, and pleasure in contemplating the new relation established’ (see pp. 15–16). At this point in his talk, Tolkien moves away from a reflective-autobiographical style and proceeds to theorize and evaluate the most important elements of his language invention:

a) the creation of word-forms that sound aesthetically pleasing;

b) a sense of ‘fitness’ between symbol (the word-form and its sound) and sense (its meaning);

c) the construction of an elaborate and ingenious grammar; and

d) the composition of a fictional historical background for an invented language, including a sense of its (hypothetical) change in time.

Alongside the detailed exploration of each of these elements, Tolkien includes comments on sound symbolism and whether there is such a thing as a personal ‘taste’ for language sounds; as well as on the interconnectedness of language and mythology. He also offers four poems as samples of those of his invented languages that he considers to have reached a worthy level of refinement and to express his personal ‘linguistic aesthetic’. Although he does not name them, Tolkien here gives three poems in Qenya, an earlier version of Quenya, and one in Noldorin, which was later reconceived as Sindarin.

Tolkien closes his talk with some thoughts on the merits of writing poetry in an invented language as an abstraction of the pleasures of poetic composition, and a comparison of this practice with the pleasure of reading poetry in an ancient language. Tolkien concludes by contemplating the power of language to send the imagination leaping.