Andrew Higgins - A Secret Vice - Tolkien on Invented Languages

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Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

All texts and materials by J.R.R. Tolkien © The Tolkien Estate and The Tolkien Trust 1983, 2016

Foreword, Introduction, Notes and Coda © Dimitra Fimi & Andrew Higgins 2016

and ‘Tolkien’® are registered trade marks of The Tolkien Estate Limited

The Proprietor on behalf of the Author and the Editors hereby assert their respective moral rights to be identified as the author of the work.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008131395

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008131401

Version: 2016-03-21

Contents

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT Copyright COPYRIGHT FOREWORD INTRODUCTION Part I ‘A Secret Vice’ Notes Part II ‘Essay on Phonetic Symbolism’ Notes Part III The Manuscripts Notes Coda: The Reception and Legacy of Tolkien’s Invented Languages Footnotes Appendices CHRONOLOGY ABBREVIATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY About the Authors Works by J.R.R. Tolkien About the Publisher Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.tolkien.co.uk www.tolkienestate.com Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016 All texts and materials by J.R.R. Tolkien © The Tolkien Estate and The Tolkien Trust 1983, 2016 Foreword, Introduction, Notes and Coda © Dimitra Fimi & Andrew Higgins 2016 and ‘Tolkien’® are registered trade marks of The Tolkien Estate Limited The Proprietor on behalf of the Author and the Editors hereby assert their respective moral rights to be identified as the author of the work. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008131395 Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008131401 Version: 2016-03-21

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

Part I

‘A Secret Vice’

Notes

Part II

‘Essay on Phonetic Symbolism’

Notes

Part III

The Manuscripts

Notes

Coda: The Reception and Legacy of Tolkien’s Invented Languages

Footnotes

Appendices

CHRONOLOGY

ABBREVIATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

About the Authors

Works by J.R.R. Tolkien

About the Publisher

‘A Secret Vice’ is widely considered to be the principal exposition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s art of inventing languages. In this essay, Tolkien charts his first ventures in language creation during childhood and adolescence through to the development of his first ‘artistic’ imaginary languages, which later became the heart of his mythology. It includes samples of these languages in the form of poetry and outlines Tolkien’s theories on the aims and purposes of composing imaginary languages within a fictional setting. The essay also outlines and interrogates important views and theories about the nature of language itself, and delineates Tolkien’s own bold ideas on language as art, as well as language change and language preferences.

This volume makes available for the first time all the drafts of, and attendant notes for, ‘A Secret Vice’ currently deposited in the Bodleian Library as part of their holdings labelled MS Tolkien 24. In Part I of this ‘extended edition’ we present Tolkien’s lecture, ‘A Secret Vice’, delivered in 1931, including new sections not printed before. Part II contains a brief essay by J.R.R. Tolkien on Phonetic Symbolism, which appears here for the first time. Part III presents Tolkien’s hitherto unpublished notes and drafts associated with both essays. The present edition, therefore, contains significant new material by J.R.R. Tolkien and shows that the previously published text of ‘A Secret Vice’ that is printed in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays was the product of an extended series of notes and drafts, including an entire related essay. Published together, the papers provide an expanded view of Tolkien’s thoughts and ideas on language invention and related linguistic notions, especially as they pertain to the relationship between language and art. This additional material also places the essay firmly within the intellectual context of the 1920s and 1930s: the tail-end of the fin de siècle vogue for international auxiliary languages (languages constructed to aid international communication, such as Esperanto); the empirical research and theoretical work of linguists such as Edward Sapir and Otto Jespersen on sound symbolism; and the Modernist experimentation with language. Tolkien’s ‘secret vice’ of devising imaginary languages (languages invented for works of fiction) enriched the long tradition of fictional languages and fantasy literature, while simultaneously offering a considered and studied response to intellectual trends of the time. This extended edition situates ‘A Secret Vice’ within its immediate and larger historical, cultural and intellectual context, and provides extensive notes on both essays and the rest of the new material that is presented here for the first time.

For this expanded edition of ‘A Secret Vice’ we have tried to be faithful to the text while making it as readable as possible, with minimal editorial intrusion. We have adhered to the conventions below:

Tolkien was not consistent in using single or double quotation marks, and this text reflects his inconsistency

Words or phrases which defy decipherment are marked as {illeg}

Words written above other words where neither is cancelled are divided by a slash: /

Where Tolkien used abbreviations (e.g., ‘Gmc’, ‘&c.’, ‘OE’) we have spelled out the words in full (‘Germanic’, ‘etc.’, ‘Old English’)