British School Offers Elvish Lessons

Adair writes "A school in Birmingham, England is offering its students weekly after-hours lessons in Sindarin, a conversational form of Elvish invented by J.R.R. Tolkien and based on Welsh sounds." It won't be long now until the Klingon to Elvish translation books are produced.

if women like liv tyler go there

[phaetonic]

i'll be there as well.

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[beamin]

More likely a bunch of unwashed geeks in funny clothes...

fat, smell geeks?

[zephc]

gives new meaning to the unwashed masses

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[nehril]

we are fast approaching the day when we can dispense with the traditional engineering/comp sci stepping stones and skip straight to a degree in Modern Geek.

Next year: "Role Playing Dice Combinatorics" and "Galaxy-Class Starship Design and Trivia"

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[wideBlueSkies]

Ever wonder what Geeks did before computers were invented?

I think about the guys who were blacksmiths back then. In a way they were hackers. Turning lumps of metal into things like swords and wheels. Thinking about it, you realize that it wasn't just brute force that made those things happen, you had to be smart. And you had to keep at it until you got it right. Sounds like a geek to me.

And in your spare time, you could dring wine and tell tales of elves and dwarves travelling around having wild adventure

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[wideBlueSkies]

>>Next year: "Role Playing Dice Combinatorics" and "Galaxy-Class Starship Design and Trivia"

How about a series of expert taught classes in Light Saber design? :)

wbs.

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[Gramie2]

Does anyone else aside from me feel very disappointed in the casting of Liv Tyler? I had expected a more delicate, nuanced -- hell, elfin look to my elves, especially one who was such an exemplar. I mean, look at Orlando Bloom as Legolas.

Tyler makes me think "heavy," "slow" and, forgive me, "stupid."

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[Nimloth]

I don't see who could've been better, except maybe Natalie Portman...

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[Ganennon]

I wouldn't agree with "stupid", except I saw her hair in the Oscar-thingy. Sad.

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[turgid]

Tyler makes me think "heavy," "slow" and, forgive me, "stupid."

Quite. Just look at her father. I'm surprised she isn't more ugly. And another thing: isn't he just Mick Jagger with an American accent? Like Janet Jackson is just Michael dressed up as a girl?

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[slipgun]

Like Janet Jackson is just Michael dressed up as a girl?

Isn't Michael normally dressed up as a girl anyway?

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[MartinB]

Like Janet Jackson is just Michael dressed up as a girl?

Well have you ever seen them in the same room together?

Re:if women like liv tyler go there

[CTachyon]

Like Janet Jackson is just Michael dressed up as a girl?

Whoa there! Just whoa! Janet Jackson is actually Michael in disguise? That's just sick and wrong.

I mean, everyone knows it's *LaToya* who's actually Michael.

Fair enough.

[James A. H. Joyce]

I was going to say that the school should really be offering lessons in "real" languages which are more widely spoken like German and Chinese, but I suppose the kids would rather learn this than anything else. It's not interfering with their normal schooling either, so this can only be a good thing.

Any experience is valuable

[sarastro_us]

After learning your second language, each additional one you learn becomes easier. Yes, kids will be more interested in learning Sindarin because is fun, but they're still learning valuable cognative principles for future language study.

Tolkein's work is fabulious in terms of its depth. He was a great lanugage scholar and it shows in his attention to detail in the languages he created. I don't know if the same thing can be said for those who created Klingon...

Re:Any experience is valuable

[pavon]

What would be best is if we "taught" multiple languages to our kids as toddlers. This way they would pick up a language naturally, rather than spending years working hard to learn it latter, and never becomming quite fluent. Also like you said, being bilingual somehow conditions your brain to make it easier to learn more languages latter on.

Re:Any experience is valuable

[Ubergrendle]

Speaking from personal experience, in Ontario we're taught French from grade 2 all the way to Grade 12 (end of high school). I never developed more than a passing understanding of the grammar and vocabulary, just enough to get me past each grade.

Fast forward a few years, and I ended up spending 2 months in Quebec one summer. I picked up more in those two months than after 10+ years of school. Part of it was motivation, definitely, but I think that it is very difficult to learn a language in a formal setting, 30 minutes per day, 5 days a week. Especially when I'm busy trying to learn things like Calculus, Physics, Geography, History, etc etc.

Re:Any experience is valuable

[wideBlueSkies]

My daughter is learning Spanish from watching that Dora the Explorer cartoon.

From a social standpoint, I'm not sure if I like the idea(This is America, the language here is English). I think I'm getting over this old style thinking a bit, becasue from an educational standpoint, I see her learning 2 languages. It's cool hearing her ask for the same thing in English and Spanish.

wbs.

Re:Any experience is valuable

[aardvarkjoe]

The poorly learned English in Japan is due to the fact that they learn it in school, without conversing with native English speakers. The poor English of many spanish speakers is because, again, most of them never associate with english speakers or have to use English. (For instance, so-called "bilingual" education, in most places, amounts to giving all the instruction in Spanish.) When young children are exposed to multiple languages on a regular basis, they usually become fluent in both.

Re:Any experience is valuable

[belmolis]

The generally poor English conversation skills of Japanese people do not support the position that learning two languages at once works poorly. The fact is that English is poorly taught in Japan. Very few Japanese teachers of English actually speak English themselves. Furthermore, the curriculum and exams, especially the all-important University entrance exams, emphasize the ability to read English, not to speak it.

An example of a country with succesful, quality language-teaching is the Netherlands. A Dutch high-school graduate will generally be fluent in English and capable of getting by in French and German. In Dutch Universities, classes in the languages taught in high school are conducted in the language. That is, if you major in French at the university level, your classes, including classes in subjects like literature and linguistics, will be conducted in French.

There are also many societies in which children grow up fluent in two or more languages as a result of using different languages in different contexts, e.g. one at home and another at school. Millions of immigrants to the US, for example, have grown up speaking both fluent English, learned outside the home, and their heritage language: Italian, Yiddish, Chinese, Polish, etc. Swedish Finns, such as Linus Torvalds, grow up bilingual in Finnish and Swedish, and like other Finns, most acquire a good command of English by the end of high school.

Multilingualism is common in much of Africa. People often speak their local language, a regional African language, such as Swahili, and thelanguage of the former colonial power, which often serves as a national language, such as French or English. To take an admittedly somewhat extreme case, I have a friend from Eritrea who speaks Tigrinya, Tigre, Amharic, Beja, Nara, Sudanese Colloquial Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic. He's been in the US for a couple of years and his English is imperfect but quite servicable. In all probability, most people who have ever lived have probably spoken at least two languages. Monolingualism is pathological.

Re:Any experience is valuable

[Uber Banker]

Most Japanese don't speak fluent English and don't claim to. Some benefit from good instruction, some try self-learning on top of typically poor instruction, good on them.

Have you ever visited the Netherlands? The majority of the population speak reasonable English and German, as well as Dutch, and in many cases additional languages - French, Spanish, etc.

It is not hard to become fluent in another language - systematic and disciplined learning with a reasonable resource are all that are needed - this is

Klingon

[mraymer]

. I don't know if the same thing can be said for those who created Klingon...

From kli.org: [kli.org]

The Klingon language is something truly unique. While there have been other artificial languages, and other languages crafted for fictional beings, Klingon is one of the rare times when a trained linguist has been called upon to create a language for aliens. Add to this more than a quarter-century of the Star Trek phenomenon, a mythos that has permeated popular culture and spread around the globe. These factors begin to explain the popularity of the warrior's tongue. Klingon was invented by Marc Okrand, for use in some of the Star Trek movies. He invented not just a few words to make the Klingons sound alien, but a complete language, with its own vocabulary, grammar, and usage.

Re:Klingon

[SmackCrackandPot]

The Kronos Chronicle (ISSN 1526-7105) is a project of the Klingon Language Institute, intended for Klingon speakers. Here you can read interesting opinons and articles, but only if you can understand Klingon.

Source: http://www.kli.org/QQ/ [kli.org]

Re:Klingon

[E_elven]

Phnglui mgwa nafh, Cthulhu R'lyeh w'gahnagl fthagn!

Re:Any experience is valuable

[sarastro_us]

For starters, go here [www.uib.no].

Re:Any experience is valuable

[eldacan]

Where is this language documented?

Have a look at this page [elvish.org]. The first significant pieces of information concerning elvish languages (Quenya, Sindarin, etc.) were published in the Lord of the Rings, appendices E and F to the third volume in particular. Since then, many readers wrote letters to Tolkien, asking for more information, and he answered. Some info was thus published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Then you have the posthumous works (The Silmarillion with a linguistic index by Christopher Tolkien, based on his father's notes, The Unfinished Tales, the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, ...). Most significant is volume 5 from the History of Middle-earth: "The Lost Road and other Writings", which includes The Etymologies, ie. more than fifty pages of elvish roots, and the way they evolved in words in the various elvish tongues (all elvish tongues, and Quenya and Sindarin in particular, are related. All come ultimately from the "Common Elvish"). What's more, most of the names in Tolkien's world have a known meaning.

As for now: Christopher Tolkien (Tolkien's son) sent photocopies of most of his father's papers that are related to the languages of Middle-earth to a group of people who had been editing a fanzine (Vinyar Tengwar) on this topic for several years, with the authorization for them to publish all the material. Thus more and more information is being published concerning Tolkien's languages. "Small" works are published in Vinyar Tengwar, while more comprehensive ones are published in Parma Eldalamberon (most notable are issues 11, 12, 13 and 14. Issue 11 includes the so called "Gnomish Lexicon", Gnomish being an "early version" of Sindarin, and issue 12 the "Qenya Lexicon", Qenya being an "early version" of Quenya, though this is an over-simplification). There are thousands of pages waiting to be published, including detailed grammatical descriptions, etc.

Where is the dictionary, verbs conjugations, grammatical constructs, gender treatments etc etc?

The website Ardalambion given in another comment will give you this kind of information, though it represents the view of its author (Helge Fauskanger), which are sometimes subject to controverse. There is a comprehensive Sindarin dictionary compiled by Didier Willis, which you can download on his website Hisweloke [jrrvf.com] (DragonFlame 2.0 is the best way to get the latest version, but it's a Windows program. However, it uses QT and is licensed under the GPL so anyone is welcomed to port it to Unix).

To what degree can complex and subtle nuances be expressed in this one-man made up language?

Tolkien himself wondered how much poetry, etc. an invented language could really reach (see The Monsters and The Critics). But he was of course technically able to build quite complex sentences, with subtle nuances, etc. "one-man language", yet the work of more than half a century (he started devising these tongues in the second decade of the century, and refined them until his death in 1973). However, it's virtually impossible for anyone else to compose a "new" complex elvish sentence, ie a sentence about which one could say "this is true elvish". One reason for that is that Tolkien always changed his mind, his languages were not fixed in any way (though he felt "bound" by the published material). But even if all the published material was "consistent", there would still be huge lacunes in the available knowledge. This may change when more material is published in Vinyar Tengwar / Parma Eldalamberon... But note that most "experts" don't consider "movie-elvish" as genuine. Some even call this neo-Sindarin "mishmash"...

Re:Fair enough.

[bj8rn]

Well, it's not as if they'll ever have to use any other language but English anyway. Everybody speaks English, even all those evil Russians in James Bond movies speak almost perfect English (usually with a terrible Russian accent). And if all Chinese speak English, then you may just as well study Sindarin instead of Chinese.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Probably more useful

[pjt33]

I doubt you'd count Latin as a "real" language, but I learnt more English grammar in my Latin lessons than in my English, French and Spanish lessons put together.

Brum

[RobertTaylor]

With the dodgyness of the Birmingham brummie accent do they really need / want to be doing this?

I am Robert Taylor. I AM the President.

Re:Brum

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

With the dodgyness of the Birmingham brummie accent do they really need / want to be doing this?

Perhaps it's a practical joke, English humour can be quite obscure and hard to understand for non-British people.

Given that this new language involves Welsch in some form, I'd say there's a fair chance it's a joke actually...

Re:Brum

[randomblast]

The Beeb?
Make a joke?
Hah!

Re:Brum

[Tango42]

What "new language"? Sindarin is hardly new (by conlang standards, not natural ones, obviously). And I don't see why it's so hard to belive. It's an after school club, loads of teachers teach their pupils about their hobbies.

Re:Brum

[turgid]

That reminds me of a joke.

Noddy Holder goes to a tailors to buy a new suit. The tailor says, "Good day sir, what can we do for you?"

"I'd like a new suit please."

"Very good sir, we have something here that might be to your liking. How about these nice purple velvet flares?"

"Super, says Holder.

"And sir, how about a nice purple velvet jacket, with flares lapels to match?"

"Excellent."

"Now, here I have a nice frilly, lacey white shirt. What does sir think of that?"

"Just what I'm looking for."

"Kipper tie, sir?"

"Oh, thanks mate, milk and two sugars please."

Google?

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

Anyone know if Google supports Sindarin?

Re:Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, they've stopped working on new languages a while ago. There are many frustrated speakers of minority languages on the google translation boards, complaining about the fact that google refuses to add new languages, even though they'd get volunteer translators.

Re:Google?

[NotoriousQ]

They would have a techincal problem. I believe there is no current standard for elvish characters in unicode. But it seems that the inclusion has been considered for a while (in the Miscellaneous section) [wikipedia.org]

Oh my god

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Elvish invented by J.R.R. Tolkien and based on Welsh sounds

Does it mean it has no vowels?

The secret code 8)

[Alan Cox]

Welsh has lots of vowels. The secret is that 'w' and 'y' are vowel sounds in Welsh. Its actually fairly phonetic so learning to pronounce Welsh place names isn't too hard, even if "cwmtwrch" initially looks as terrifying as Polish.

Re:The secret code 8)

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

No worries Alan, I was just making fun of the Welsh because it was an occasion to do so, and if I didn't do it, somebody else would have :-)

I am in fact aware that Welsh has vowels, especially since I got a friend from Wales to read me the welsh version of that giant sign on the M4 (westbound) that used to say "welcome to Wales, please dump your rubbish in England".

Re:The secret code 8)

[mlush]

even if "cwmtwrch" initially looks as terrifying as Polish.

The nice thing about Polish is that not only can you read eye charts you can also pronounce them

Oddly enough...

[_defiant_]

When you write the language, the vowels do not (usually) have their own character. Based on the "mode" you are writing in, you mark the vowels on the character before or after the vowel sound.

Re:Oh my god

[E_elven]

Quenya (the formal, ancient Elvish) is based on Finnish. Sindarin is from the same root grammatically but it sounds more like Welsh. Even the elves couldn't grok Finnish like us natives so they just gave up :)

This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Entire class beaten to near death on first day as jocks create a fake class that teaches "elvish" in a secluded barn. Pictures at 11.

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Entire class beaten to near death on first day as jocks create a fake class that teaches "elvish" in a secluded barn. Pictures at 11.

The battle for middle earth continues...

Wow

[benguru]

Wow, shouldn't schools concentrate on teaching real languages, that could be useful in life?

Re:Wow

[YanceyAI]

You mean like Latin and Sanskrit?

Re:Wow

[locnar42]

Except that both of these have legitimate uses in the real world, although historical in nature. Several modern languages draw their roots from these languages. Elvish and Klingon are only of use if to read fictional pieces of work. As a special course it's fine, but I wouldn't want it on the regular course schedule.

What?

[Moderation abuser]

Nah. All the other countries should learn to speak english. We can always just speak louder and slower at them when they don't uderstand.

Re:Wow

[amembleton]

Yes, but learing a language that you're actually interested in might encourage these kids to learn 'real' languages. Also it'll provide them with the skills to learn the 'real' language.

I find learning easier if I actually enjoy the subject.

Re:Wow

[Xpilot]

Wow, shouldn't schools concentrate on teaching real languages, that could be useful in life?

Who says Sindarin isn't useful? It's great to be able to communicate in a language few people understand. Write down confidential information in Elvish, and then minimize the damage caused if it's accidently discovered by someone else (what are the chances that someone speaks Sindarin?)

Or if you're a programmer, write down all your comments in Sindarin. That way if they fire you they'll have a headache trying t

Re:Wow

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Or if you're a programmer, write down all your comments in Sindarin. That way if they fire you they'll have a headache trying to hire a replacement that also knows the language :)

# apt-get install xfont-sindarin
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package xfont-sindarin

Nuff said... :-)

Re:Wow

[E_elven]

>Or if you're a programmer, write down all your comments in Sindarin.

Too late. Found in actual source ca. 1997

// tehse var is teh x taht is usaed in teh
// computeations taht is maked in teh outher
// parts of tihs porgramm mainly. in teh
// scalear vectoreis its' very godd taht teh
// var is checkd to makeing sure its not a
// worng size
void do_draw(int, int, int, float)
...

.

Re:Wow

[gaj]

<humor type=troll>Not necessarily. Many CS programs teach LISP, after all!</humor>

Re:Wow

[Frogmanalien]

To everyone who is quickly dismissing this as pointless- if this is something that the kids *want* to learn, then let them learn it. By learning an additional language (any language) it opens the mind to learning further langauges easier (a well accepted concept in psychology that dual linguists can learn additional languages faster and easier) and opens up a new world- langauge - what language it may be - allows people to see the world through different eyes- whether it's through a different countries or t

Re:Wow

[Ateryx]

I agree, oh wait... I actually RTFA

"The reason I'm offering the lessons is to give the boys, some of whom have special educational needs, something to boost their self-esteem.

"They have responded very well and are eager to learn more. It's also very useful if they want to go on to university to study, as it involves looking at some of Tolkien's old manuscripts. This develops some very complex skills."

As many have said, skills learned w/ learning another language, whatever it may be can only help the s

Zainab Thorp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zainab Thorp, a special needs co-ordinator at Turves Green Boys' Technology College in Birmingham, is offering after-hours classes, where pupils struggle through vocabulary and verb tables.

Zainab Thorp? It that her elvish name?

Why?

[Fawad]

Why not learn a language that matters?
Ive taken it upon myself to learn Spanish, French, Arabic, Indian -- Russian is next on my list. I doubt Ill ever meet more than a few handful of nerds who speak Elvish.

Re:Why?

[mishac]

There's no such language as 'Indian'. There are 18 different "official" langauges in India. Hindi is the "national language", but is the first language of only something like 30-40% of the population.

Re:Why?

[Jarnis]

Which is why everyone outside rural areas in India knows English as second language... :)

Re:Why?

[rark]

because it's fun? because not all learning has to be (immediately) practically applicable? Because (as others have pointed out) learning about any grammar helps you understand the grammer of your native and secondary languages better?

Or, as we did in high school (yes, a friend of mine learned elvish and passed it on) because it makes a nifty secret language when two people wish to communicate without their classmates/teachers/parents knowing what they are saying. Add a basic substitution cipher and you pro

So in other words...

[ruronikenshin83]

So in other words, they're offerring bullies a central location for all their dork-pummelling needs?

Oh good!

[Atzanteol]

It's about time the Elvish language is recognized internationally! Too long have the elves been scorned by western nations.

Re:Oh good!

[pavon]

Bah, they sailed acrossed the ocean to their "new and better land" and good riddens I say.

So now....

[rasafras]

We'll have a legitimate excuse for not understanding what the brits say :)

Re:So now....

[starling]

The American education system?

Re:So now....

[IainMH]

If you can't understand the English speaking English, I rather think that's your problem. ;)

Geek Scale

[l810c]

We're all reading Slashdot and I imagine that we all rank pretty high on a Geek Scale of 1-10.

But these guys who learn Klingon(Add now Elvish) are out there, a solid 12 or more.

Re:Geek Scale

[fishbonez]

But these guys who learn Klingon (Add now Elvish) are out there, a solid 12 or more.

I think Gencon is probably the only place where there may actually be a need for Klingon-Elvish translators. It's a Klingon that speaks Elvish. It's an Elf that speaks Klingon. It's a hellish creature made in the darkest depths of geekdom. Run away!

Really?

[moronga]

From the article:

"The reason I'm offering the lessons is to give the boys, some of whom have special educational needs, something to boost their self-esteem."

How does getting beaten up everyday improve your self-esteem?

That quote is from the teacher, Zainab Thorp, btw. Which sounds more like a Harry Potter name to me. Maybe she should be teaching parseltongue?

Re: parseltongue?

[Migraineman]

It that the language the UPS-guy from MadTV speaks?

Re:Really?

[Tango42]

That, and I don't think JK Rowling is into conlangs, so we might be waiting a while for the dictionary...

Possible Advantages

[quantaq]

I don't know much about Latin, and I know even less about Elvish, but I've read before that learning Latin can enhance your general mental capabilities (owing to it being such a heavily structured language). I've also read that learning any language can enhance one's general intelligence. Elvish offers a way in to an exercise that otherwise kids may avoid. In other words, the actual language doesn't really matter for the above situation, but I do feel it would be more beneficial to learn a real language instead. Perhaps Elvish could lead students to eventually tackle another language?

What it comes down to ...

[ProfMoriarty]

is that you don't get the full effect of the "Lord of the Rings" without reading it in it's native Elvish.

Re:What it comes down to ...

[Epistax]

You're wrong. You need to read it in the original Klingon.

(/most nerdish comment, ever)

Re:What it comes down to ...

[Tango42]

LOTR in Klingon... Eru help us! Does anyone actually own the "original" Hamlet they published? (I must confess to owning the Klingon dictionary, and having downloaded a Quenya course...)

Re:What it comes down to ...

[Speare]

The book for "the Lord of the Rings" was titled the Red Book of Westmarch, and was mostly written in the Hobbits' tongue, a branch of "Westron," or the Common Tongue. Bilbo picked up a fair amount of Elvish. While Frodo learned a bit of Elvish, he was not what you would call fluent. Samwise, who edited the whole set of papers afterwards, didn't know very much Elvish at all; most of what he learned would have been after the whole ordeal, perhaps during his terms of office as Mayor.

Now, in actuality, there are photos of some of the original manuscripts for the Silmarillion and "lost tales," and J.R.R. Tolkien really did pen them in Feanorian characters, in the same sort of phonetic English that you see in the trilogy's mastheads. You can read along if you're careful. There are a fair number of ligatures, like S+T, not described in the LotR appendices, but which are pretty easy to figure out.

So...

[iminplaya]

(Foster Brooks voice)Elvish has left the building?

ugh

[laurent420]

i think i need another raktajino, what kind of p'tach would want to learn elvish?

Re:ugh

[Cyno01]

Raktajino is barely Klingon, its a bastardized pujmoH federation version of the drink, which is as much "klingon coffee" as a starbucks frappuchino is earth coffee. Now prune juice on the other hand, there's a warriors drink...

Klingon

[nnnneedles]

Lund University http://www.lu.se in Sweden had or has a course in Klingon..

I have a friend who attended and it sounded like a lot of fun, especially If you are already studying languages..

Elvish might not be as much fun but it is probably even cooler..

Re:Klingon

[amRadioHed]

Cooler? Than Klingon you say? Please tell me you're joking.

So what's elvish for

[ReadbackMonkey]

I've never kissed a girl?

Re:So what's elvish for

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no words for "I've never kissed a girl" in Elvish... it's the normal condition of all Elvish speakers, so there's no reason to discuss it.

disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Mrs Thorp, who studied ancient Egyptian at university, said: "Tolkien never left a word meaning 'to love'.

Well perhaps a long-lived race as the elves did not have the concept of love or understood love in a far more abstract fashion than humans, dwarves or orcs.

Also serious queers speak la lingvo geja [esperanto.net] not Sindarin.

That's nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Here at UT (as in Texas, not Tennessee), we've had a course on the linguistics of ALL the Middle-Earth languages since last year.

Maybe it will catch on like Esperanto

[intertwingled]

Maybe Sindarin will replace Esperanto.

Elvish ...

[Snork Asaurus]

has left the smial.

Thenkyou, thenkyouverymusshhh...

Klingon dates me?

[Tablizer]

Klingon is obsolete already? Wow, and I thot programming fads changed fast. So Elvish geeks are hipper than Klingon-speaking geeks? Not that geeks are known to be hip, but this just makes Elvish geeks slightly less dispised than Klingon geeks. It is like Musolini bragging that he is less hated than Hitler.

BTW, I think UPN should bring out a Klingon-centric series. The concept of obsessed warriors would be appealing to a wide audience because of the violence, bravery, grunting, worm-eating, etc. They could use ideas from Sparta and Samuri culture. Spartans had a lot of Klingon-like ideas and warrior poetry.

The setting could be the early days of the Klingon alliance. Two Earthlings could be assigned to a Klingon ship and deal with the culture clashes and the adjustments as Klingons have to learn to live within Federation policies. The Klingon captain is constantly challenged by other Klingons for following the "soft" federation guidelines, but he will be demoted by the federation if he goes traditional. Thus, he walks a tightrope between two cultures. He has to act like he dispises the earthlings, but they are sort of closet friends because they learn from each other.

One of the earthlings is talked into the Klingon assignment by the other, his buddy, who is gung-ho about the challenge. Thus, one of the earthlings has a harder time adjusting to the klingon ship and culture in a Hoshi-like way. The gung-ho earthling eventually has a Klingon girlfriend and always has scratches from making klingon love to her. Or, perhaps the reluctant earthling is the one who falls in love with the klingon babe.

Not gonna happen...

[Cyno01]

Enterprise is almost canceled, star trek as we know it is nearly dead and berman is never gonna do anything cool. It does sound like a cool idea, but i doubt it would ever happen, too out there for any network, a Section 31 based series would be much cooler and much more workable IMHO.

Elvish Kings

[Doc Ruby]

Languages like Quenya must be learned outside, among Nature. That's why the mobs go nuts when we hear the phrase "Elvish has left the building".

What's wrong with that?

[jeffasselin]

I've put some time myself in learning Sindarin and Quenya. Not to a conversational level, but enough to be able to say simple phrases and understand them. Enough to understand a lot of the dialog in the movies, and to translate most place-names in LotR and the Silmarillion as I (re-)read them.

I can also read and write Tengwar, the Elvish writing system (at a slow pace). There are a number of resources available on the web at the moment for all this.

http://www.ardalambion.com/

is one of the best, with links to other resources on the web.

http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/language.htm

is also a good resource.

What's more, every year more of the professor's material on those languages is published, and more knowledge of those tongues is acquired so that the information gets refined. Actual teaching of the language is great, as others said it increases interest in languages in general, which is good.

Before looking seriously at Elvish, I learned English, German, and Latin (my first tongue was French). I can usually figure out written material in Italian and Spanish. So my interest in Elvish was NOT alone but only part of a general interest in languages, and learning the basis of those made-up languages made me aware of certain concepts of language which are not always readily apparent in real-world languages, but yet are useful for a deeper understanding of them.

Instead of Elvish...

[omarin]

...why not teach the kids a MORE useful artificial language: Esperanto? Esperanto at least helps them NOW in their life if they want to make penpals/friends worldwide, read a diverse range of books, or if they want to then move onto Spanish/Italian/French/other languages (using their REAL-WORLD grammar skills gained via Esperanto as a tool to aid further language learning...)
OR, encourage the kids to then move from Elvish to Esperanto? I say this because in my opinion Elvish is a linguistic dead end for them, whereas Esperanto is a "gateway" to a whole community (Fer instance: Q: how many books, websites and magazines are regularly printed in Elvish? (a: very few, versus Esperanto's many, many....)

Re:Instead of Elvish...

[MurrayTodd]

When I was a kid I was really resentful of people trying to decide my curriculum based on what they thought was useful. I had the ability to dedicate a fantastic amount of concentration and study on whatever interested me, and "later usefulness" had no bearing on this.

If kids get excited about learning Elvish or Klingon, by all means we should embrace their excitement. That will lead to "ins" in their intellectual development we could never guess at.

Today's curriculum seems to be based so much on practicality and very little on imagination. No wonder Generation-Y seems to lack enthusiasm about the world. We're trying to mold them into "practical little cogs" by McDonalds-izing their world.

UT-Austin has this...

[rebelcool]

LIN 312 is a linguistics class on the languages of middle earth.

It's a real class for which you get real credit.

course description [utexas.edu]

Uh huh huh!

[lxs]

Thank you very kindly.

What? Oooh Elvish! Then I guess the school-trip to Graceland is out?

Tolkien and friends

[Frogg]

A guy I knew about 15 years ago told me that his grandfather was very good friends with JRR Tolkien.

Apparently Tolkien and some other friends used to come to his Granpa's for Sunday lunch and in the afternoon they would then sit, smoke pipes and speak to one another in a "strange language that wasn't spoken any more".

No more details than that I'm afraid.. interesting all the same.

Pragmatism

[screwballicus]

This is where Tolkien fans are at odds. You've got the Elvish speakers, who throw practicality to the wind by learning an invented language specific to a given mythos. And then you've got the Old English speakers, who pragmatists that they are, learn a more functional Tolkien-oriented language, with better practical applications to every day life. Why waste your life learning a made up language when you could learn one that's been dead for 1,000 years?

shouldve learnt it before the movie

[xot]

it would have been more fun if the kids had learn it before the movie, then they could understand all the censored (elvish) horny talk between Aragorn and Arwen.

Linguistics vs. Language

[Orinthe]

I've seen quite a few posts on this topic, so I thought something might need cleared up:

Linguistics != Language

All of these 'prior art'-esque posts about how their school or some other school has some course in sindarin or quenya or klingon or this or that fail to notice that teaching about the linguistics of a language has little to do with teaching the actual language.

Linguistics is basically about the structure of language. You can learn everything there is about the linguistics of a language without being taught how to speak it (in the sense that reading an RFC doesn't generally relate much to actually using whatever protocol or what-have-you that it's written on from a user-standpoint).