David Salo giving a talk in Bloomington, Illinois, April 30th, 2005

David Salo (born 1969) is a linguist who worked on the languages of J. R. R. Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, expanding the Elvish languages (particularly Sindarin) by building on vocabulary already known from published works, and defining some languages that previously had a very small published vocabularly. He is a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.^{[citation needed]} Salo may refer to: Salo, a town in Lombardia, Italy; Salo, Gabon, a town in Ogooué-Ivindo, Gabon; Salo, Finland, a town in the province of Western Finland; Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma a 1976 Italian film by Pier Paolo Pasolini; Other meanings Saló is a family name... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1185x1818, 1028 KB) David Salo gives a talk at the Bloomington Public Library, Bloomington IL, 4-30-05. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1185x1818, 1028 KB) David Salo gives a talk at the Bloomington Public Library, Bloomington IL, 4-30-05. ... United States Illinois McLean 22. ... Also: 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English philologist, writer and university professor, best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. ... The Lord of the Rings film trilogy comprises three live action fantasy epic films; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). ... Sindarin is an artificial language (or conlang) developed by J. R. R. Tolkien. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... The University of Wisconsin–Madison (also known as UW–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, or UW) is a highly selective public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin. ...

His primary professional interest is Tocharian, an extinct Indo-European language spoken in medieval China.^{[citation needed]} Tocharian is one of the most obscure branches of the group of Indo-European languages. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people, including most of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ...

Salo on Tolkien's languages

David Salo's interest in Tolkien's languages arose when he read Tolkien's work as a boy, but press interviews date his extensive knowledge of the languages to the years after the completion of his undergraduate degree. In 1998 he founded the Elfling mailing list for Tolkienist language enthusiasts. In 2004 he published a linguistic analysis of Sindarin: A Gateway to Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish language from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (ISBN 0-87480-800-6). A bachelors degree is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course that generally lasts three or four years. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Elfling is a mailing list dedicated to the languages of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien. ... A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. ... Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Salo was contracted for The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy to write all the material in Elven, Dwarven, and other languages for the movies, as well as assist with other language-related items such as the Tengwar and Cirth inscriptions which appear in the movies. Salo also wrote Elvish lyrics for the movie soundtracks. The Lord of the Rings film trilogy comprises three live action fantasy epic films; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). ... Elvish languages are constructed languages used typically by elves in a fantasy setting. ... Khuzdul is the fictional language of the Dwarves in J. R. R. Tolkiens Middle-earth, written with Cirth script. ... First article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in English) The Tengwar are an artificial script which was invented by J. R. R. Tolkien. ...   This chart showing the runes shared by the Angerthas Daeron and Angerthas Moria is presented in Appendix E of The Return of the King. ...

For the movies Salo created many missing Sindarin and Quenya words, based on his studies of attested versions of these languages in Tolkien's writings, grammatically and semantically fitting them with the known material. Since other languages used in the movies, such as Khuzdul and the Black Speech, were never really developed by Tolkien, Salo created entirely new vocabularies for these, more or less following the patterns found in the few attested examples of these languages. Because of Salo's work in inventing the forms used in the movies virtually from scratch (especially in the case of Dwarven and Black Speech), his versions of the languages are often called neo-Khuzdul, neo-Sindarin, or neo-Black speech, to set them apart from Tolkien's original languages. Quenya is one of the languages spoken by the Elves (the Quendi) the ones who speak. The first-found-children-of-Iluvatar, in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien. ... Khuzdul is the fictional language of the Dwarves in J. R. R. Tolkiens Middle-earth, written with Cirth script. ... The Black Speech is the fictional language of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. ...

In a post on the Elfling list, Salo offered his own take on the use of Tolkien's languages in the movies:

Why is there Elvish in the movie? Why did Peter Jackson care enough to strive for some accuracy in the way language is presented? (…) The Elvish in the movie is addressed to the minority of viewers who know something about the languages. And what are they going to want to do when they hear the Elvish sentences? They're going to want to figure out what they mean, and why they mean what they mean. Part of my intention, my particular vision and contribution to this movie, was to create sentences which would be intelligible to the people who study the languages (…) I'm enormously happy to see some people saying based on their knowledge of Elvish, great or small, that they recognized and understood some of what they heard on the screen. That's great - that's exactly the kind of effect that I was looking for.

Peter Jackson CNZM (born October 31, 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker best known as the director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which he, along with Fran Walsh, his long time partner, and Philippa Boyens, adapted from the novels by J. R. R. Tolkien. ...

Assessments and criticisms of Salo's work

The estimation of Salo's work on Tolkien's languages has been mixed within the Tolkien language community. His early essay "Development of Galadriel's Lament," in the journal Tyalië Tyelelliéva (No.12, 4 April 1998), is considered by some to be one of the finest linguistic analyses of the Quenya poem. Salo's Qenya Botany (from Tolkien's early "Qenya" language) is also of some note. However, while his work as a linguist for the Jackson movies has garnered him respect among many involved in the study of Tolkien's languages, others are not so satisfied with Salo's scholarship. In particular, Carl F. Hostetter, editor of the journal Vinyar Tengwar, has been a consistent critic of Salo's work on Sindarin, the language which figures most prominently in the movie versions of Tolkien's books. Peter Jackson CNZM (born October 31, 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker best known as the director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which he, along with Fran Walsh, his long time partner, and Philippa Boyens, adapted from the novels by J. R. R. Tolkien. ... Carl F. Hostetter (born 1965) is a computer scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, and the key figure of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship. ... Vinyar Tengwar is a linguistic journal published by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, dedicated to the scholarly study of the invented languages of J. R. R. Tolkien. ...

References

External links

• David Salo's Blog
• Price, Jenny (2 Jan 2002). Scholar of Tolkien languages helped 'Rings' movie makers stay authentic to source, Detroit News.
• Smith, Susan Lampert (18 Jan. 2003). UW grad student provides translations for Lord of the Rings movies, Wisconsin State Journal.
• David Salo's Elfling site (inactive)
• Interview with David Salo

Reviews of the book Gateway to Sindarin

• Customer Reviews at Amazon.com
• Review by Carl F. Hostetter
• Review by Patrick H. Wynne
• Review by Bertrand Bellet
• Review by Thorsten Renk