Language scholar helps decipher Tolkien

[Kerim Friedman]

FYI - kerim

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Language scholar helps decipher Tolkien

By JENNY PRICE
Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (December 28, 2001 08:17 p.m. EST) - David
Salo is an expert in languages that exist solely in the imaginary
world of hobbits and elves.

He has immersed himself in Quenya and Sindarin, languages
created by author J.R.R. Tolkien for the inhabitants of Middle-earth
and featured in his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

So when filmmakers adapting the fantasy epic wanted to translate
parts of their script from English into the two Elvish languages,
they turned to Salo, a graduate student in linguistics at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"I know it a lot better than most of the foreign languages
I've studied," the 32-year-old said.

Salo, who is studying Tocharian, an Indo-European language
spoken in medieval China, said his interest in Tolkien's
languages started at age 6 or 7, when he began reading "The
Lord of the Rings."

The story follows hobbit Frodo Baggins on a harrowing journey,
under the guidance of the wizard Gandalf, to destroy the
all-powerful ring that the dark lord Sauron covets.

"All these neat names and words and you want to know, what
do they mean?" Salo said. "Some of them Tolkien explains,
and some of them he doesn't say anything about."

In the seven years between his undergraduate studies at Macalester
College in St. Paul, Minn., where he studied Latin and Greek,
and graduate school in Madison, Salo learned everything he
could about Tolkien's Elvish languages.

Three years ago, when he heard about plans to turn "The Lord
of the Rings" into a movie, he wrote director Peter Jackson
and the film's producers. His letter made two points: It
was important to get Tolkien's Elvish languages right, and
Salo could help.

A few months later, the producers called.

"I was shocked," he said.

Before the film began shooting in New Zealand, Salo worked
with set and costume designers, writing short verses that
could be inscribed on swords and other props.

Tolkien created many languages, but the two most important
were Quenya and Sindarin, which Salo said are related to
each other in much the same way English and German are.

Quenya mostly resembles an ancient form of Greek, while Sindarin
is modeled on Welsh, Salo said. But Tolkien took "bits and
pieces from all over," including Latin, Finnish and Hebrew.

Some sample words: In Sindarin, the word for hobbit is periain
(pronounced peri'-ain), ang is iron, duath means darkness;
hir means lord. In Quenya, parma means book, anga is iron,
heru is lord, lumbule is darkness.

Translating the dialogue took some educated guesses on Salo's
part, since Tolkien never published a guide.

"He gives little hints here and there. So you look at that,
you look at the patterns and you extrapolate," Salo said.
"You can sort of work out a good deal of the grammar and
predict some things that most people would think you couldn't
predict."

Once hired, Salo sent a tape of himself speaking the Elvish
languages to Andrew Jack and Roisin Carty, the film's dialect
and language coaches, so they could teach the actors, including
Cate Blanchett, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler and Elijah Wood.

The filmmakers relied on Salo throughout the 15-month shoot,
which included making parts two and three, due in theaters
in 2002 and 2003.

"They would suddenly call me up at midnight ... and say,
'We need you to write us a line of dialogue for the shooting
tomorrow,'" Salo said.

He said it wouldn't take him long to comply. "When you've
been working with this for awhile, it becomes like a second
language."
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