Oxonmoot 2024

Tolkien spent his life inventing and elaborating his own languages, exploring the aesthetic potential for relating the sounds of words with their meanings.  He used these invented associations to build an imaginary world where they would be real.  Looking back at the words that he invented we can discover the associations of sound and meaning that inspired them.  In the imaginary historical connections that they evoke, we can see how Tolkien viewed the aesthetic associations of the real-world languages that inspired his own inventions.  Quenya is a rich source for exploring Tolkien’s view of the aesthetics of the languages he knew.