Oxonmoot 2024

In this paper I will revisit, respond to and expand upon Professor Dimitra Fimi’s suggestion in her seminal work of Tolkien scholarship Tolkien Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits that in Tolkien’s earliest Elvish language invention, as found in such key works as the Qenya Lexicon, Tolkien might have considered Qenya to be a mystic language that included words that are overtly religious and specifically point to Christianity (as evidenced by such early Elvish words as anatarwesta ‘crucifixion’ and evandl ‘Christian Missionary’ as well as one of the few Qenya phrases we have which is about martyrdom).  I will explore the potential motivations and plans that Tolkien may have had for inclusion of these words and others in his earliest Elvish language invention and how this shows evidence that Tolkien for a time thought of his nascent Qenya language as a mystic language that the Elves would go out to teach Men song and holiness.