David Salo is an American Linguistics who worked on the languages of J. R. R. Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, expanding the languages (particularly Sindarin) by building on vocabulary already known from published works, and defining some languages that previously had a very small published vocabulary.
Salo on Tolkien's languages
Enthusiast
Salo's interest in Tolkien's languages arose when he read Tolkien's works as a boy. As an
undergraduate at Macalester College,
Minnesota he studied
Latin,
Greek language, and linguistics, and used the knowledge gained to improve his understanding of Tolkien's languages.
In 1998 he was among the founders of the Elfling mailing list for
Tolkien fandom language enthusiasts.
He graduated in linguistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. 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. This book was reviewed in 2006 in volume 3 of the journal
Tolkien Studies,
and it was further reviewed in the context of Tolkienian linguistics as a whole in volume 4 of
Tolkien Studies (2007).
Consultant
In 2003, when still a graduate student in
linguistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Salo was contracted for The
Lord of the Rings film trilogy to write all the material in Elvish (particularly
Sindarin),
Khuzdul (Dwarvish) and other languages for the films, as well as to assist with other language-related items such as the
Tengwar and
Cirth inscriptions which appear in the films. Salo also translated the lyrics for the films' soundtracks: many of these are sung in Sindarin in
Howard Shore's long and innovative music score for the film series.
Subsequently, Salo provided similar services as the Tolkien language consultant for
The Hobbit film trilogy.
He provided assistance with Khuzdul for the 2023 video game .
Works
Bibliography
-
2004: A Gateway to Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish language from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings ()
Consultant
-
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001-2003)
-
The Hobbit film trilogy (2012-2014)
-
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria (2023)
External links
