
Tolkien's First Words - samclemens
https://www.newstatesman.com/jrr-tolkien-early-years-language-friendship-war-film-biopic-lord-rings
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KineticLensman
The article mixes up actual biographic details concerning Tolkien with a plot
summary of the new film about Tolkien that is about to be released. Some of
the film details were pure artistic license, which is perhaps why the Tolkien
estate has distanced itself from the film, as reported in the Guardian [0]
(which also lists some of the film's inaccuracies).

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/23/tolkien-
estate...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/23/tolkien-estate-
disavows-forthcoming-film-starring-nicholas-hoult)

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gatherhunterer
The article is discussing the movie. It refers to Tolkien seeing dragons on
the Western Front. When he clarifies the reality of Tolkien’s life he steps
aside from the general context of the article to do so. I think you misread.

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tigerlily
What wonders the world would've been filled with if we hadn't lost all those
skillful and doughty fellows in the wretched Somme. May they rest in peace.

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cafard
"by reciting screeds of his favourite author from memory in perfectly
enunciated Middle English".

Consistently enunciated perhaps: phonologists would be able to tell you how
Midlands English sounds, but there have usually been competing theories on
Middle English.

~~~
dmurray
Perhaps his enunciation was perfect in its clarity, even if his pronunciation
was debatable.

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krupan
This article describes a movie about Tolkein's life that is coming soon. In
case the title didn't give that way for you :-)

~~~
munk-a
It really didn't, I was disappointed by the repeated assertions that the
reader should have a lot of knowledge walking into this article. It was poorly
written, sadly.

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ericol
> Fans of The Lord of the Rings will know that much of its magic is linguistic

I read LotR in English, and tried to read it in Spanish (My mother tongue).

The colloquialism of the Spanish version was so off putting and disheartening
that I couldn't make it past the first chapters.

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ajuc
I've read LotR in Polish in translation of Maria Skibniewska (she mostly kept
the English names English, only adjusting weird ones to Polish structure where
needed - like adding "-a" to female names etc).

Then I read another Polish translation, which changed all English names to
Polish folk-names to translate the "familiarity" feeling in contrast to Elvish
names. It was awful. Baggins was Bagosz. Couldn't finish it.

Then I read it in English (still not speaking English that well), and it was
OK, but I had much more fun reading it in Polish. I noticed I couldn't skip
the nature descriptions as well in English as I can in Polish, so it was much
more boring :)

But I still think of these characters using the names from that first Polish
translation. I guess you get used to the first translation you read, and then
you only add secondary names to these characters, without changing the "true
name".

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youeseh
You mean, they weren't "gaagaa.. gu gu?"

~~~
labster
Surely it would have been _ammë_.

