Reviews for The Tolkien and Middle-Earth handbook

The average rating for The Tolkien and Middle-Earth handbook based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-23 00:00:00 Robert Collins An excellent book for those interested in J.R.R. Tolkien's created languages. With The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth Ruth Noel gives you the foundation for Tolkien's famous elven language, which I always like to proudly point out is based in Finnish. Hey, us Finns don't always have a lot to shout about! The book also includes about a dozen other languages, such as various human tongues, the Black Speech of Mordor, high ancient tongues, common speech, etc. It takes all the words Tolkien gave us, translates them and offers some samples on how to elaborate on the fragments of the languages we have, such as verb conjugation. Included are various glossaries, essays on Tolkien the conlanger's technique, and a Tolkien dictionary. While not for the average reader, this book is indispensable for fantasy fiction language lovers.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-01-14 00:00:00 Scott Humphress While I do indeed and well realise that Ruth S. Noel's The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is obviously rather outdated now (as it was published in 1974 and then reprinted in 1980), I certainly and nevertheless have still been quite massively disappointed with and by especially the author's presented text, by her narrrative. For one and to and for me most importantly, there just are not nearly enough actual linguistic content and analysis presented in The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, period. And for two, while I do find the included Tolkien language dictionary interesting and informative, it in my opinion is rather problematic and frustrating that said dictionary actually is substantially longer and much more extensive than ANY of the presented information and details on J.R.R. Tolkien and his invented, composed languages of Middle-Earth (that Ruth S. Noel's writing on the languages of Tolkien's elves, hobbits, men etc. really does at best only and barely scratch the proverbial surface so to speak, leaving a general but still especially with regard to linguistics, language structure, grammar and the like majorly inadequate introduction that I for one have found both academically frustrating and in fact more than a bit annoying), not to mention that the featured dictionary of The Languages of Tolkien's Middle Earth is also not really all that user friendly in set-up, since instead presenting the different Middle Earth languages as single entities, Ruth S. Noel has them all scrunched together (in other words, a given English word or phrase will have ALL of the known equivalents of Tolkien's many Middle Earth languages listed after it, but not in a manner that is easy on the eyes, not having say the elvish equivalents in a separate line from the languages of the Rohirrim or the Hobbits). Two stars, and not really all that personally recommended, as there are now seemingly much more recent and from what I have heard also considerably superior analyses of Tolkien's Middle-Earth languages available both as books and online (and in particular since Ruth S. Noel has also not bothered with an included bibliography and that the main part of The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is in fact and indeed a dictionary that I for one have not found all that easy, simple and useful to consult).