Animalic
Animalic was a private language invented by Mary Incledon and Marjorie Incledon, Tolkien's young cousins, in the beginning years of the 1900's It was probably the first introduction of artificial languages to Tolkien.
Tolkien, then about ten years old and already strong in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, found it amusing and learned it. The only surviving fragment of the Animalic is the phrase given by in his lecture A Secret Vice: Dog nightingale woodpecker forty, meaning "you are a donkey". Forty was the Animalic word for "donkey" while donkey was the word for "forty".[1]
It appears that the Animalic was a rather awkward language, Tolkien himself calls it "crude (in some ways) in the extreme" and characterized by "a complete absence of phonematic invention which at least in embryo is usually an element in all such constructions.[2] Later on, Tolkien developed another, more sophisticated language, Nevbosh, with Mary Incledon, Marjorie having lost her interest in such activities..[3] After that Tolkien began constructing languages of his own, the first of these being Naffarin.[4]
References
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, "A Secret Vice", p. 200; J. R. R. Tolkien, A Secret Vice (eds. Dimitra Fimi, Andrew Higgins), p. 8-9, 40 [note 18]; Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography II.3., "'Private lang.' - and Edith"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, "A Secret Vice", p. 200; J. R. R. Tolkien, A Secret Vice (eds. Dimitra Fimi, Andrew Higgins), p. 9.
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, "A Secret Vice", p. 202-3; J. R. R. Tolkien, A Secret Vice (eds. Dimitra Fimi, Andrew Higgins), p. 11-12; Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography II.3., "'Private lang.' - and Edith"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, "A Secret Vice", p. 208-9; J. R. R. Tolkien, A Secret Vice (eds. Dimitra Fimi, Andrew Higgins), p. 18-19; Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography II.3., "'Private lang.' - and Edith"
