David Salvo, a UW-Madison graduate student in linguistics, had the unique experience of providing consultation to Peter Jackson on his \Lord of the Rings"" films for all of J.R.R. Tolkien's amazing languages. The Daily Cardinal recently asked Salo to look back on his work with the pictures.
: First off how do you think the movies turned out? Did they meet your expectations?
: I was really happy with the movies and thrilled with the way the languages were realized on screen.
: What were your jobs specifically there? Was it to translate everything or specific parts?
: My job was to provide any and all information on Tolkien's languages. It included translation of dialogue and writing some of the words or lyrics that appear in the movies or extended version DVDs.
: So you were translating between English and Elvish both ways?
: I did provide translations of Tolkien's Elvish that was used originally. But most of what I did was translating either English dialogue or lyrics into one of Tolkien's many languages.
: Were those lyrics by Howard Shore or did you come up with those yourself?
: Most of the lyrics were written by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyins, those were the main script writers for the movie. I did translations into a number of Tolkien's languages, primarily Sindarin.
: What exactly are these languages based on? Are they based upon real Earth languages?
: Tolkien created a large number of languages. The two which are best know are the two elvish languages. Quenya and Sindarin and these languages were, as far as the actual substance of the words and the particularities of the grammar, were invented out of Tolkien's brain. Meaning they were not based on any one language that Tolkien knew. However, in style and in certain details of construction Tolkien based them on elements from a large number of different languages.
So Quenya, for instance, is supposed to sound something like Latin and some like Finnish. Sindarin is suppose to sound and resemble in structure Welsh. And others of his language like Khuzdul, which is the Dwarvish language, was intended to resemble Hebrew.
: Was Tolkien pretty linguistically accurate? Were you able to translate entirely on the appendixes of his works or did you have to come up with the grammar on your own?
: Tolkien provides a fairly large vocabulary for those main Elvish languages, something like 1,500 words for Sindarin, maybe 2,000 for Quenya. And by analyzing the text which he's provided you can get a good idea of the grammar.
But it isn't found all in one place. It's not like you can get all the information you need from the appendixes of ""The Return of the King"" book, rather you have to go through more than a dozen different works and collect over available information and compare it and get a good understanding of how Tolkien envisioned these languages, because each language has its own history.
: How long has it taken to work on these films specifically?
: I worked on the films for nearly five years. I started working even before shooting began. Shooting went on 16 months and then with each successive opening of the films is the additional work having to do with additional recordings.
: Did you work with the actors and actresses specifically one-on-one with the language? Did [Liv Tyler] actually learn the language?
: I did all of my work here in Madison and the actors were in New Zealand so I never got to meet them. And I didn't coach them directly, however, two very skilled language coaches, based on info I gave them about the pronunciation of the languages, were able to work with the actors and show them how their lines would be pronounced.
: Do you see yourself as a Tolkien fanatic? Do you have a Tolkien ritual you'll do every year?
: Goodness me, what a horrible idea. I enjoy the books a great deal, but when I'm doing works with the languages, they're like any other languages. I'm not a hardcore fan. I don't dress like a hobbit or anything.
: How did you get the job?
: I basically sent in a resume. I had worked for a now extinct gaming company called Iron Crown Enterprises, that produced the Middle Earth Role Playing game. I helped them in revising the nomenclature and other things that would help bring the linguistic vision of Tolkien to life.
: Rumor has it Peter Jackson is working on the prequel to the series, ""The Hobbit."" Are you in line to do the translation for that, too?
: I should say that this is no more than a rumor, and that Peter Jackson is hard at work on doing a remake of ""King Kong,"" and I have not been asked to do anything with ""The Hobbit.""
: Do you have a favorite phrase or saying in Elvish?
: A hopeful phrase from Quenya which I like is ""Aur?? entuluva"" and that's in Quenya and it's ""Days shall come again.""
-Interview conducted by Alex Balistreri
