Do you speak Elvish? How about Klingon? Learn about the history of constructed language in literature in this video from It’s Lit! Tolkien is widely regarded as the most influential author of the fantasy genre… period. But one of the less-discussed aspects of his work is the way Tolkien used constructed language in his writing. Nowadays authors are constantly making up words and languages for the worlds they build, but Tolkien was unique in that he constructed languages first, and then created worlds so his fictional languages would have somewhere to live. Support materials include discussion questions, a “construct your own language” activity, and resources on how to learn Elvish.

Students will examine sentence structure and context to create a language. Students will also examine how Tolkien's cultural perspective influenced the languages he created.