Tolkien's Languages

[Forkbeard]

In The Hobbit forum, the issue of Tolkien's languages was broached, and one poster suggested that Tolkien was as expert in Hebrew as in his other documented languages, based largely on Tolkien's involvement, or supposed involvement, in the Jerusalem Bible. In an effort to set the record straight I offer the following post in response. Those who don't wish to read the nitty gritty make skip to the end and read the brief summary of evidence.

I personally first looked into this question some five years ago in an effort to write a paper on Tolkien and Hebrew for the Studies in Medievalism journal which sometimes covers the careers of medieval scholars and their use of and interpretations of the medieval past. I was interested in possibly finding some connections between some manuscripts from England 900-1200 with Hebrew letters and words and Tolkien. There were no such connections, but I did learn a good deal about Tolkien's career and the Jerusalme Bible.

But we're not taking my word on it. Not long ago the above mentioned poster started a discussion in another forum and justly famous Tolkien scholar Wayne G. Hammond chimed in, so I'll use his words for the most part to make my points.

MM wrote:

Yes. I can see how his work on The Jerusalem Bible would constitute "no evidence". His immediate response, when invited to work on the project, was to send in a partial translation of Isaiah. Rather ambitious for someone who didn't know much Hebrew.

He also translated Jonah and reviewed a translation of Job.

On this question Wayne Hammond wrote:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/12210
"Since writing the _Bibliography_ I've seen the letters written to Tolkien
by the General Editor of _The Jerusalem Bible_, Alexander Jones, preserved
in the Tolkien Papers at the Bodleian. Jones first wrote to Tolkien in
January 1957, asking him to contribute to the Bible project, on the
strength of _The Lord of the Rings_ with which Jones was very impressed. He
hoped that Tolkien would translate several books of the Old Testament, but
held out Jonah (only three pages in the finished printed Bible) if Tolkien
was pressed for time. Tolkien quickly sent a sample translation from
Isaiah, and then a draft translation of Jonah. After that he was indeed too
pressed for time to do much more. He did, however, discuss points of
translation with Jones, including what to do about archaisms (a potentially
very interesting subject, especially in relation to his comments on
archaisms in _The Lord of the Rings_; unfortunately, copies of Tolkien's
letters to Jones are not at the Bodleian), and Jones solicited Tolkien's
opinions on a first draft of most of the Book of Job. Tolkien passed a
final revision of Jonah only in 1961.

So, Tolkien did translate Jonah, which others revised (in the
_Bibliography_, p. 279, "revision of the latter [i.e. Jonah]" should read
"version of the latter"), and the evidence strongly indicates that this was
the only book that he translated in full. He certainly did not translate
Job -- one of the letters from Jones makes it clear that this was done by
someone else -- though he may have given his advice about it (Jones's
letters at the Bodleian end at the point at which he sent Job to Tolkien),
and this may have led to some confusion on this point at Longmans."

After those comments, a retraction was posted by MM to the newsgroups rec.arts.books.tolkien of a long standing claim, based on a common reading and misunderstanding of a statement in Hammond's _Bibliography_.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group...9d1e446e631 62

"Well, I have finally heard from Wayne Hammond, who was aware of this
discussion but was very busy. I will take the liberty of reposting
what he shared with me in another discussion forum. The remaining
portion of this message was written by Wayne Hammond. I accept his
conclusion that Tolkien "certainly did NOT" (emphasis is mine)
translate the Book of Job, as was reported in 1977 (and which I have
stated many times through the years). It should be noted that
Tolkien's comments on the Job translation were nonetheless solicited
before he left the project."

I sought to clarify with Wayne Hammond in the previously mentioned discussion just what he was saying about Tolkien's expertise in Hebrew in early 1957:

at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/12215

"Just for the sake of clarity, what we are talking about here is a translation
from French, not a translation from Hebrew that Tolkien did for the portion of
Isaiah and Jonah. That's the impression I devloped and have in my notes. I'll
be in the Bodleian later this summer and can check again. Same thing with the
draft...Jones was soliciting Tolkien's opinion on the English of the
translation, not its accuracy from the original language. Please do correct me
if your impression is different."

Wayne Hammond was good enough to respond:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/12216

"This is my interpretation also."

End Part I

[Forkbeard]

Begin Part II

So, Hammond agrees that the Jonah draft (and Isaiah made at the same time) were done by Tolkien from French, not from Hebrew or even from Greek. Hammond also wrote:

"I agree with Larry's argument about the level of Tolkien's knowledge of
Hebrew(ed. I argued in message http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/12209 that there is no evidence that Tolkien knew any Hebrew beyond a basic ability to use a lexicon), but can add that Tolkien wished to know more, and in April 1957 he
wrote to his grandson Michael George (an unpublished letter) that he was
immersing himself in the language so that, when he retired, he could
participate in a Bible translation project, i.e. _The Jerusalem Bible_. But
there is no evidence that he got very far with this study before other
matters became too pressing."

So, Tolkien's comments on Job had nothing to do with its accuracy of translation from Hebrew, but rather dealt with its "Englishness" if you will....a statement that matches Tolkien's comments in Letteer #294. That his work on Isaiah and Jonah could not be from Hebrew, since he wrote in April of 1957 AFTER he had submitted translations on Is. and Jon. to Jones....that he was immersing himself in learning the language in order to take part in the project. In the end, as Hammond and Tolkien both say, other things kept him from getting far. See more below.

As anyone familiar with the project knows, the scholars who worked on the English translation of The Jerusalem Bible translated the texts from the original Hebrew and Greek. Tolkien would not have used the Septuagint as his primary reference for these works. He might have checked his own translations against the Septuagint (a common enough practice).

Alexander Jones started by having people translate from FRENCH. Here are Jones' own words from the preface to the Jerusalem Bible:
"In the case of a few books the initial draft was made from the French and was then compared word for word with the Hebrew or Aramaic by the General Editor and amended where necessary to ensure complete conformity with the ancient text...."

This was the stage at which Tolkien was invited to be part of the project. He had to resign due to other considerations and as he himself says he only contributed Jonah in the end, and according to Jones and Carpenter and Hammond , that was revised and reedited. So what's Hammond saying? That Tolkien knew no Hebrew, that his portion of Isaiah and Jonah were translations into English from French, not Hebrew; that his advice and input on the book of Job was again with the English translation, not with the accuracy of the translation from Hebrew.

[B}PROMISED SUMMARY[/B]
So what does all this mean?
1) Tolkien was invited to take part in the JB because of the language in LOTR, not because he was well known as a Hebrew scholar
2) Tolkien knew no Hebrew before this point, writing to his grandson in April 1957 that he was beginning to learn the language
3) Tolkien was invited into the project in Jan. 1957 and Tolkien, before he knew the language of Hebrew by his own testimony, translated part of Isaiah and all of Jonah FROM FRENCH as the project was then doing according to A. Jones
4) In the end, according to Tolkien, Carpenter, Hammond, and others Tolkien's Jonah was compared by Jones and others to the Hebrew text, edited, and used.

So it seems to me that all the evidence suggests that Tolkien knew little Hebrew beyond the ability to use a lexicon; there is no evidence at all to claim that Tolkien "knew" Hebrew or was fluent, expert, comfortable with that language. If the claim is made, it needs to be proven.

Respectfully,

FB

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

In The Hobbit forum, the issue of Tolkien's languages was broached, and one poster suggested that Tolkien was as expert in Hebrew as in his other documented languages, based largely on Tolkien's involvement, or supposed involvement, in the Jerusalem Bible....

You have, over the past year, repeatedly demonstrated a keen ability to distort the facts and misrepresent the truth. What I wrote was: "Oh, he dabbled in a few more than that, and was very good at Hebrew, Indo-European, and a couple of others."

"Very good at Hebrew" means just that, nothing more, nothing less. And, no, my remark was NOT "based largely on Tolkien's involvement, or supposed involvement, in the Jerusalem Bible". I merely used it as an example of Tolkien's interest in Hebrew literature. I wrote:

"Yes. I can see how his work on The Jerusalem Bible would constitute 'no evidence'. His immediate response, when invited to work on the project, was to send in a partial translation of Isaiah. Rather ambitious for someone who didn't know much Hebrew."

Now, did Tolkien actually translate from the Hebrew texts? You and Wayne Hammond feel he didn't. My opinion has been influenced by numerous references to his work with the Hebrew, but perhaps they were all as mistaken as the numerous references to his translation of Job -- references which, until Wayne disclosed his latest research on the matter only a few months ago, were all based on a widely accepted bibliographical entry he had co-authored on the basis of a published account now almost 30 years old.

I'm not going to play your game, althogh I will point out how you have deliberately omitted some facts in your other citations:

Alexander Jones started by having people translate from FRENCH. Here are Jones' own words from the preface to the Jerusalem Bible:
"In the case of a few books the initial draft was made from the French and was then compared word for word with the Hebrew or Aramaic by the General Editor and amended where necessary to ensure complete conformity with the ancient text...."

Hammond wrote (and I quoted this fully when I reposted his reply):

Originally Posted by Wayne Hammond

Jones wrote in his foreword to _The Jerusalem Bible_: "In the case of a few books the initial draft was made from the French and was then compared word for word with the Hebrew or Aramaic by the General Editor and amended here necessary to ensure complete conformity with the ancient text. For the much greater part, the initial drafts were made from the Hebrew or Greek and simultaneously compared with the French when questions of variant reading or interpretation arose." That the work was never simply a translation from the French was made clear to Tolkien by Jones in an early letter: reference by the General Editor to Hebrew and Greek was always a given. Nor was Jones overly concerned to recruit translators who were fluent in French: obviously they had to have some facility with it, but he was concerned in the first instance with their command of English. Thus he wanted Tolkien on board, and others such as Roy Campbell (who died before completing his work). (Emphasis is mine)

In no way did Hammond indicate here that Jones was seeking out Tolkien as an expert in French. Should we infer from your partial citation that is what you intended people to believe? If so, then why did Jones reassure Tolkien that expertise in French was not necessary?

Nor was the Bible "simply a translation from the French", so any attempt to represent it as such is misleading. Was Jones the only person to refer to the original Hebrew and Greek? Those letters don't say, do they?

In any event, there is plenty of evidence for Tolkien's knowledge of Hebrew prior to early 1957, as he certainly knew enough of it to base portions of Quenya, Sindarin, Adunaic, and Khuzdul on it, as well as the Tengwar. Or, so many Tolkien linguists (including David Salo and Helge Fauskanger, to name two of the most well-known and widely respected people in the field) have said for years. Perhaps you can find deliberately misleading partial citations which will discredit them, as well.

Now, maybe he just referred to lexicons in your opinion. I have read the opinions of many linguists who have analyzed Tolkien's use of Hebrew which imply very strongly he did more than simply borrow words from lexicons.

Naturally, none of those papers and discussions anticipated any attempt to discredit Tolkien's knowledge of Hebrew, so I doubt any of them have explicit declarations which satisfy the usual "Where does it explicitly say..." kind of nonsense I am sure you'll drag up next (based on your past behavior).

[EDITED]

[Valandil]

By consensus of several moderators, this thread is reopened after a brief 'cooling-off' period. We see nothing wrong with the topic of the thread, per se.

This is how things appear to us:
1. That it may be hard to determine the language of the source material from which Tolkien translated some portions of Scripture for The Jerusalem Bible.
2. That the two of you, Forkbeard and Michael Martinez, have a history of falling on different sides of some matters like this one and have had disagreements before this.

Now, here is what you need to know:
1. Regardless of what you two think of one another, we at Entmoot admire and respect... and LIKE you both. We do indeed think that this forum is big enough for both of you. We urge you to post together amicably - and if you cannot do so, we ask you to not respond directly to one another's posts. We do not wish either of you to leave, for we think that we all benefit by the presence of you both. We hope that you will learn to disagree agreeably, whenever you must disagree.
2. We will be watching this thread closely - as well as other threads in which the two of you interact. We insist that you treat one another professionally and with respect.

If you still have problems with this - or with one another, let's take it to PMs or emails.