Any Elvish translators out there? January 3 is JRR Tolkien's birthday. In a 1964 BBC interview, Tolkien talked about Welsh and Finnish being his models for constructing the elvish languages in his books.
D. Gueroult: Of the languages you know which were the greatest help to you in writing The Lord of the Rings?
J.R.R. Tolkien: Oh lor …yes… obviously the modern languages, I should have said Welsh has always attracted me. By it's style and sound more than any other, ever though I first only saw it on coal trucks, I always wanted to know what it was about.
D. Gueroult: It seems to me that certainly the music of Welsh comes through in the names you've chosen for mountains and for places in general. Do you acknowledge this?
J.R.R. Tolkien: Very much. But a much rarer but very potent influence on myself has been Finnish.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/1964_BBC_Interview
