I ordered this book and bought it from barnes and noble a long time ago. I remember enjoying it and that I did learn a lot more about the languages of Middle-Earth. I thought of it again the other day and tried to find it but could not. I would like to read it again.

Another addition to my Tolkien nerd’s collection! Not as good as, I thought it would be. It was a bit too short, the basis is good but I was hoping for something more intense, bigger dictionary, better explanation on the grammatical elements and other stuff like that. For a very specific audience and even then, could have been better.

Very useful from a linguistic perspective. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who's just looking for an Elvish dictionary as this book is a little more technical.

This book would probably appeal more to language enthusiasts. It concentrates mostly on the Elvish languages, with passing references to the languages of men and the hobbits; there is also a very brief chapter on Tolkien's creation of these languages.

Thorough, accessible, and fascinating!

You can get most of the information on this book from the Appendices in The Return of the King and The Silmarillion (can I just add how delighted I am by the fact that George R.R. Martin is referring to his work on the the Targaryen family history as the GRRMarillion? Brilliant). However, if you want a pocket-sized overview of the languages of Middle Earth, including a brief dictionary - because who does not want a pocket-sized collection of some of Tolkien's linguistic efforts? - this will do.

This only has a little of the data that's not in the appendix of Silmarillion.

Black speech

This book enabled me, at 9, to start envisioning, designing, imagining other languages, other ways of communicating, to go with my imaginary worlds.
I learned to write in elvish and a couple of runic languages Tolkien devised, then shared this with a friend, allowing us to completely bypass the limitations of school and authority. With language. Holy shit, it opened a door I'd never thought to see.
I named my first horse after this book; it had that large an effect on my conciousness.

Read this in Uni while studying English Syntax, mostly to help me goof around with my own made up languages for fiction.

Didn't think to add this on goodreads until someone advertised it.

While I do indeed and well realise that Ruth S. Noel's The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is obviously rather outdated now (as it was published in 1974 and then reprinted in 1980), I certainly and nevertheless have still been quite massively disappointed with and by especially the author's presented text, by her narrrative. For one and to and for me most importantly, there just are not nearly enough actual linguistic content and analysis presented in The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, period. And for two, while I do find the included Tolkien language dictionary interesting and informative, it in my opinion is rather problematic and frustrating that said dictionary actually is substantially longer and much more extensive than ANY of the presented information and details on J.R.R. Tolkien and his invented, composed languages of Middle-Earth (that Ruth S. Noel's writing on the languages of Tolkien's elves, hobbits, men etc. really does at best only and barely scratch the proverbial surface so to speak, leaving a general but still especially with regard to linguistics, language structure, grammar and the like majorly inadequate introduction that I for one have found both academically frustrating and in fact more than a bit annoying), not to mention that the featured dictionary of The Languages of Tolkien's Middle Earth is also not really all that user friendly in set-up, since instead presenting the different Middle Earth languages as single entities, Ruth S. Noel has them all scrunched together (in other words, a given English word or phrase will have ALL of the known equivalents of Tolkien's many Middle Earth languages listed after it, but not in a manner that is easy on the eyes, not having say the elvish equivalents in a separate line from the languages of the Rohirrim or the Hobbits). Two stars, and not really all that personally recommended, as there are now seemingly much more recent and from what I have heard also considerably superior analyses of Tolkien's Middle-Earth languages available both as books and online (and in particular since Ruth S. Noel has also not bothered with an included bibliography and that the main part of The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is in fact and indeed a dictionary that I for one have not found all that easy, simple and useful to consult).

This is a really interesting view into the things that Tolkien put into his languages, and is also fun if you like to do encrypting.