This book expanded my knowledge of Tolkien's languages and I'll certainly refer to it frequently in the future. However, it wasn't very well organized and it seemed like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be quick intro for your casual fan or a more in depth analysis for linguistic nerds like myself.

A relatively good book for those who want to learn a little bit about Tolkien's constructed languages. It is now outdated, however, as more information (directly from Tolkien) about the Elvish languages in particular has been published since this book. As such, some of the explanations of grammar and of the writing systems are wrong. Good book for those who want a brief glimpse at what the languages are like, but no good for serious learners of the languages/writing systems - for that I highly recommend Helge Fauskanger's Quenya course or David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin: A Grammar of an Elvish Language from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

This is a dated work in many ways (published well before Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon made most of Tolkien's linguistic notes widely available), but I still found it interesting and worthwhile. However, even with my untrained eye, I was able to spot several mistakes!

Super insightful and useful side tool for any Tolkien fan. It still blows my mind that he created 14 languages. The man, the myth, the legend.

The Languages of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth makes a wonderful companion book for the Tolkien collection and an excellent book for any hardcore Tolkien/Middle-Earth fan. It details information about all the languages Tolkien invented for the complex realm of Middle-Earth. I highly recommend this for fellow readers and fans that are very passionate about the creations of the genius that was J.R.R. Tolkien.

[OFFICIAL RATING: 5 STARS]n  
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I'm no Tolkien scholar, but reading the appendices to the Return of the King kick-started my interest in language creation and linguistics. Now I have a Master's degree in that (linguistics, not language creation). So I owe a lot to Tolkien and his languages and had already done a lot of reading on the topic before I stumbled across this book completely by accident.

This is a quick read; I finished it in just one night. The latter half is a dictionary of the various words found in Tolkien's Middle-Earth works (LOTR, Silmarillion, etc.), which unless you're looking for a specific word, is good for skimming. The bulk of the book's actual content comes in the first half. While it's billed as a guide to Tolkien's fourteen Middle-Earth languages, most of it is focused on the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin, which is fair, because those are definitely the most developed of the languages JRRT developed. Those chapters make for good primers on the languages and give you a sense of Tolkien's inspirations for their sounds (Finnish for Quenya, Welsh for Sindarin), and of some of the grammar and verbal systems. You won't learn how to speak either from this book, but that's not the point.

There are also brief sections on other languages of Middle-Earth, such as the languages of Men and Hobbits (Adunaic, Westron, etc.) and the Black Speech and the Dwarvish languages. For the languages of Men, the book focuses more on Tolkien's invented "translation convention," and how he reflected the relationships between the thinly-sketched underlying Middle-Earth languages using his expertise in real-world Germanic languages. I do know that Tolkien did outlined pieces of these languages themselves (though not to the depth of Elvish) and I would have liked to see more of that.

My biggest complaint about this book is that it didn't tell me anything I wasn't already familiar with. The parts that were new to me were all too brief. There's some interesting stuff at the beginning about Tolkien himself and his own background in and attitude toward linguistics, which as a linguist and a fantasy buff I would have liked a lot more of. Same with the non-Elvish languages, even if the book had delved into realms of hypothesizing and conjecture.

Bottom line: no, I didn't learn much that was new, but it's nice to have all the Tolkien language facts found in various places in a single little collection. I'd recommend it for people interested in some of the background of Tolkien's impressive world-building. As the book states, culture grows out of language, and this book handily demonstrates how Tolkien used language as the foundation and anchor for his invented world. If you're already familiar with his languages, you won't learn much new, but it makes a handy reference.

This book is heavy on citing existing material presented in the Tolkien fiction. I was hoping for something more linguistically rigorous and able to fill in gaps where Tolkien himself didn't explicitly explain things. But that's where this book falls short. It ends up being short, dry, and mostly a dictionary that muddles together fourteen languages all at once...

An nice little book. If you don't know much about Tolkien's languages, it will explain a tantalizing amount. The dictionary is really nice if you're into the languages, and just kind of an amusing curiosity otherwise.

A look into J. R. R. Tolkien’s world through a linguistic lens. Super cool but short read (page 105 and beyond is an entire dictionary of every Tolkien language into English). A great thing to check out or keep as reference- will try to snag a copy for future D&D character creation.

This amazing book dedicated to languages of Middle-Earth is perfect for Rune-learning. There, you can find the complete tengwar alphabet and a english to elvish dictionnary. It's worth reading, honestly.

In case you want to learn Quenya or Sindarin.

I saw a guy in my math class reading this in 1996; I commented on how cool it looked, so for Christmas that guy gave me my own copy. He said he had an extra copy lying around.

Earlier this year he killed himself. I will always remember him for this gift, a simple act of unnecessary kindness.