Christopher Tolkien on his father's languages 2

[@pryletoncyo]

Without Christopher Tolkien, the world would be a poorer place in terms of both linguistics and stories. He's gone through his father's work with meticulous care, and done good scholarship in the way. It seems his life has been in the shadow of his father, but he's done a lot "editing" for publication a lot too, like the later books. But he felt confident enough to publish his versions of his father's work, and after reading his work, I can't argue.

[@Halopedian]

@KlausDigestive Definitely. I wish Christopher would write more middle earth stuff, even if unofficial, or at least something. He had such an integral part in the whole process of JRR's work that it wouldn't be too far from JRR himself.

[@Higgins380]

@allendupras [Last part of my answer] The Lord of the Rings was written because Sir Stanley Unwin wanted a sequel, The Letters of Father Christmas were all writen for his kids, Roverandom was writen for Michael... etc.

[@Higgins380]

@allendupras [Second part of my answer] For instance on one occasion Tolkien was reading them a part of the Hobbit, and Chris interupted him: "Last time, you said Bilbo's front door was blue, and you said Thorin had a golden tassel on this hood, but you've just said that Bilbo's front door was green, and the tassel on Thorin's hood was silver" at which point Professor Tolkien exclaimed "Damn the boy!".

[@Higgins380]

@allendupras Some of the stories, yes. He read them the Hobbit as he was writing it, but I don't believe he originally wrote it for them. Tolkien one day came up with the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." and then tried to discover what kind of creatures Hobbits were. Christopher began to correct his father's work when he was very young.

[@timmytoast22]

Where did Tolkien start though? For him to use natural development of language like that, they would have to initially derive from something? What was it?