The Source of Preservation
Throughout Tolkien’s entire life, he studied languages. When Tolkien was very young, he learned Latin and French, during middle school, he learned Spanish, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Ancient Norse, Finnish, Icelandic, and Greek. Tolkien learned to speak 35 different languages! His study of words gave him the capability to invent new languages of his own. Tolkien created languages for the different races of Middle Earth. In total, Tolkien created 14 languages for the various races. This is why so many of the races in Middle Earth have their own languages. One of the unique ones I have come across is Entish – the language of the Ents.
Ents are one of the oldest species in Middle Earth, which is a land and time with different kinds of unusual creatures, whose population (in the action of The Two Towers) is currently declining. This is because earlier in their history, the Entwives left the Ents. Treebeard is one of the oldest and most respected Ents and lives in the Forest of Fangorn. Treebeard is not only a very important figure that rescued Merry and Pippin from famine, but he is also a very odd and peculiar character with traits that are unique.
The Ents are currently furious with the way Saruman has been cutting down trees. So now, a group of Ents is heading towards Isengard to destroy Saruman. This group of Ents is led by Treebeard and is trying to bring justice to this wizard gone astray, who dwindled the Ent population.
Physically, Treebeard is an anthropomorphized tree who is about 14 feet tall, has seven toes on each foot, has short arms, and has a long beard. Pippin describes Treebeard as “…a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen feet high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck…” However, Pippin finds another part of Treebeard’s body more interesting. In the eyes of Pippin, Treebeard’s most absorbing feature is his face, more specifically, his eyes. Pippin finds Treebeard’s eyes significant because when he looks into those eyes, he gets a sense for everything Treebeard’s been through. Pippin says, “One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow steady thinking…” This proves that Pippin can see his past just by looking into his eyes: “…but their surface was sparkling with the present….” This shows that Pippin can also see what Treebeard is feeling at the current time.
The Ents have a very complicated language mainly because they believe that all objects deserve long, descriptive words, because they all existed ever since the earth was created. For example, a small part of the word hill in Entish is “…a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lind-or-burúmë…” They think that a word such as hill is not enough to describe something that is as old as the earth, and likewise, has the same amount of history as the earth, and which is in fact, earth. Treebeard says “…but it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here every since this part of the world was shaped.”
Treebeard believes that all words have a story behind them that describes the word. Since the word has a back story, it will keep on growing, because as time progresses, more and more history will be added to that story. This is why the Ents’ language is so complicated and long. Treebeard says “For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story.” This proves that their language is always expanding because more and more things are being added to it. We know that the Ents were one of the first creatures in Middle Earth, and so it seems that most of its history can be preserved in language that unfolds continually.