Where Can You Find A Real Warg? Elfdalian and Tolkien's Languages

Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Goulding and I'm Director of the Centre. And today I have a special guest with us from Sweden called Naryl and Naryl and I met because Naryl has just completed one of our online courses and we got to know each other a little and I thought wow Naryl will be just the perfect guest for this podcast because she is a representative of a minority language in Sweden called Elf Dallion. Hello Naryl. Hello thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Now Naryl we discovered all of us on the course that this language is pretty much very close to the languages that Tolkien loved and used as the basis for his own language creation but before we talk about him would you like to tell us a little bit about the culture that you come from and the history of Elf Dallion? Yes it's a language spoken in Sweden. It's an archaic language. It comes from Proto-Norse and it developed from there sort of on its own course so you can say it's an Ornors dialect or a Norse language or it's hard to specify. And I think you were telling me that you still use runes? Yes mostly used for writing your name into things. There's a tradition of writing on your house. If you build a new house you're writing runes but here it's built and who lives there and just small things like that but I also use it in everyday life because it's faster to write to be honest shopping lists and so on and then you know other people that do too. I'm just wondering if there's a keyboard for your runes. If not there should be one. There is. Fantastic. The Elf Dallion Council provides one if you can speak it but I don't think it's available for cell phones so only computers unfortunately. But still I'm glad to hear that that exists. So how many people are there who speak Elf Dallion? Is it a language that's under threat or are there new generations coming along? Severe threat I would say. In 2008 it was about 2000 people and I've heard now that it's only 60 people on the day of 15 that can speak it so not good. Is there anything being done to help the younger generation learn it? The problem is that Sweden doesn't recognize it as language. They sort of ignore it while the European Union is telling them to get on the case. So that's unfortunate. I hope we will change and then we can get some protection and some help with the studies of the language. And what about resources like books written in Elf Dallion? Is that available? There are books but they're mostly printed by private people and that can be expensive and it's not widely available. I know a few children's books and I know a few dictionaries and so on but it's not it's not widely published which is unfortunate because that would help as well. Indeed I mean in my own family my great grandmother was one of the last living speaking speakers of the minority language of manks from the Isle of Man and it pretty much died out within her generation and they're trying to revive it now. So in a similar situation to your language it takes a huge effort particularly when it no longer becomes a part of everyday life whereas over in Wales of course they've done a fantastic job preserving Welsh as a language every time you go there it's on all the signs and it's taught in school so it does take an effort but it is possible against the sort of predominance of say Swedish or in our case English over here. So Nari, you're absolutely fascinating person in your own right. You're very creative. I've been reading your writing so I know how creative you are but I'm also aware that you speak many other languages so you're talking from a position of great authority on the structure of your own language. Can you tell us the other languages that you are familiar with? Yes. Obviously English and Swedish we get those two. Barely English. Passible I say. The language that I speak day to day with my family is another minority language. Oh. It's called North East Danish and it's only spoken in the smallest of smallest villages by around 500 people so it's under more threat than Elftalia. It's called North East Danish because it developed from all North under Danish rule so that's why it's called it but it's not understandable by Swedes, Danes or Norwegians so it's sort of its own language too. And then I know Gutnisch spoken on the island of Gutland. Not by so many people anymore they mostly speak Gutnisch dialect but the old text and so on is in Gutnisch. And then of course standard old Norse you can say that's the East variant and the West variant. So the West variant was spoken on the West Coast of Norway, Iceland and Ferro's Island and the East was spoken in Sweden and Denmark and a little bit in Norway too. So when you think of the Vikings that came to England that they spoke East North. And you were saying on the course the other day that our understanding of who the Vikings are is incorrect because the word Viking is too widely applied. It actually isn't quite the right description. Do you want to tell us what we should be saying about the people who came over to parts of the UK? They're not Viking, is that correct? No, they were Vikings. They are Vikings. The people who went East sort of in modern day Russia and to Iceland and the Americas weren't really Vikings. And who were they, these ones? Oh, they came mostly from Western and Northern Norway. And Viking was actually a place. It was an ocean or a river as it was believed in and it's called Skogarat and Katigat today. And that was Viking and the people who lived around it was called Viking Air. So that's where I come from. Thank you. So I think listening to you, it goes to show just how easy it is to lump things together in one set. You think everybody's a Viking, everybody spoke Old North. And what you're saying is how many lots of little language groups there were in the Scandinavia at this time. And I'm thinking now of Tolkien and his interest in languages. He obviously would have known some of these nuances. He might not have known Elf Dallion itself, but his own invention of different forms of Elfish and what have you, does seem very similar, not as developed perhaps as your own idea of the languages in different valleys in different islands. So have you looked into Tolkien's languages and seen any correlation between what he made up and your own the languages that you speak? I think he knew Elf Dallion to be honest because I can see similarities in writings that he has in his language. Oh, that's really exciting. So what particular? Let's take the word Varig or Varig that people know both from the books and the movies. Indeed. And Tom Shippey, I'm not sure if I pronounced that correctly. That's right. He's a Tolkien scholar. And he claims that it's a mix of Old North Vargar and Old English were. But Elf Dallion is the only language that spells it like Tolkien spells it. So maybe it's suspicious actually if he knew both the spelling and how I think he would have pronounced it. So for those of you who aren't as specialist on Tolkien, the wags are the super wolves, the wolves at the Orcs ride. And Nariya is saying that the word for wolf in Elf Dallion is Wag spelled exactly the same way as it appears in the Lord of the Rings. Anything else? Any more coincidences you can bring to our attention? Or not coincidences? Any more? Well, more proof that he knew Elf Dallion is the belief in the wolf who chases the sun or the elves. That's a pretty common sort of belief in Scandinavia. So I'm a bit suspicious there as well because they could speak both in Tolkien and in our sort of belief. So I think there's some proof that he knew. And do you find that the stories and myths of your own sort of cultural tradition are echoed in the stories that Tolkien made up for the Silmarillion for his own Middle-Earth? Because obviously we know he's drawing on the myths and legends of Nordic countries. But it sounds as though some of your own particular stories may have reached him as well. Yeah, I think people underestimate how much he got inspired by North culture and beliefs. I mean the dwarfs are come from Scandinavia, the elves, and then you have Middle-Earth, the name itself, Midgorn, and you have Odens Ring. He has the one ring that creates nine new rings every night, every night night. So there's a lot that, and then you have Gandalf itself comes from an area in Scandinavia. He was a real person or two persons I should say. He was a king in present-day Western Sweden. And he had a descendant called Gandalf the Younger as well that was slain by the Norwegians. But he was a real person and Tolkien surely knew about him. And then you have the rooms that dwarf use. I recognize them. I think it's called Sirth. It was created by an elf. And yeah, I see a lot of similarities in those and the stallion rooms as well. So you're saying that the Tolkien, just to unpack that a bit, the Tolkien ruins that the dwarfs use were created in his miss by an elf. Yeah. And you say that you could actually understand and recognize the patterns of those ruins. Yes, I can. Is that a phonetic correlation or is that something to do with? I'm not sure how ruins work. Are they a phonetic alphabet or are they a pictogram alphabet? A pictogram I would say. So they represent... They represent sounds. Oh, that's phonetic then. Oh, okay. A pictogram is like Chinese where it's, you know, the word for dragon looks a bit like a dragon and the word for man looks like a man. You know, there's an element of... Oh, but it's both. It's both. Oh, that's exciting. So tell me how it's both. So if you look at the rooms both in the Scandinavian rooms and the aftolian rooms, they tell a story. You have Ur. You say it's the first room when you write, you begin with F, but when you tell a story, you begin with you. That's the second room. And Ur means the first, the ancient, the beginning, so to speak. And it's represented like an upside-down U. And that comes from an Aurox, which was an important animal in Europe back in today, maybe you've heard of it. Big, big ox. And then it just goes on and on like that. And then you have tea comes next. That represents the Yotans. English translated as giant sometimes, but that's not entirely correct. There are more like these ancient beings that were here before man, some have speculated that it could be memories from interactions with Neanderthals, but I'm going to leave that sort of here, no there, but it's possible. And you can see these shapes represented in the room sort of in how they represent the words and the meanings of what they're trying to say. So in terms of your language of Elf Dallion, how does it cope with bringing into it new words from a technological age? Is there a way of adapting it with ideas from existing words or is it a question of kind of putting it into the grammar? If you were going to say, I've lost my cell phone, for example, how would you cope with words like that, the cell phone within Elf Dallion? I'm wondering if you can think of psych poetic that is the new object, or if you put in the technological word within the setting of Elf Dallion? Mostly it's going to be similar to the Swedish word, but with like an Elf Dallion dialect, but there are some sort of humorous words that there are added to things like cell phone sort of sort of translate to English, but sloppy horn maybe. It's a slang name for it. Yeah, it's a slang name, so that's developed with new words. I think if all the people I've met in my life, Nariya, you would be the one that Tolkien would actually want to sit down with and talk that great length of his notebook out. Is there anything else about reading him that you've found helpful in understanding your own culture? Has the influence worked the other way around the way you see yourself in your own language? Yeah, because his language is sort of developed from one another within his world, and it's quite interesting because when the Middle Ages started in Scandinavia, and they switched to Latin lyrics, Elf Dallion instead expanded the Roonik alphabet to fill in the gaps, and I sort of see as an interesting parallel to the way Tolkien wrote his languages. Yes, definitely, and I think that makes it understandable to a worldwide audience as well, because he's doing it in a sort of a pure experiment for fantasy worlds, and he can create the atmosphere of a complete history to explain it, whereas our understanding, like you were saying, is sometimes more fragmented, sometimes the roots of things are forgotten, whereas in his made-up version of it, we can see what comes from what and how the language evolves in a quite, I mean, it's probably simpler than it is in real life with people moving around the world, into marrying, and cultures coming across each other. But Elf Dallion was, or the place it comes from, was so isolated that people didn't even know he's still used to, until fairly the modern age, I think, 1800, 1700s around it. I forgot to ask, so if you're looking on the map, where do you look to find the valley, where this language is? It's in the middle of Sweden on the border to Norway. Do you think most people know where Lilla Hummer is? I'm thinking of Lilla Hummer's. And certainly find it on Google Maps, can't they? So if you draw a line straight into Sweden from Lilla Hummer, then that's where it is. And is it a landscape of hills and lakes, or is it the environment around there? It's a very rural lakes, forests, older wooden buildings. It's very intact. That whole area is very intact Swedish, I would say. But it also has influences from Norway because it's so close. I mean, in some senses, in a very isolated community like that, that international borders are a little bit of an academic exercise, aren't they, when people are on the hills? So, Nari, I've got to know you a little bit and understand your deep passion for protecting these languages. What can people do best to support minority languages? If you've got any tips or any ask, or anything you want to actually tell us about what we can do to help Alf Dalien as a language? Well, I think it's a huge problem that Sweden ignores that it is a language. So what a private person can do is a bit difficult to say, but just being aware that it exists because most people, even in Scandinavia, don't know about it. So I think it's important to say it exists before it doesn't exist. And I was thinking about maybe writing books in the future and having some words here and there. Nothing too intrusive because I don't believe in forcing people to learn something, but just something that could make people interested in the language. So there are small things like that that you can do, I think. And just the fact that it's uses rooms, I think, would be a selling point to some people. Yeah, I think definitely if you wrote about that, a lot of people would be very interested to see, you know, laid out all the different connections that you've mentioned to Tolkien. He's obviously so famous worldwide, that would be a really good way of making it more popularly known. And you can get in conversation with Tom Schiffy and say, hey, Tom, I've got news for you. There's this language out here, which is almost like one Tolkien would have wanted to speak. When he wrote about the organs of Varga, I don't think he was aware of Rilftalian. Yeah, well now I'm not, I'm not trusting him. No, no, no, no, there's so much in the world to know, he can't know everything. Yeah, maybe I should say something in Rilftalian so people can hear that would be lovely. Okay, Manlith Werthas, I'll see here Anand Slare. That's a quote from Laura Riggs. Ah, is it one ring to rule a soul? No, it's a, but the horse of men are easily corrupted. I had to pick something then an elf would say. Oh, of course, would you say it again so we can hear it again. Manlith Werthas, I'll see here Anand Slare. So, Nareal, clearly being fluent in all these different languages gives you sort of expertise that many others don't have in Nordic culture. And one of the things you've been putting us right about on the court is some of the stories that have been passed around by historians and some artifacts that they've trusted thinking they understand their context, but because they're unaware of the languages they've been getting a bit wrong. So there were two of these you mentioned. The first of all is something called the Kensington Stone, is that correct? Yes, it's people call it the most famous runestone in the world. I think mostly by Americans where it was discovered in 1890. And it's in a museum, I believe, still. And it's being treated as if it's a real runestone, but it's a fake. And you can see it on the runes because they are, first of all, they are medieval runes and they were made by Swedish immigrant Ulov Irman and a priest called Sven Fugelblad as a prank, I think, as a joke. And if you don't know where these runes come from, you can be fooled into thinking it's a runestone. And that's a problem. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it makes me appreciate talking all the more because he doesn't pretend it's real. He's making things up and says, hey, I'm making stuff up and isn't this fun, whereas in that case, it looks like somebody's fallen for fake. And the other one is perhaps a slightly more complicated story of how a symbol which came from a different cultural context got associated with the Vikings. So would you like to say a little bit about that? It's called Bergbissir in English. In Old Norse it's called Eger Jelmer or Eger Helmet. And it's a popular symbol for people who are interested in North culture and Vikings and all that. And it's been made extra popular with the American TV series such as Vikings. And the problem with that is that it's not a old symbol in the context old. It's a medieval symbol and it doesn't even come from Northern Europe. It comes from southern Europe. It's a Christian symbol that came with the missionaries to Iceland who liked it and started using it. But you can find the original in the book The Seals of Solomon. And that just goes to show that you really have to know the language and the culture inside out to understand where things come from. And because most people think it's a North symbol. They don't know any better and it gets spread and spread and spread. And if you spread something too much then it becomes a truth in that. And then we don't have a real history anymore. I suppose we see that happen so much with rumours and lies that are spread by social media in like super quick time. And that symbol is like a very slow motion version of the same thing, isn't it? So yeah, Naryl, we always finish our podcast with aware in the world, in all the fantasy world, is it best to be something? And this week in honour of you and your language ability, I thought I'd ask you, where in the world do you think it is best to be a speaker of many different languages? Is there a place where such a person could have lots of fun? Have you got a fantasy world where you'd like to pitch up and speak lots of languages? The first world that came to mind, honestly, is a sci-fi fantasy. And I thought of Star Wars just because of all the planets and everything, but that's a little bit more sci-fi, where I guess it's a space opera, they call it. Oh no, that's fine. I was thinking I'd like to be C3PO as well, because he always says how many languages he speaks, doesn't he? That's his job. The more languages you can speak there, the more powerful you're going to be, unless you have a robot that can translate everything. Yeah, absolutely. And he also does the etiquette as well, so you know, he will put you right if you're doing something culturally inappropriate, which is helpful. Yeah, but he's also a bit annoying to both. True. So I agree with you. I was thinking Star Wars too. And obviously we would both like to go to Middle-Earth as well. That's fairly clear. I was thinking the worst place to go. The alternative is Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because he just gets rid of languages by giving everyone a babelfish to put in their ear, which kind of irons out all the differences, so definitely don't want to go there. I was thinking Orwell's in 1984 that got rid of online, which is except new speak, so people can't express themselves and criticize anymore. But that's not the pure fantasy, but that's what came to mind. No, I think that any of these are dystopians, so that that works as a fantasy world as well. So, Nariya, thank you so much for talking to us. I'm sure a lot of people once they've listened to this or been looking up Elf Dallion on Wikipedia if nowhere else. Are there any other resources or places that you would suggest people go if they are interested in it? Or is Wiki quite a good place to start? No, it's a really bad place to start. Most things on there are wrong, unfortunately. If you're interested in the language I would suggest contacting the Elf Dallion Council, because then we know what they're talking about, and they also have some material on their website that you can buy, dictionaries and so on. Okay, well, we'll put a link to that in our show notes if people can look that up, and I just love, I'm just appreciating the Elf Dallion Council, which sounds as though Elf Dallion should be in charge, definitely, though I'm sure it's not. So, Nariya, thank you so much for talking to us, and thank you to everyone for listening. That's all for this week. Goodbye. Visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.