Tolkien: A Life Built with Words

J.R.R. Tolkien loved the sounds and histories of words. To him, a language was more than a tool for speaking or writing. It carried traces of the people who used it and the stories they told. His fascination with languages shaped both his work as a scholar and his life as a writer.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892 in Bloemfontein, in what is now South Africa. When he was a young child, he traveled to England with his mother, Mabel, and his younger brother, Hilary. His father died in South Africa before the family could reunite. The boys grew up in England, and for a time they lived near the village of Sarehole, where Ronald, as his family called him, explored the countryside.

Mabel taught her sons at home when they were young. She introduced Ronald to Latin, and he showed an early interest in languages. His childhood also included great loss. His mother died when he was twelve, and a family friend, Father Francis Morgan, became responsible for the boys.

At school, Tolkien studied languages such as Latin and Greek. He also became interested in older forms of English. Languages change over time: pronunciations shift, words gain new meanings, and some words disappear. Tolkien enjoyed looking for connections among languages and discovering how they had developed.