INSIDE LANGUAGE

Tolkiens views on language, though never published as a formalised theory, were in some aspects rather heretic (to use Tom Shippeys term) and seemed to fly into the face of established linguistic theory - most notably his conception of native (hereditary) language and, related to it, the idea of linguistic aesthetic and phonetic fitness. Unfortunately, this aspect of Tolkiens linguistic work has, as yet, not received the attention it deserves and Ross Smith is one of the first Tolkien scholars to investigate the question of Tolkiens position on language vis-a-vis the then (and even now) dominant tenet(s) in some depth. This is a second, revised edition._,