The Lantern Hall
Painting: an ancient lexicon open on a carved lectern in a dark chapel of books, glowing runes and symbols lifting off its pages like fireflies.
TermLiterature term

Conlang

A language invented deliberately, with its own sounds, grammar and vocabulary, rather than evolved naturally. Tolkien built Middle-earth partly as a home for his Elvish languages; later fantasy and games have commissioned conlangs for extra depth.

A language invented deliberately, with its own sounds, grammar and vocabulary, rather than evolved naturally. Tolkien built Middle-earth partly as a home for his Elvish languages; later fantasy and games have commissioned conlangs for extra depth.

Quick answers

What does "Conlang" mean?
A language invented deliberately, with its own sounds, grammar and vocabulary, rather than evolved naturally. Tolkien built Middle-earth partly as a home for his Elvish languages; later fantasy and games have commissioned conlangs for extra depth.

Nearby in the archive

J. R. R. Tolkien

Author1892–1973

An Oxford philologist who invented languages, then a world for them to be spoken in — and, with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, supplied the elves, dwarves, orcs and halflings of every roleplaying game since.

Worldbuilding

General term

The craft of inventing an imaginary world's geography, history, cultures, languages and ecology. Tolkien's languages and maps set the modern standard; roleplaying games made worldbuilding a hobby in itself, practiced by every Game Master with a campaign map.

Painting: a single plain gold ring lying on an old hand-drawn map beside a candle, and beyond, through a window.

The Lord of the Rings

Novel1954–1955

A hobbit carries the Dark Lord's ring across a dying world to destroy it — the twelve-year epic that defined high fantasy and handed the tabletop and computer RPG their races, rangers and quests.

Dagorhir

Community1977

In 1977 a Washington, D.C., Tolkien fan who had never heard of D&D or medieval reenactment took Tolkien and a Robin Hood film to a park with foam swords, founding the oldest recorded LARP group and the American boffer battle game.