It’s a fiction writer’s job to create authentic worlds and suspend disbelief. One of the more time-consuming techniques in their toolbox? Inventing new languages – like the two forms of elvish used throughout J.R.R Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings. Michael Adams is a professor of English at Indiana
University, and editor of From Elvish to Klingon: a collection of essays that explores the variety, history, and purpose of the world’s invented languages.