J.R.R. Tolkien Reads A Poem In Elvish (VIDEO)

With the release of part one of "The Hobbit" movies quickly approaching, it may be time to brush up on your Tolkien. If you find yourself reading (or rereading) "The Fellowship of the Ring" in preparation, you may stumble upon a poem called "Namárië," or "Galadriel's Lament in Lórien," which was written in Tolkien's invented language, Quenya, a dialect of Elvish.

Two years before the novel was published, Tolkien recorded himself reading the poem in Elvish. The poem has also been recorded as a song by many artists, including one Celtic-sounding tenor which the author authorized.

Before he was lauded by geeks and book lovers alike for his writing, Tolkien was a philologist, or a person who studies the origins of words. According to "The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the OED," his first job after World War I was studying the histories of words with Germanic origin beginning with the letter W for the Oxford English Dictionary.

For more on Quenya, click here. Comments below in High or Low Elvish only, please.