Saturday, July 22: Montanan Fiona Jallings, author of A Fan's Guide to Neo-Sindarin, leads a workshop on how to write in Tengwar, the orthography Tolkien invented for his Light Elves. 1pm.

Enchanted with Elvish? Delve into the Elven tongue of Middle-earth, into Sindarin’s long and winding past in our world and theirs, and into the culture Tolkien dreamed up for its speakers.

This is Neo-Sindarin, the descendent of the language featured in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, the language as it has flourished on the Internet using Tolkien’s creation as a roadmap. This book functions as a friendly introduction to the Neo-Sindarin community for beginners and non-linguists. Included is the most current information available to fans.

Within explore Neo-Sindarin academics, learn simple linguistic concepts, practice useful phrases while studying grammar, and look at the world through Elven eyes: from how they count on their fingers to how they organize the cosmos. Govano ven! (Join us!)

Fiona Jallings has a BA in English-Linguistics and a minor in Japanese. She’s been studying Tolkien’s languages since she was 15, when the first Lord of the Rings movie came out. She uses her linguistic knowledge to teach free online classes about Neo-Sindarin and maintains the website Realelvish.net, which provides phrasebooks and name translations in a handful of Tolkien’s languages.

She lives a quiet nerdy life in Northwestern Montana with her wife of many years, spending her free time taking photos of wildlife, sewing her own cosplay costumes, and talking to her cat Muior.