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That Letter provides interesting correlation, Alatariel Telemnar for Tolkien's claim in the Second Foreward that LOTR was "primarily linguistic in inspiration and begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues." Thanks for providing it here. Being a great fan of words and language myself, I am not sure that this necessarily downgrades the value of his desire to write a good story. It would think they would be complementary. He would want the best story to highlight or reflect his created languages to their best advantage. For Tolkien as a philologist, everything began with words and structures of language, which then moved out to create patterns and order in stories.
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Bêthberry, I agree. For if he would bother with such a story for his languages, of course he would want the best for them. And if I put off anything that made anyone get the feeling that it downgraded anything, then I didn't mean to.
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The prime motive was the desire of a taleteller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times, maybe excite them or deeply move them.
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Per'aps he was just killing two birds with one stone, as some say (three, possibly?) Maybe he wanted to create a world for his languages, yet write a good story, and hold the attention of readers as well (or, in other words, entertain us.)