Author Archives: The Dwarrow Scholar

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About The Dwarrow Scholar

My fascination with Tolkien began early, with a battered copy of The Hobbit given to me by my uncle. I read it obsessively, then reread it, and when I was old enough to own a Walkman, I even recorded my own cassette version so I could listen to it while cycling to school. Long before the internet made information easy to find, I spent countless hours in libraries, hunting down anything I could about Tolkien and, in particular, his Dwarves. That early fascination never really went away. Over the years it developed into a sustained and structured engagement with Tolkien’s legendarium, especially the Dwarvish languages and cultures. Under the name The Dwarrow Scholar, I focus primarily on Neo-Khuzdul, Tolkien’s notes on Dwarves, and the careful expansion and teaching of those ideas in a way that respects both the source material and linguistic plausibility. Through www.dwarrowscholar.com , I publish articles, reference material, and language resources, and I also give structured lessons in Neo-Khuzdul to students. What began as fandom gradually grew into long-term research, teaching, and writing. When I am not working on Neo-Khuzdul or answering questions from fellow Tolkien enthusiasts, I enjoy time with my wife and son, revisiting well-worn Tolkien paperbacks, learning languages, watching a good film, or unwinding with games like The Lord of the Rings Online and other Dwarf-adjacent distractions.

TBOTFA SPOILER – Love is all you need

Updated 30/12/2014 SPOILER ALERT Before you read on, if you haven’t seen The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies and don’t want to spoil it for yourself, come back when you’ve seen it. If you have seen the film, … Continue reading →

Posted in Language | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 51 Comments

Uncle Bob or Cousin Bofur?

For those unfamiliar with the details of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, the dwarves (at first glance) appear to be short, plump, grumpy men with big noses and long beards – much like my uncle Bob come to think of it, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

We’ve moved… a new Hall

Greetings friends and welcome to the new home of The Dwarrow Scholar, wordpress! It was with tremendous sadness that I had to say goodbye to the super boys and girls at mymiddleearth, where the story of The Dwarrow Scholar started. … Continue reading →

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Neo-Khuzdul comes to LoTRO

Well met all! As part of the updated neo-khuzdul material (that has been finished and will be available in the very near future)… lessons will be offered to all you dwarves out there that are a bit rusty on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Durin's Folk Kinship, Events, Language | 3 Comments

A present for you….. at last.

After a hiatus of a few months, finally a full length post on the Dwarrow Scholar blog. Reason why I shamelessly abandoned the fabulous readers of this blog ? I was utterly consumed by a present. “A present?”, you say. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 21 Comments

Goal! By Thorin Oakenshield

With the FIFA World Cup about to kick off I thought this might be an excellent idea for a bit of Middle Earth trivia about football.   For those of you outraged at the very idea that I dare mention … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Insulting Elves

Update: June 20th: David Salo has since published a detailed explanation of the phrase seen in the films.   Thank you for that David.   All updates in the below article are placed in italic.   As many have requested my … Continue reading →

Posted in Language | 30 Comments

The Dwarrow Scholar needs you!

Well met! Those that are giving me a somewhat angry look… mercy please! *starts waving a little white flag*.  It has indeed been a tremendous long time since my last post… and I’ve kept everyone waiting for the updated materials… … Continue reading →

Posted in Language | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Kili’s Runestone

SPOILER ALERT There has been some discussion of late related to Kili’s Runestone featured in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The Big question most have is (apart from why doesn’t WETA™ already have this in their shop?)… “what do … Continue reading →

Posted in Language, Writings | Tagged , , , , , | 33 Comments

Delving the Dwarrowdelf

When the fellowship journeys through the long dark of Moria they at one point arrive at one of the Great Halls of Khazad-dûm.  This is where Gimli sings to the fellowship of Durin and the Dwarrowdelf (changed to Gandalf briefly … Continue reading →

Posted in History, LoTRO, Maps | Tagged , , | 5 Comments