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" In a largely autobiographical paper Tolkien wrote in 1931 for the Oxford Esperanto Society (“A Hobby for the Home,” later entitled “A Secret Vice”), he would maintain that the making of a language necessitates the making of a mythology in which that language is spoken, that the two processes are intertwined, each giving rise to the other. People thought Tolkien was joking when he later said that he wrote The Lord of the Rings to bring into being a world that might contain the Elvish greeting, so pleasing to his sense of linguistic beauty, Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielmo (“A star shines on the hour of our meeting”). The remark is witty—but also deadly serious. "

― Philip Zaleski , The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams

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Philip Zaleski quote : In a largely autobiographical paper Tolkien wrote in 1931 for the Oxford Esperanto Society (“A Hobby for the Home,” later entitled “A Secret Vice”), he would maintain that the making of a language necessitates the making of a mythology in which that language is spoken, that the two processes are intertwined, each giving rise to the other. People thought Tolkien was joking when he later said that he wrote The Lord of the Rings to bring into being a world that might contain the Elvish greeting, so pleasing to his sense of linguistic beauty, Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielmo (“A star shines on the hour of our meeting”). The remark is witty—but also deadly serious.
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