According to a piece in the Economist, the fantasy genre owes a bit to the Estonians, specifically the Estonian Language.
Some borrow features from natural languages: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, were influenced by Finnish and Welsh, two languages that Tolkien loved. Navi includes popping-like sounds found in Georgian and Amharic, but few English ones, to enhance its foreignness. Estonian’s negative verb system inspired Dothraki’s.
If Tolkien loved Finnish, he probably would have liked Estonian. The two languages are quite similar. To my ears, Finns sound like drunken Estonians, and the Finns feel the same way about the Estonian language.
H/T Daily Dish
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