Finnish inspired J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish language Quenya most strongly.
Tolkien admired the structure and sound of Finnish, and its influence is especially visible in Quenya’s grammar and vocabulary. He encountered Finnish through the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic, whose songs and mythic atmosphere also affected his ideas about heroic poetry and invented mythology. Quenya was not simply Finnish with new words; Tolkien built it as an independent language with its own history and fictional evolution.
Other languages influenced Tolkien’s linguistic work as well. Welsh strongly influenced Sindarin, another major Elvish language, while Latin, Greek, Gothic, and Old English contributed ideas at different stages. Because Quenya was associated with the High Elves and had a formal, ancient quality, readers sometimes call it “Elvish” without distinguishing it from Sindarin. The two languages are related within Tolkien’s mythology but are not interchangeable.