Thomas Brenndorfer
Although Tolkien may have been a devoutly religious man, he was also a scholar, and his understanding of linguistics shows this. A recent documentary on Tolkien's work (Discovery Channel no less) showed how he constructed the Elf languages of Sindarin and Quenya as being evolutionary cousins, with Quenya being the older one, but also the one less subject to change because of the differences in how time is perceived by the elves who spoke the language. Sindarin changed the most because of environmental factors. Strikingly, this is the same idea as man and chimps existing at the same time, even though they had a common ancestor.